How to use email to build customer loyalty

For any small business, there’s nothing more important than the customer. And the key to sustainable, long-term success is customer loyalty.

Learn how to build stronger relationships with your customers and increase sales by unlocking the power of email. Getting it right takes time. But it’s worth it because the most effective and popular (333 billion per day, according to statista.com*) way of communicating with customers is still by email.

Understanding the role of CRM platforms

Customer Relationship Management platforms and email can be used together to automate campaigns, organize contacts and store valuable customer data. For some SMEs they are an essential tool. By providing a centralised hub that stores and tracks customer interactions, and shares important information between colleagues, CRM platforms provide multiple benefits including streamlining customer request management, automating service operations, and continually optimising workflows. It’s one of the best ways to give your thriving business a 360-degree view of customers and can be a powerful way of helping you build better relationships by engaging in more personal and relevant ways.

Do you need one – and what to look for

If you’re a very small operation with only a few leads per week and you don’t have to manage sales staff, chances are you don’t. For more complex businesses, a CRM system could give you an edge and help you punch way above your weight.

But one size most definitely doesn’t fit all. There are many different options out there, and you don’t just need the best one; you need the one that’s best for your business. So before choosing, do your homework:

Be clear about your requirements and what you want to achieve.
Study the different types of CRM tools and talk to other small businesses about how they are using similar products.
Make a list of must-have features.
Do a cost analysis.
Consider who will take ownership of set up and management of CRM related activities within your business.
Finally, ensure that the vendor you choose has expertise in your industry.

It might seem like a lot of effort at first, but a good CRM platform could help you build strong, long-lasting relationships with your customers. And that’s priceless.

Planning your email campaign

To communicate effectively, start by ensuring you have a clear idea of what you want to achieve with every email. Are you brand-building, incentivising, upselling or relationship-building?
Don’t send emails if you don’t have anything specific to communicate.
Make sure your emails are relevant, informative and that they add value to the recipients.
When everything else is in place, remember to do a final once-over using a spelling and grammar checking tool.
Track the results of your campaign by monitoring changes in enquiries, sales and visits to your site or premises.

Be yourself.

Keep your content authentic to your brand, no matter how small you are. Being a small business is your superpower, giving you an edge that big multinational businesses don’t have. In many cases, small business owners live and work in the same community as their customers. This gives you the benefit of understanding their daily reality and what’s shaping the conversations they’re having. You can use your knowledge of local events and issues to connect more intimately with your customers.

Make it personal.

You’ve been authentic, now get personal. Targeted and segmented emails make customers feel valued and understood – and have higher open and click-through rates than emails that aren’t. Personalising the subject line and providing content relevant to the individual recipient makes the world of difference. And while you’re at it, write your email in the second person. You’re talking directly to your customer, so write like it. Oh – and be brief. Like this.

How to use photography and graphics

It takes mere seconds for a potential customer to make the decision to read or delete, so appearance is important.

Segmenting content into easily digestible blocks is a great way to ensure readability and retention.
A carefully selected image or two can pique interest and increase dwell time. The size of the image you use – pixel width and height – is also the difference between being impactful and looking unprofessional. Make sure the layout of your email looks balanced.
Choose the file format of your image carefully. PNG images are high quality but take longer to download; and while JPEGs are lower quality, they’re the most compressed with fast downloads – and easier for your customers to view.
Most importantly, send a test email to yourself before you send to your entire database. It’s well worth it!

Getting consent

It’s crucial to understand anti-spam laws. Apart from the fact that your efforts and financial outlay may be completely wasted, there may be damage to your company’s reputation as a result of sending out unsolicited mails. Different regions have different directives, e.g., the EU’s E-Privacy Directive Concerning the Processing of Personal Data and the Protection of Privacy in the Electronic Communications Sector; and the UK’s anti-spam law which restricts the sending of unsolicited marketing emails to individual subscribers. It pays to take the time to ensure compliance.

With the correct tools and an informed, customer-focused approach, email can ensure your relationships with your customers continue to thrive, along with your sales.

*statista.com/statistics/456500/daily-number-of-e-mails-worldwide/