Leave me alone!

The other day, I got four emails from the same company within eight hours. One was a generic message from the local sales person (Hi, I'm following up...), one was promoting a local sale (Visit today for 50% off!), and the other two were promoting new product lines the company introduced on a national level.

At this point, do you think I was interested in what this company had to say? Not by a long shot. I was annoyed, and they lost a certain level of my respect because their right hand clearly didn't know what their left hand was doing. How would that translate to customer service down the road, or warranty work if needed? I went from a strong prospect (after all, I'd provided contact information) to a disgusted potential customer who felt slightly abused.

So, are your customer contact channels coordinated? There are so many ways to send messages to customers these days, you need to make sure everyone in the company is on the same page. I'm not talking about the personal correspondence that occurs between a sales person and a prospect during, or even after the sales process. I'm talking about email marketing messages.

Often, email marketing messages are not coordinated within a company. Marketing is sending one thing, and sales staff is sending another. (See the first paragraph). This can be especially true in a large organization that has both a corporate and a local marketing department who share a database.

The result is prospects being bombarded with messages that are inconsistent, may or may not adhere to brand standards, and are generally way too frequent. Email marketing should be coordinated with all other customer contact channels to ensure this doesn’t occur. This means marketing must communicate with sales to plan message content and frequency.

An integrated marketing program is essential. Email marketing must be included in the big picture and not left up to chance. If it is, there will be a lot more annoyed prospects out there.

Targeted Email Messages Equal Success

Email marketing is one of the most powerful marketing tools available today, and because it’s incredibly cost effective, it has one of the highest returns on investment. But the key to successful email marketing is making sure each message you send is personal and relevant. Do you use your prospect’s behavior to target your messages to them? If not, you're missing a great opportunity to stand out from the crowd.

Your sales staff doesn’t talk to each prospect in exactly the same way. They assess a potential customer, based on a number of factors, and then tailor their presentation accordingly. They also generally use a prospect ranking system to determine their purchase “readiness.” Your email marketing program should do the same thing.

The key to creating a behaviorally based email program is segmentation. Segmented email marketing messages are proven to have a higher conversion rate, and focus on quality versus quantity.

Successful segmenting means understanding the different types of customers you attract, and why. If you don’t have this information, start finding out, so the email marketing messages you send will help your customers achieve their goals. It may take time to pull all this information together, but it will be worth it.

Here are some key questions to get you started:

1. Do you have a segmentation strategy at a top level to find the areas of greatest opportunity? Are you sending the same message to someone who only gave you an email address as opposed to a prospect that asked specific questions, and filled out your entire contact form, including their phone number?

2. Do you segment your prospect list by potential value? Are you paying attention to when their purchase time frame? Have they expressed interest in a specific item? Do they need financial information?

3. Do you know what content motivated your recipients to click through? In order to gather information on your prospect’s behavior, you have to have link tracking in each of your email messages. Then you can refine future messages, providing content that is most relevant to each of your prospects.

4. Do you allow recipients options for frequency and targeting? Internet customers are increasingly selective about what they choose to receive in their Inbox. Let them tell you how often they want to hear from you, and what interests them. This provides essential information for targeting future email marketing messages.

A behaviorally targeted email marketing program is sophisticated, but remember, so are your customers. Stand out from your competition by sending prospects the information that means the most to them. They’ll love you for it in the end