5 Ways to Use Email for Better Customer On-Boarding

Congratulations! Your outstanding marketing efforts have led to an abundance of qualified and interested prospects. And now that your sales team has closed and converted these opportunities into revenue, you have proof that your campaign works. Kudos all around!

But with new customers on board, their email journey should not be over. In fact, because they’ve become a part of your corporate family, they begin a new communications phase with you: one in which email should continue to play a key role.

Now the focus is to get your customers up and running quickly, and successfully realizing the maximum value of your product or service. This first impression as a newly minted customer is key to establishing a long-term relationship. In fact, a study by Service Source says that if you haven’t created a loyal customer within the first 90 days, there’s only a 10 percent chance they will ever become one at all.

That’s why it’s critical to map out their user experience journey and guide them in meeting important implementation milestones. By ensuring they understand and use the most valuable product or service features your organization offers, as part of the solution they’ve invested in, you are delivering exceptional customer experience and ever-elusive “stickiness.”

The good news for marketers is these processes should be less time- and resource-intensive compared to the campaigns employed to land the customers to begin with. And, they can even be automated in many cases. I’ve written before on the blog about leveraging technologies to streamline email automation. Using triggered email efforts remains the most effective and beneficial way to communicate with your new clients. In fact, according to recent data:

• Automated email messages sent to new customers have 70.5% higher open rates and 152% higher click rates compared to standard email messages
• Welcome emails have 50% better open rates
• Birthday emails lift conversion rates by 60%
• Thank-you emails with an offer (e.g. send to a friend) drive 13X more revenue

Depending on the complexity of your product or service, your on-boarding arsenal can include the following five types of emails:

1. Welcome: These not only present an opportunity to say “hi,” but represent the most important email in onboarding. Make a clear and simple call to action, get your new customers to take this next step and give them an idea of what to expect going forward. Make their first experience with your product or service a positive one.

 

2. Getting started: The sooner your new customer takes action, the sooner they can derive value from your product or service. If you offer a free trial, it’s essential to get people running as fast as possible. Don’t overwhelm with a long email; use this message to get new folks to take a single step.

 

3. Activation: While this email can be transactional, it also presents an opportunity to promote as well. As such, in addition to including “click here to activate your account,” marketers can also include, “sign up for our newsletter” or “check out our Facebook page.” Engaging customers on multiple channels will ensure your company remains top of mind when they need your product or service.

 

4. Complete your profile: If your service requires users to fill out a profile, encourage them to do so. Such data will be very helpful in analyzing and driving future marketing campaigns. But do so in a fun, encouraging way that shows the value your customers will receive by doing so.

 

5. Upsell/upgrades: By focusing on adding incremental value to your new customers, they will (hopefully) appreciate you letting them know about something cool they might have missed. Don’t’ annoy them; illustrate how incremental products can improve their overall user experience.

Treating your new customers well once they’re in your company family will reassure them they’ve made the right choice, set them up for success and keep them loyal for the long-term. And the marketing medium that got them in the door in the first place – email – can once again be the tool to make them feel welcome and satisfied.

How are you using email to create a better experience for your customers?

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Refuel and refresh your email campaign initiatives for acquiring new customers. Consider giving OMI marketing data a try. OMI allows you to reach targeted contacts with precision and accuracy. Click here for more information and contact us to get started. And don’t forget to download your copy of “140 Reasons Email Marketing is Not Dead: Building Success around Email Marketing,” now available on Amazon.

 

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