As a small business owner, your database is your goldmine. Though lead generation is important, your best business comes from past clients and their referrals. The challenge is knowing who’s truly engaged?
If you’re sending out marketing emails, this information is at your fingertips. (If you’re not using email for marketing, we should talk!)
Here are three types of contacts to identify and actions you can take to engage them in a next step.
Who’s paying attention?
Do you know who’s opening your emails and clicking the links? Occasionally, someone may mention a specific article to you, but many are telling you what they find interesting by clicking on the articles or videos you’re sending.
Your email marketing software probably to generates a list of people who are opening and reading your email month after month. These are your super fans, the people who are ripe for a personal connection, whether it’s a phone call to touch base, sending them a card in the mail, or meeting for a coffee. They don’t need to know what information you have access to, but they’re the ones most likely to provide your next referral and therefore, worth making the effort for some extra attention.
Who is tuning you out?
You can also pull a report with a list of people who haven’t opened an email in months or clicked a link I recently received an email from a company with the subject line “It isn’t you, is it us?” noting that I hadn’t opened an email in a while. They enquired to see if I was still interested and asked me to re-confirm. It was a really engaging way of getting my attention and since then, I’ve been much more likely to open the company’s email.
For those who don’t reconfirm, you can decide if you really want them on your list. It’s possible that they might open an email one day, but if they haven’t taken action in a year, it’s unlikely they will. At the very least, tag them or separate them in your database so they’re not throwing off your numbers.
Who isn’t even receiving your emails?
Each time you send an email, you’ll see a list of email addresses that have bounced. This is a perfect opportunity to reach out by phone to get updated contact info. It’s a nice touch point and you never know where the conversation will lead.
So, when you send your next email marketing, consider where the hidden treasures are in your data base and take a few minutes to dig around.
If you’re not using software designed for email marketing or your current software doesn’t give you the information you need, please get in touch. I’d be happy to help.