Contact Management

Relationships are based on trust. But as the amount of email continues to increase each year, email fatigue sets in and response rates decline. When your contacts have given their permission to many businesses, all those emails can start to look like spam very quickly, especially when they are trying to clear out their inboxes and get on with their day.

Do’s
Know your customer’s needs and wants before you start sending campaigns. With every communication, you have an opportunity to build and strengthen your customer’s relationship with your company and your brand.

• Send only information that is relevant to each recipient
• Segment, personalize and customize your messaging based on customer wants and needs
• Be conscious that your customer’s time is limited and valuable
• Respect your customer’s privacy concerns
• Honor your customer’s wishes for why they provided their details to you in the first place
• Drive traffic back to your website
• Deliver value to your customer with each campaign
• Remember it’s not a one-way street!

Also keep in mind the law of diminishing returns. A general rule of thumb is to limit communication to an individual contact to once per week at most (this may vary depending on the nature of your company and its offering). Some of the highest response rates are seen when contact is limited to once or twice monthly communications.

Don’ts

• Use a one-size-fits-all, “batch and blast” or “spray and pray” approach for your email marketing
• Ask for customer information that you cannot or will not use
• Ask for customer information without explaining how and when you’re going to use it
• Re-create your website in your emails
• Load your emails with too much content or navigation

Where to Start
Develop a customer contact management plan, and stick to it! Outline your objectives, strategies, tactical plans and how your results will be measured. Some common objectives include:

• Increase brand awareness and loyalty — success is getting in their minds and hearts, not just their inboxes. Give them a reason to want to give you their details and a reason to stay.
• Make developing relationships with customers the number one priority of the company.
• Increase view rates and click rates — deliver relevant and engaging information in each communication.
• Increase revenue and ROI.

Common Metrics to Monitor

• Customer lifetime value
• Customer satisfaction
• Customer retention
• Top of mind
• Market share
• ROI
• Email campaign view rates
• Email campaign click rates and conversions