The importance of establishing and maintaining customer loyalty cannot be overstated in today's dynamic business landscape. Among the many tools available, email marketing stands out as a valuable means for building connections and fostering lasting relationships with your customers.   

This blog explores various strategies for building and maintaining customer loyalty through genuine and effective email marketing practices. 

1. Understanding the customers: At the heart of effective engagement is a deep understanding of the customer base surrounding your business.  
   
   By taking the time to compile data from your current email activities, website engagement and social properties, you can create targeted segments based on customer interest, behaviour, and engagement.  
   
   You could also gather information about your customers preferences directly from them through sending email campaigns encouraging subscribers to update their email preferences or during the newsletter sign-up process in the form itself. A couple of suggestions for questions you may ask are: how often would you like to hear from us? and what kind of topics would you be interested in hearing about?  
   
   Wanting to know the preferences of your subscribers can build connection and help them feel like you care about what they’re interested in. Once preferences and data are analysed, you can create segments, trigger automated customer journeys and send emails with personalised offers and recommendations.
   
   Segmentation ideas:  
   - Demographics like identity, company size, role or age - accordingly send relevant content and test new messaging or offers  
   - Geography and time zone: Customize your language and sending time  
   - Purchase history: Send special offers to top customers to boost engagement with high potential buyers  
   - Email engagement: Focus on engaged subscribers to maintain healthy deliverability - Devices and email clients: Experiment with more or less text-heavy messages between devices  
   - Self-selected preferences: Let subscribers opt-in and out of content for holidays, events, or product categories 

2. Personalisation: Personalising email content presents the businesses’ intention to establish a genuine relationship with the customer and makes it easier for customers to resonate with the email content. Personalisation is a broad term; it can however vary in sophistication. For example, basic email personalisation includes strategies like addressing a subscriber by their name in the subject line, while more advanced strategies can include automated email flows triggered by customers website browsing activities (such as abandoned cart workflows) and leveraging dynamic content blocks in emails based on a subscribers’ gender and location. 
   Some examples of personalised automated emails are:  

• Birthday emails – Sent in the lead up to the subscribers’ birthday. is there anything better than a little gift or discount to spoil yourself?  

• Post purchase emails: From cross-selling complementary products to how-to care for your newly purchase products. 

• Anniversary emails – thanking and celebrating the customers first purchase with your business. 

3. Beyond promotions: Emails should aim to captivate customers with compelling stories, industry insights, or useful tips, which helps in establishing your brand as a trusted expert rather in the field rather than just a seller. This can significantly enhance customer engagement as they can find value in your emails rather than feeling like they’re constantly bombarded by marketing materials. Develop how-to guides, tutorials, and video demonstrations that address common questions or challenges faced by past customers. Empowering subscribers with educational resources and content within your email can help them make informed decisions and gain maximum value from your products or services. 

4. Cultivating loyalty through rewards: The use of loyalty programs and exclusive offers can incentivise repeat purchases and foster a sense of special treatment or exclusivity among customers. By offering perks such as early access to sales, VIP treatment, or a points system with rewards, you can encourage continued engagement and grow a relationship with customers who can even become your brands ambassadors.  

5. Fostering trust through transparency: Building trust through transparent communication is crucial especially in a society where scams and malicious intent is rampant. Keeping customers informed via email about changes, updates, and any issues affecting your products or services demonstrates honesty and reliability. 

6. Gathering customer feedback: Seeking feedback from customers through surveys or feedback forms embedded within emails demonstrates that the business values their input and are open to potential adaptations to continually better their product or services. Utilising this feedback to improve products, services, and the overall customer experience can increase satisfaction and loyalty. Businesses must ensure that survey requests are targeted, concise, and offer incentives for participation, such as entry into a prize draw or exclusive discounts. 

7. Maintaining engagement through consistency: Consistent communication helps to maintain top-of-mind awareness and nurtures ongoing relationships with customers. Developing an email marketing calendar can ensure regular communication while balancing promotional content with informative updates and relevant resources. Monitor engagement metrics such as open rates and click-through rates to gauge the effectiveness of your email campaigns and adjust frequency and content accordingly. 

In summary, effective email marketing can be so much more than just an automated transaction; it's about building genuine connections with customers and cultivating lasting relationships. By implementing personalised, transparent communication, loyalty programs, and educational content, businesses can foster loyalty and transform customers into brand advocates. Remember to prioritise the needs and preferences of your customers, and consistently deliver value through your email marketing efforts. With a thoughtful and strategic approach, you can transform casual shoppers into loyal brand advocates who will support your business for years to come. Happy emailing! 
 

* Source: Epsilon: The power of me: The impact of personalization on marketing performance