When your organization’s relationship with an individual is brand new, it can often seem like they love every message you send, engage with every piece of content you create and are delighted by every interaction. But over time, that interest can fade. Before you know it, a formerly engaged subscriber barely blinks before deleting your emails and doesn’t even pause as they scroll past your posts on social media.
Rekindling the relationship won’t be possible in every case, but you can win some back with marketing automation. Take a look at the tactics and tips below for four ways to use this powerful technology to bring back the spark to your customer and prospect relationships.
1. Email marketing. If you have a message in mind, chances are good that email can help you communicate it. From monthly newsletters and new product announcements to company promotions and event invitations, email marketing is an effective way to connect with individuals and take them from awareness to initial purchase and from satisfied customer to brand advocate. It’s also a great tactic for reactivating inactive leads and customers.
Re-engagement email campaigns can come in many different forms, but they should in some way communicate the message that you recognize that they haven’t interacted with your company’s messages in some time and that you want them back as an engaged subscriber.
The email below is a great example of a very straightforward re-engagement campaign. They simply ask recipients to opt in to receive future emails while reminding them of the value of receiving the company’s emails. They also put the unsubscribe option more front and center, which is a great way to prevent marketing lists from getting stale.
Offering inactive email subscribers an exclusive discount, a gift with purchase or early access to a new piece of content are also effective ideas for re-engagement emails.
2. Surveys. Surveys help organizations gather information from individuals. While they can take many forms, online surveys are the most popular option today. Using the survey feature within many marketing automation systems, organizations can create, send, manage and view results for surveys.
By giving customers or prospects an outlet to make their voice heard, surveys can help re-engage these individuals, strengthening the relationship you have with them and demonstrating the value your company places on their honest feedback and opinions.
Surveys can be used in a variety of ways to gain valuable insights into your audiences while also re-engaging with prospects or customers. Beyond the traditional customer satisfaction surveys, you could, for example, ask your audience what topics they would like to read about on your blog or in eBooks, or even use surveys to create a competition where customers vote for their favorite of your company’s products or services.
To enhance your re-engagement efforts and encourage survey participation, try sweetening the deal by offering a discount to recipients that complete the survey or entering them into a drawing for a special giveaway.
3. Event management. Event integrations allow you to connect online event management systems with marketing automation platforms. These connectors can vary by marketing automation platforms. ClickDimensions, for example, offers connectors to GoToWebinar, WebEx, Eventbrite and Cvent, and allows you to see prospect and customer event registration and attendance information directly in Microsoft Dynamics 365.
While many offline marketing channels continue to see declining interest and budgetary allocation from companies, events are bucking that trend. In-person and online events offer brands a powerful way to connect with their audiences and strengthen those relationships while giving attendees the opportunity to be informed or entertained – or both.
Events, both online and off, can be used to reconnect with inactive leads and customers. An educational webinar series can often get people re-engaged, or try hosting an in-person reception, lunch and learn, or conference that offers information or experiences to re-engage and delight this audience.
4. Campaign automation. Campaign automation, also known as drip marketing or nurture marketing, is the act of sending a series of customized communications to a prospect or customer over a period of time based on their interactions. While nurture campaigns typically feature email, they can also include direct mail, SMS messaging, phone calls or any other “touch” a business makes with an individual. Automated nurture campaigns respond to actions taken by those being nurtured, thus creating a more personalized experience.
While you won’t win back every customer or wake up every lead in your Dynamics database, re-engagement nurture campaigns can help you get the conversation going again and give you an opportunity to make the case for your brand. Through campaign automation, try offering these individuals helpful pieces of content or exclusive discounts, or both, to rekindle the relationship.
Happy Marketing!
