Usually, U.S. retailers earn 20-80% of their entire yearly gross
during the holiday season. But this year, things are different.
The sluggish US economy has prompted Deloitte Research's Carl
Steidtmann to fear "the worst Christmas ever" in the retail
sector.
Short of going door to door in a Santa suit, how can businesses
increase profits and prevent a blue Christmas? Despite economic
gloom, industry leaders have found that an e-mail follow up
strategy can increase sales by a cheery 35%! To weather the
ailing economy, use a follow up autoresponder during your
holiday campaigns.
What Does It Do? Follow up autoresponders follow up with your
leads for you. You create a series of messages, and decide when
they should be sent, (daily, weekly, etc.). Your autoresponder
will send the messages to each new lead automatically. With no
further intervention from you, your leads will remember you
throughout the winter chill. And this regular reminding will
mean more sales during the all-important holiday shopping
season.
Give yourself the gift of a higher conversion rate! Follow up
automatically using these simple steps: Offer Useful Information
Personalize Your Messages Track Your Leads
Broadcast Tailor-Made Offers Offer Useful Information Write your
follow up messages for your leads - not for yourself. You want
to talk about your great service, but your leads just want to
know what they'll get out of it!
At some point, you must have purchased something like your
product. What were you looking for then? Was it information
about pricing, styles, or holiday gift wrapping? Maybe just a
clearer explanation of the product? Figure that out, and put the
answer in your follow up messages. That's what your leads want
to know.
Personalize Your Messages You don't open postal mail addressed
to "Current Resident", and your leads aren't going to read
e-mail addressed to "Dear Internet Friend." People are simply
more likely to read messages that address them by name.
Autoresponders let you use variables to personalize your
messages. This way, you write just one message, but Lenny Lead
reads "Happy Holidays, Lenny!" while Kate Customer reads "Happy
Holidays, Kate!"
Names are only the beginning of the personalization features
available, though. In addition to full, first, and last names,
some autoresponders let you add e-mail addresses, dates, or an
ad category. The best even correct the capitalization in your
leads' names, giving your messages a much more professional
look.
Track Your Leads Get even better results from your snowballing
list of leads by experimenting with follow up content and
timing. Your experimentation will be much more successful if you
have access to proper statistics.
Only use a follow up autoresponder that offers detailed lead
statistics. Look for live, graphical stats that show your
incoming leads broken down by day / week / month, all of your
active leads, and leads who have requested removal from your
list.
Broadcast Tailor-Made Offers To get more bang for your holiday
buck, look for an autoresponder that also lets you broadcast
extra e-mails to all of your leads. Some even allow you to send
tailor-made offers only to leads who meet certain criteria.
For instance, send everyone who's been on your list for a month
a special discount. Or, notify all leads interested in a certain
product when a new shipment comes in.
Follow up messages keep leads warm. Use periodic broadcasts to
convert them to sales!
Prevent a Crummy Christmas Businesses of all sizes have seen
their sales grow by leaps and bounds because of automated follow
up. Implement your follow up strategy now to make the best use
of holiday leads! Then, enjoy the season - your autoresponder is
following up for you!
About the author:
Beka Ruse is the Business Development Manager at AWeber
Communications. Ad tracking, live stats, and a strict anti-spam
policy. Find out how to boost your sales through email marketing
at:
http://www.bsleek.com/emarketing
