It is necessary to keep clients continually informed on your business in order to gain client loyalty for repeat business and recommendations, particularly in the face of the current economy. To do this, many salon owners market their business in local newspapers, magazines, on billboards, as well as through television ads and radio spots, spending hundreds if not thousands of dollars on a monthly and annual basis.
But, while all of those mediums are great, you may be forgetting one important tool at your disposal—online advertising. The Internet and, specifically, e-mail, are powerful communication tools that have forever changed the way people socialize and conduct business. Therefore, a highly effective (not to mention cost-effective) tool for client retention, loyalty and acquisition is e-mail marketing.
What is e-mail marketing?
E-mail marketing is pretty much exactly what it sounds like: a form of direct marketing that uses electronic mail to communicate commercial or fundraising messages. E-mail marketing campaigns may feature anything from limited-time specials, new product or service offerings, coupons, birthday offers, seasonal items, newsletters, customer surveys and special or discounted pricing to entice customers to return. It is also a conduit for data collection—the more information a company has about its client base, the more clearly it will understand its client behaviors and shopping habits. In turn, the company can utilize that knowledge to market more effectively in the future.
Why use e-mail marketing?
The Direct Marketing Association notes that more than 63 percent of companies found e-mail marketing to be the most effective method for customer retention, and 67 percent of U.S. consumers said they liked companies that, in their opinion, did a good job with e-mail marketing. Today, businesses large and small are turning to e-mail marketing campaigns for a number of reasons, most notably to increase customer loyalty. Jupiter Research, a leading authority on the impact of the Internet and emerging consumer technologies for business, projects that e-mail marketing spending will grow from $1.2 billion in 2007 to $2.1 billion in 2012—nearly a 100-percent increase.
Specifically, the top six benefits e-mail marketing is that it:
- Increases customer loyalty: E-mail marketing can grow brand awareness, strengthen customer relationships and encourage trust.
- Saves money: E-mail marketing eliminates the costs associated with traditional direct mail—such as printing and postage—and costs significantly less than other forms of traditional advertising.
- Improves customer contact: Since e-mail marketing is turn-key, a business owner can send messages and updates to customers more frequently.
- Provides trackable results: The number of individuals who open and read the e-mail, and the number of e-mails forwarded, are only a few examples of what statistics can be tracked.
- Offers targeted content: Businesses are able to segment their database to provide specific clients with targeted messages based on their tracked results.
- Generates action: E-mail promotions and offers generate immediate action, whether through sales, click-throughs, inquiries, registrations, etc.
Still not convinced? Let’s look a potential scenario for an e-mail marketing campaign (using round numbers to keep things simple and with statistics based on a highly successful initiative). In this scenario, the monthly expense for an e-mail marketing campaign is $100, the average amount spent by a customer is $25 and your e-mail database has 1,000 valid e-mail addresses.
