What Your Customers Need is a Transition!

Transition marketing is a powerful online marketing strategy that remains largely underused. It consists of a clearly defined process through which companies convert acquired leads to customers quickly and effectively by sending new leads strategically timed emessages containing targeted conversion content.

Additionally, a well-executed transition-marketing program enables companies to use the data collected during transition to value each of their acquisition sources independently.

Companies spend significant monies acquiring leads through search, list-append, advertising, co-registration, and list buys; but once acquired, the value of these leads is not maximized. Leads are lost because there is not a clear strategy executed to maximize conversion: instead leads are simply channeled into a common database and receive the same e-messages as everyone else on the company’s list.

The solution is a transition marketing strategy and technology. Starting at the point of acquisition, new leads are placed into a transition program lasting two to six weeks. During this period of time they receive a series of e-messages specifically designed to optimize conversion. Technology enables automated message deployment, with results tracked to both ROI the lead source.

Typical mailings introduce leads to the company, give them a sense of how it does business, and make sure that they know how to access additional information and support. In the same messages leads are offered special benefits like a new-members-only sale, or a series of coupons or special discounts. The emphasis is on making new leads feel special and appreciated so that they want to move to become enthusiastic customers.

Acquired leads gain a strong sense of being welcomed, of feeling valued, and in turn they value a company that offers such a program. Post transition, they have substantial knowledge of the company’s products/services and understand how to access them.

In addition, customer participation in special offers enables key segmentation data (product categories, etc.) to be harvested throughout the transitional period.

A carefully devised and implemented transition strategy immediately improves lead conversion, customer relations and the bottom line.

Moving Beyond Email Communications: Integrated eMessaging

Technology is constantly changing the way we think about business. But it’s easy to watch new technology and decide to wait and see if it catches on.”

Email is terrific, has served most companies well, and in many areas is an effective communications vehicle. But it is only one small part of emessaging, and it is only effective for marketers in certain scenarios, and unless you start devising a more diverse emessaging strategy now, chances are you’ll still be trying to figure out when it’s going to catch on while other companies are using the technology and strategy.

Each company’s needs are different, and every emessaging strategy needs to be built around your company’s products, mission, and goals. Still, if you want to successfully communicate online with a diverse customer base, your strategy needs to include more than one way of reaching people. Have you considered BDAs (branded desktop applications), podcasts, social media, and/or RSS feeds?

You respond: my email still seems to be working pretty well—why risk expanding?

Look at it this way: Sales are all about communication. Taking advantage of every means of communication available, at every point of customer contact, and making all of that communication positive, is possibly the most important marketing strategy you can enlist to exceed your goals and make your company grow.

Your customers are on the go, and so are you. Having the flexibility of multiple communication routes means that you can be first with your message, have it delivered when and where you choose, and capture new market space. If you want to improve your ROI—and emerge as the vendor of choice for your customers—integrated emessaging with multiple deployment vehicles is your next, best, and most cost-effective opportunity.

One place to look for this kind of flexibility is eWayDirect. Sign up for a demo and see what we have to offer!

Writing customer-centric newsletters

A recent article in the Email Insider was at pains to explain why email newsletters need to be effective, and what makes them so.

 I was a little surprised by the article: it seemed as though it were reciting a list of the obvious. Determine the best sending frequency. Make the newsletter relevant. Choose whether to require a separate opt-in. Add navigation, table of contents, and calls to action. Find a balance between text and imagery.

 Do marketing professionals really not know these things?

 The reality is that some don’t. But for most companies sending out regular newsletters as part of their emarketing strategies, best practices pretty much cover the Email Insider’s concerns, and looking beyond them to finding customers’ sweet spot is the major task of any newsletter writer.

Perhaps we’re going about this the wrong way. Marketing has always been about finding a need or a problem, and then meeting that need or solving that problem. Many companies, however, launch newsletters not with customers’ needs or problems in mind, but rather because there’s something that the marketer wants to say. The result? Unsubscribes and apathetic response rates.

So let’s put the horse back in front of the cart. If you want to launch a newsletter, ask yourself some questions first. The answers will tell you right away more than reading about best practices ever will.

• What is the goal of this newsletter?
• Is every part of the newsletter speaking to that goal?
• What do your customers want? Are you giving it to them?
• Do you know how often to send?

 If you don’t know the answer to any of these questions, or only have a vague idea of what it might be, then it’s time for some analytics. Ask your customers what they want! A questionnaire that offers options is always easier to fill out, so don’t ask the broad questions, be specific: Would you find a tips section helpful? Do you want a regular monthly column about xyz? How much time would you spend reading a newsletter? How often would you like one?

 Once you have these answers—and they need to be fairly granular, so that you can really construct a vehicle that will work for you—then incorporate them into your newsletter strategy.

The bottom line is, never undertake any emarketing strategy without first determining its value for your customers. Otherwise, you may find that you’re the only one reading it!