Today’s strongest companies understand the importance of customer success; 72% of organizations consider customer success to be a top priority, according to Forrester.
When customers are happy with your brand, they’re more likely to reach into their wallets. They’re also more inclined to tell others they know about you, which helps (organically) spread the word about your business.
But how exactly can you increase the chances that your customers succeed?
It starts with delivering as much value as you possibly can in each customer interaction.
One of the easiest ways to help customer success efforts is by developing, enacting, and ultimately refining several engaging email marketing campaigns. With the right approach, you can ensure that your audience gets the information they’re looking for at the perfect times.
With that in mind, let’s take a look at three of the main reasons why email marketing is an integral component of every successful customer success strategy.
1. Email marketing enables you to personalize customer interactions
In recent years, email personalization — the process of sending customized emails to each individual on your subscriber list — has become increasingly popular, and for good reason:
- Personalized emails improve click-through rates by 14% and conversion rates by 10%
- Emails that include a recipient’s first name in the subject line have higher click-through rates than those that do not
- 74% of marketers agree that personalization increases customer engagement
- Customers are 26% more likely to open emails with personalized subject lines
- Marketers report a 760% increase in revenue from segmented email campaigns
- 50% of organizations believe increased personalization is the key to driving more revenue
The data speaks for itself; people like receiving emails that are tailored to their specific interests and catered to their unique habits — and are sent at the most convenient times.
How to Personalize Emails
There are several ways emails can be personalized:
- When a customer signs up for a service, that individual receives a series of welcome emails at predetermined intervals (at Robly, we call these Autoresponders)
- An e-commerce company might automatically send personalized emails to remind customers who’ve added items to their shopping carts but haven’t yet finalized a transaction
- Subscribers who’ve indicated interest in what your brand has to offer but have not yet made any purchases can be automatically sent personalized emails as part of a nurture campaign to persuade them to open their wallets
- Thank-you emails full of helpful links to order numbers, tracking information, and customer service options can automatically be sent to customers when a transaction is finalized
- Past customers who haven’t bought anything recently (e.g., six months) can be sent emails that contain something like a 20% off coupon as an incentive to buy
- Emails can be sent to all customers at the precise time each of them is most likely to engage with the content (more on this later)
OK, this all sounds great. But how exactly can you turn email personalization from an idea into increased customer success?
Imagine you have 1,800 customers on your email marketing list. You understand perfectly how promising email personalization is and you want to give it a whirl.
Unfortunately, your email marketing team consists of you and you alone. You start personalizing emails manually. After you send out 30 messages, you give up. You’re out of energy and there are more other important things to take care of.
Shouldn’t there be an easier way forward?
Spoiler alert: There is.
Automation
Modern email marketing automation tools allow you to easily personalize your messaging while ensuring the right content reaches its target audience at the most opportune times.
And the best part? This email strategy won’t take up much of your time because the technology does the heavy lifting for you.
Not only will your campaigns increase customer success and enhance the customer experience, you’ll have more time to invest in other customer-centric activities.
2. Email marketing enables you to engage customers at each stage of the customer journey
Today’s smartest companies understand that a transaction isn’t over the moment money changes hands. Instead, they do their best to create loyal customers — who may only make up 15% of your customers but can be responsible for up to 70% of revenue — as often as they can.
It’s all about locking down that sweet, sweet repeat business.
How can you increase the chances your customers become loyal? It starts with customer success, which is most easily achieved by adding value at each stage of the customer journey.
Here’s how email marketing can be used to engage customers and add value as they begin the customer journey:
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Customer acquisition.
Let’s say a customer visits your site. After liking what they read on your blog, they sign up to learn more about your products or services. They weren’t ready to purchase anything just yet, but they wanted to stay informed and keep tabs on what you’re up to. Email marketing, here, enables you to stay connected with these leads. Through automation, your campaigns can connect with your prospects when they’re most likely to engage. Over time, this increases the chances that interested folks become bona fide customers.
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Customer onboarding.
Congratulations! Your awesome email campaigns proved effective and you’ve just landed a new customer. With the right email marketing approach, it’ll be easy to provide the tips, resources, and support necessary to ensure this customer has a smooth onboarding experience — a critical part of long-term customer success. New customers, after all, expect you to send them the information they need. In fact, emails sent during the onboarding process can boost app retention by 71%. So right off the bat, companies that ignore onboarding emails risk losing new users.
On the flip side, persuasive email onboarding campaigns also set new subscribers on the path to customer loyalty. Onboarding emails can help educate your customers. They can provide an outline on how to use your products or services, link to helpful information like FAQs and customer support contacts, and/or include tips and tricks available on your website, among other things. Bottom line? The more you communicate with your new customers, the more likely they’ll enjoy a seamless onboarding experience. For more tips on how to write helpful customer onboarding emails, check this out. -
Customer engagement.
Once you’ve successfully onboarded a new customer, your email marketing strategy will help keep them engaged. The more engaged your customers are, the healthier your business will be. Case in point? According to Gallup, engaged customers bring a 23% increase in profitability, wallet share, revenue, and relationship growth compared to their disengaged peers. That being the case, doing everything in your power to boost customer engagement is a wise move.
How exactly should you use email marketing to engage your customers? It’s easy. Notify them when you have new products or services or when you’ve added new features to an existing product. Send messages every now and again filled with tips and tricks about how they can maximize their success with your offerings. Drop a line when you have special offers or discounts available. Shoot them a feedback survey. Wish them a happy birthday or a Happy New Year. The list goes on and on.
Bottom line: Email marketing can help convert new customers into engaged customers who are willing to reach deeper into their wallets to support your company. -
Customer advocacy.
Keep your customers engaged, deliver positive experiences and helpful information via email marketing on a regular basis and, over time, many of them will become advocates for your company. This matters a great deal:
- 92% of customers trust recommendations for products and services that come from people they know
- Customer advocates are twice as likely to tell their networks about purchases they’ve made
- Customers that are referred by existing customers are 37% more likely to continue supporting your company
- Customer advocates spend 5x more than run-of-the-mill customers
- A 12% increase in customer advocacy translates into a 2x increase in revenue growth rates
For these reasons, it comes as no surprise that customer advocacy is considered a key differentiator among B2B companies.
By adding value for your customers on a consistent basis with your email marketing outreach, you increase the likelihood that your engaged customers evolve into advocates who evangelize on your company’s behalf. That’s the ticket to word-of-mouth marketing and increased conversions — without having to pay for advertising.
Leading email marketing tools enable you to easily segment your subscriber lists and engage with customers at each stage of the customer journey. With the right campaigns, your customers will move through your marketing funnel and, ultimately, settle in as brand advocates and contribute to customer success on a wider scale.
3. Email marketing gives valuable information that can refine your strategy
When you send out emails the old-fashioned way, it’s hard to tell whether your campaigns are effective. Sure, if you send a note to your subscribers and immediately notice a surge in downloads or purchases, it’s probably safe to say the email worked. But unfortunately, it’s not always so simple.
With an advanced email marketing solution in place, however, the game becomes much easier. Leading platforms provide a wealth of information you can use to improve your email outreach over time. Here’s how:
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Determine who’s opening which emails—and who isn’t.
Just because new customers want onboarding emails doesn’t mean they’ll actually read the first one you send to them. Good news: With the right email marketing platform in place, you won’t even have to check whether your subscribers have engaged with your initial messages. The tool automatically does that for you, allowing you to resend variants of emails, at selected intervals, to the folks who didn’t open your first messages.
These follow-up messages might catch them at a better time, helping them take the next step in their customer journeys. In fact, tools like Robly’s OpenGen, which automatically resends emails with different subject lines to subscribers who don’t open the first time around, can increase open rates by 50%. -
Use A/B testing to see which variants are working.
Email marketing tools enable you to know with certainty that you’re sending the most persuasive messages to your customers, thereby increasing customer success.
Here’s how it works: Let’s say you’re putting the finishing touches on your biweekly email newsletter and you want to be sure the bulk of your customers engage with it. You can use A/B testing to compare two different subject lines to determine which one is more likely to pique the interest of your audience. For example, you might decide to send Subject Line A to 5% of your customers, at random, and Subject Line B to another 5% of your customers. After a predetermined period of time (e.g., 6 hours), your email marketing tool can automatically send the subject line the most people interacted with to the remaining 90% of your customers. It’s a simple trick that increases the effectiveness of your email marketing campaigns and delivers more value to your customers.
A/B testing is not limited to subject lines. You can also test variants of images, calls to action, newsletter content and more. A/B testing is more than just a nice-to-have. It’s impossible to tell how a single message will be received by your subscribers. If you don’t have anything to compare, how can you be sure that your message is as effective as possible? -
Send messages at the perfect times—every time.
Some people check their inboxes when they’re on the train heading to the city for work. Others read emails when they’re lying in bed. There are those who check emails first thing in the morning when they sit down for morning coffee. The point being that no two people are the same. We all have our different habits, and we all check our emails at different times.
Instead of guessing when your subscribers are most likely to open your messages, use a tool like RoblyAI to send emails at the exact moment they’re checking their inboxes. Our patent-pending technology studies subscriber behaviors and knows when each person is most likely to check their inbox. RoblyAI ensures customer success by increasing the chances that subscribers see your emails.
In Conclusion…
The right email marketing strategy helps ensure customer success as long as you use the tools at your disposal. Send personalized content to your subscribers, at the best times, and cater to each step of the customer journey. With the right approach, you can consistently deliver value to all of your subscribers. Remember: remind them why they chose to support your business in the first place and why they’d be foolish to look for a substitute anywhere else.
