Just about now you have the feeling you’re doing something right. Sales are up, perhaps double or triple what you’ve done the rest of the year. If you’re in e-commerce, these are the salad days. But we all know that after the glow of Black Friday and Cyber Monday subsides, you face the challenge of converting holiday traffic into regular shoppers. How do you keep your customers, customers? You do it by engaging in outbound marketing with catalogues, fliers, cards, coupons and e-mail. It’s part of the larger process of customer retention.
Take Care of Business
First and foremost, when you have them, treat them right. Customer service is an investment in your business. Fill orders promptly. Return phone and e-mail messages in a timely fashion. We all suffer from shopping anxiety at the holidays, so do your best to extend a calming hand through cyberspace. The best way to get customers back a second time is treat them right the first time.
Snail Mail Works – for a Price
Once the holiday season ends it is crucial to keep in touch with your customers. The old technology ways can work if they’re done well. Fliers, brochures, catalogues, and coupons can all be effective if they’re well-designed. But it is a fine line between a catchy snail mail offering and plain old junk mail. Too many businesses cut corners on design and their expensive mailers end up going straight from the mailbox to the trash. Understand the importance of making a good impression in a medium as expensive as print. Hire a pro. And expect to pay a premium for print.
You Found Them in Cyberspace!
E-mail is a cost-effective solution to keeping the customers you found, but the challenges are the same. How do you get customers to read what you send them? The good news is that e-mail is much less expensive than snail mail. The bad news, bad e-mail has a name: spam. Your job is to cut through the clutter, and a good message is a good place to start. A well-designed, interesting message gets through more often.
There are Services for that¦
If you are serious about mass e-mailing customers, you’ll also need the help of an online application for list management and e-mail delivery. eBiz Insider recommends Campaigner from Got Corp. Once your e-mail template is saved to your Campaigner account, you simply update it with your latest contacts and content to ensure captivating, professional looking e-mail campaigns every time. Campaigner manages your e-mail list. It automatically adds people who order from you so you don’t have to update lists by hand. Campaigner will track un-subscribers as well. If people don’t want to receive your e-mail it will automatically suppress them from future sends. Campaigner tracks important information like how many people actually opened the e-mail you sent and how many clicked on the links you provided in your e-mail. The information is out there. Take advantage of it to ensure success.
Many Happy Returns
Right now people are knocking at your cyber door. They liked you well enough to buy the first time; don’t let them become one-timers.
