Want Better Customer Relationships? Send More Email

You should be sending more emails.

Yes, we just talked about how email is in trouble. Yet here we are suggesting you increase your sending frequency.

You still can’t rely on email as the sole touchpoint between you and your customers or members. It’s important to build several bridges.

Don’t confuse that message to be a lessening of the importance of email. Lots of people still rely on email first as their source of connections with brands and each other.

So send more emails. People are waiting to hear from you.

Engaged customers, and specifically those enrolled in loyalty programs, are welcoming of brand messages. Most of them say email is their preferred communication channel.

But that’s not the real reason we advocate increasing email frequency.

The real reason every organization should boost their email efforts is to add value to the customer relationship.

It’s hard for people to find you in their email, with billions of them being sent each day and a huge portion of those being spam.

But if you can send emails that have great content in them, content that can make your members’ lives better, they’ll look for you. The more you can help them, the more effective your voice will become.

Why email and not, say, SnapChat or some other newfangled social media network?

Building engagement by adding value is the goal across every form of communication you’ll have with customers. But email leaves the door open for dialog better than most.

For one, emails are sent by people to people. You can’t really personalize a Snap or Tweet from a brand. But you can send every email from a name, and use the recipient’s name in the first line.

Second, the recipient can respond with their own thoughts. Which is something you want, trust us.

Third, email is just complicated enough to force the creator to put some thought into what to say.

Fourth, and related to third, email gives you the best opportunity to personalize based on what you know about the recipient. It can also be A/B tested, which will help you refine your messages.

You should be using as many communication channels as your members demand. But next to face-to-face dialog, email needs to be your biggest focus.

But Don’t Fill Up Inboxes

We’re not advocating sending three emails a day. If you’re sending one email a month, it probably isn’t enough. Try one per week.

BUT there’s a big caveat to this.

You have to bring the value. Nobody wants to hear a sales pitch placed on repeat.

Help people learn something. Share some secrets. Reveal content they’ll find interesting. Give them insider knowledge or access to resources unavailable to the outside world.

Frequency only becomes an issue when your messages are irrelevant or spammy.

Focus your efforts on being helpful and you can send as often as you like. But as a general rule, any more than once a day is probably getting a little carried away.

But if you’re doing a monthly newsletter send right now, consider twice a month, or weekly.

Don’t worry too much about unsubscribes unless they’re coming from your ideal customers. If your message or the frequency is chasing away your best, most profitable customers, only then do you need to hit pause.

Otherwise? You have our permission to send more emails. Not that you needed it.

Now get out there, figure out how you can enhance customers' lives, and hit send on it.