Key takeaways
- Include a memorable, informative signature to personalize messages and funnel additional information to recipients.
- Use signature files (attachments or enriched signature content) to deliver sales offers or deeper product/service information when appropriate.
- Treat purchase and renewal receipts as marketing touchpoints, delight customers, vary content and reinforce your brand persona to keep engagement high.
- Maintain a ready set of optimized retargeting/recovery emails to re-engage non-converting visitors and increase chances of return visits and purchases.
- Accept that email campaigns aren’t perfect, apply these fixes to recover missed opportunities and strengthen customer relationships.
Introduction
Like many other endeavors or operations in your personal or professional life, the process of email marketing isn’t exempt from missed opportunities and overlooked chances – especially when it comes to truly connecting with the person on the other side of the screen. In fact, given the uncertainty and unfamiliarity that comes with new entrants into the inbox setting, it stands to reason that the number of mistakes falling into this category is even greater than most brands and organizations initially imagine.
If this kind of retrospective hits a little too close to home and you’d like a second chance at recapturing your business’ own missed opportunities, then join us as we break down some of the most prominent examples on this front. From here, you’ll have all the insight your brand needs to right these past missteps and forge a stronger bond with your target email marketing audience.
A Memorable Signature
The first missed opportunity worth covering is actually a deceptively simple one: Failing to include a memorable and informative signature within your marketed messages. The big key here is that a strong branded or personal signature serves as another outlet for funneling information to the consumer, in addition to making the experience more personal.
For the truly intrepid members of the inbox, Elon University’s Earl Honeycutt explains that the signature space of an email is ripe for more engaging outreach tactics. Digging a little deeper, Honeycutt points to signature files as prime examples of this concept in action.
From sales offers to more in-depth information regarding a product or service mentioned in the preceding message, attaching these files allows for a more immersive and engaging viewer experience. Naturally, which method or tactic you utilize on this front depends entirely on the preferences of your audience and your desired marketing presence.
Going Above and Beyond with Email Receipts
For most customers, digital receipts are – at best – a blip on the radar that ends up in the trash folder after a quick review. At worst, improperly crafted content of this orientation can lead to an experience that leaves contact list membership disgruntled and seeking out other alternatives.
But does the process of firing off purchase and renewal receipts really have to be this way? Industry expert Ryan Hoover doesn’t think so. In his look at the average automated email receipt, Hoover suggests via his personal blog that this contact point is a missed opportunity for marketing outreach and relationship building on behalf of your brand with its most engaged and valuable audience segment – established customers.
In terms of making the most of the potential held within these receipts, Hoover highlights three key concepts that should headline the development of this content:
- Try to delight your customers with something unexpected.
- Variability captures attention, so mix things up from time to time.
- Reinforce your brand persona when possible.
Embodying these ideas and themes can help break up the monotony of the average receipt experience and ensure that your audience remains engaged even during the most mundane or routine moments of contact.
Retargeting and Recovery
For the last missed opportunity worth looking into as part of your reinvigorated take on email marketing, the conversation turns to retargeting and recovery efforts. As Business 2 Community’s Rupert Adam explains, failing to recapture the attention of consumers who didn’t quite follow through with a conversion via the inbox allows these individuals to potentially fall back into the hands of your competition. Regardless of your industry or marketplace, there’s no scenario in which facing down this outcome should be acceptable.
A better course of action is to have a stable of optimized and efficient retargeting emails in place and ready to deploy for these moments. Doing so helps keep these users engaged and increase the probability of a return visit and eventual product or service purchase.
Going a step farther, Adam notes that most consumers don’t initiate a sale on their first site visit anyways. In other words, incorporating a retargeted email strategy into your overarching inbox operations isn’t just a good idea, it’s downright essential if your brand plans on maximizing its conversions and sales potential.
At the end of the day, there’s no escaping the reality that all email marketing campaigns are imperfect in some way. However, if you’re able to embrace the truth held within this statement – and put to good use what you’ve learned here – then there’s nothing that can stand between your organization and the ability to make the most out of these previously missed or overlooked opportunities.
FAQ
There are three main missed opportunities: failing to include a memorable and informative email signature (and signature files), treating purchase/renewal receipts as throwaway messages instead of marketing touchpoints and not having optimized retargeting/recovery emails ready to recapture non-converting visitors.
Make the signature memorable and informative so it personalizes the message and serves as an additional outlet for information. Use signature files or enriched signature content to include sales offers or more in-depth product/service details tied to the message, choosing the exact format based on your audience preferences and desired marketing presence.
Apply Ryan Hoover’s three concepts: delight customers with something unexpected, introduce variability to capture attention and reinforce your brand persona. Doing so breaks up the monotony of routine receipts and helps keep engaged customers receptive to your messaging.
Retargeting and recovery emails help recapture people who didn’t convert so they don’t fall into competitors’ hands. You should focus on having a stable of optimized and efficient retargeting emails ready to deploy to keep users engaged, increase the probability of return visits and improve chances of eventual purchase, since most consumers don’t buy on their first visit.
Signature files can include sales offers or more in-depth information about a product or service referenced in the preceding message. The specific content or tactic should match your audience’s preferences and your intended marketing presence.
