As you’ve undoubtedly noticed by now, our cover story this month looks at e-mail marketing and, while the piece you’ll eye inside examines how to effectively use this tool to reach and speak to your customers, there is one very simple aspect to this market that often times goes overlooked. Keep it real.
While e-mail has clearly emerged as one of marketing’s great new ways for retailers to reach their customers, from what we’re seeing many retailers simply aren’t using this tool very effectively. The easiest thing to do within this market is to blast out e-mails with all kinds of offers and sales, listing your hottest new products and urging the recipient to drop what their doing and get over to your location. Again, that’s easy – it’s just not overly effective.
Based on what we receive, e-mails from retailers that show a human side, that actually have a name attached to them, that is to say that appear to have come from an actual person, are far more likely to get read than those that come from the store in general. Your chances of landing a relationship through this particular marketing tool, (and after all isn’t that what you’re really after?), are enhanced greatly the further the reader gets through the e-mail. Whether it’s the location’s owner or a store manager, e-mails signed off by a specific person have a far more credible feel than those that simply come from a location. As we’ve mentioned in this space in the past, people don’t fall in love with brands and locations like they used to. They prefer to trust the people attached to those entities today.
Other tricks we’ve seen that work well are pictures of staffers holding products, conversational text that doesn’t try too hard to be conversational (if it does, it sounds fake), top products that staffers pick as being hot, testimonials from customers who love a particular product or service (one company even uses celebrity endorsements – local big shots may do as a substitute), offers to act directly off of the e-mail for big in-store savings no one else will receive, personal in-store demos on your latest offerings…there are myriad others as well.
Realizing the full potential of this new marketing vehicle requires taking a closer look at what it is truly capable of. Faceless, nameless marketing has never worked. Don’t hide behind your product assortment and engage in droning, ineffective mass messaging. Use e-mail to speak directly to your customers, targeting those on the top of your list with personal messages that show a little of your location’s unique personality.
Your customers are going through lots of e-mails every day – make them look forward to opening yours.
