Not long ago I met with the daughter of a local restaurant owner. She was just getting her feet wet with social media marketing for the restaurant. She had done some work with the current email list, however, she was disappointed with the results from using the list. After talking with her for a few minutes, I quickly identified some areas that needed improvement.
No matter what size the business, from a restaurant to high dollar luxury car sales, most businesses are missing out on potential sales when it comes to email marketing. People expect to see emails coming in their inboxes and will read them – if it is of interest to them.
Here are just a few mistakes to keep in mind with email marketing:
How much money are you spending in advertising to get people to your store, to call you on the phone or to drive them to your website?
Email marketing is the most cost effective way to stay in touch with your customers and prospects. You need to ask them for their emails. With today’s proliferation of emails, many will be reluctant to give you their email unless you offer them something of value to them in exchange (more on this later.)
Listen to your customers as you are serving them and watch for an open door. My husband and I recently visited several RV showrooms in pursuit of Congo Email List a travel trailer. Only one salesperson out of all the places we have visited asked me for our email address. She found out that we were open to purchasing a used unit if it met our needs. She asked if she could send me emails when they got a trade in. Hooked! Of course I didn’t mind. It was something I was looking for and I didn’t have to do a lot of searching.
Back to my discussion with the restaurant. They had a list of names, however, they were only emailing every other week or so – and then it was sending out information on a sale. Her open rate was next to nill. We developed a plan where she was emailing two or three times per week.
Once per week was to mention specials for that week, a free dessert, drink, appetizer etc. The other times were sending out favorite recipes. She even runs a contest where customers can send in their favorite recipe. She promises her dad, the chef, will try the recipe and if it passes inspection, they will serve it for a week at the restaurant with a sign on the table giving credit to the creator.
They have customers rate the recipe and once per month they have a plaque made up and present the recipe of the month. Her email open rates have increased several times over because people want to get the recipe of the week and follow the winners.
Be creative. Ask your customers what they would like to know about in your email communications. What can you do that is fun and interesting?
Simply asking for the email at the end of the sales process is not enough. If you simply say “Do you want to join our email list?” the standard answer will be “no.” In the case of the RV sales person, she explained to me that they Buy Leads break down their email addresses into the type of unit someone is looking for and I would only receive an email for “toy haulers” which matched our needs.
