Effective e-mail Marketing

E-Mail works great for niche services or new services that can be marketed to the current customers. If the new services are an extension to the existing serives, then email marketing is a great way to generate customer interest and create the right environment for the actual sales pitch.

To do this, One needs to implement an email marketing campaign using the permission-based email marketing service. Note the importance of permission-based email, sending an unsolicited
e-mail is a sure-fire way to earn your customer’s ire & is counter productive.

The best plan is to implement an email direct mail campaign to your current customers who are currently not buying the new service from you but are buying similar service from others. Offer them a good deal on the new service, which is better and offers more, for a bit more money.
This the upgrade will be beneficial to your current customers but the trick will be to communicate this is in attractive and well-written emails that explain the benefits of the new service levels. My advice on how to plan and implement such an email marketing campaign?

1. Segment customers in our database so you send out customized emails that speaks directly to the individual customers situation. That is if they are buying service X and you want them to also buy service Y, send a different email then if they were buying service A and you want them to also buy service B.
   
   
2. Offer the current customers a special lower price on the new service, which is valid with a year agreement. The discount is based on the principle of lower cost of customer acquisition, and the savings is passed on the customer. This builds a better relationship with the customer.
   
   
3. Think through the best and likely most beneficial upgrade/upsell path for each current account type and group of customers. This upgrade path idea should be thought through very thoroughly.
   
   
4. Send out an email to only part of a segment, track results such as click through rates and how many actually buy the service, modify the message if needed, then send out to another batch. I'd hate to send a message out to all customers will account type X and then determine that the message had some flaws.
   For example, send out a message to a random 10% of a segment. Measure the results. If needed, adjust the email, send to another random 10% of the segment. Measure the results. Do it again. Pick the most effective email and send the rest of the segment. Repeat with each segment.
   
   
5. Possibly send out more than one email. Start by sending out one email which talks about one new/additional service. If there are multiple services, that can be mentioned in a subsequent email after the initial pitch. Although there are several new services/Products, One should be very focused in the emails to just have each customer upgrade one step up from where they are now. If you choose to put we put all the services/products in the email, it will confuse and clutter up your customer and will fail to win the customer’s mindshare. Do not clutter these emails with too much information.

Lastly, use an email management software such as Outlook organizer that makes things easier to manage and work with if basic email software like MS Outlook or Lotus Notes does not meet the requirement.