Welcome Email
The first email you send out to your customers should be a short and sweet Welcome Email. This email should feature a warm and fuzzy greeting that also emphasizes your brand. The goal is to remind the customer how much they enjoyed their visit to your business. If you are currently running a promotion, you can add that to the email to get them involved. If not, you can tell them about any upcoming events so they don’t miss out. You want to get the Welcome Email out within two days after receiving the customer’s email info.
Promotional Email
Promotional Emails are the most frequent emails you will write and send out. They are great for announcing a new holiday drink menu or if you are close to being fully booked for Mother’s Day. You will want to use catchy subject lines to increase the odds of your customers opening and reading them. However, don’t overload your customer base with too many Promotional Emails or they will get into the habit of just deleting them. Keeping your Promotional Emails to just two a month will help ensure that won’t happen to you.
Celebration Coupon
Want to celebrate your customer’s milestones? Show them how much you care by sending them a coupon. A free dessert on their birthday, a free app on their wedding anniversary, or even a free entree on the anniversary of signing up for your loyalty program will go a long way in retaining your customers. These kinds of emails can be brief and stick to just one goal, letting the customer know what they are getting for free and a short reason why. It will be hard to overwhelm your customers with free stuff.
Loyalty Reward Updates
However you choose to do a loyalty program; whether its points earned, dollars spent or number of visits, at some point a customer will be on the cuff of earning a big reward. Why not send them an email letting them know just how close they are? That one more visit will lead to a big payout. This is the type of email, you want to use bold headings to help drive home the point. Thus ensuring you will see that customer again very soon. Just make sure they can reach the goal on their next visit, or the email might just come off as a tease.
Newsletters
Newsletters are a great way to inform your entire customer base on the big changes and events coming down the road. They work best when used for big picture updates and not little last minute announcements. This would be stuff like big annual events and festivals your business is hosting or taking part in. Any upcoming closings for remodeling or new locations your business is opening in the area are also good additions to a newsletter. Keep in mind, newsletters are more dense than the average Promotional Email so you will want to use eye-catching design and good headlines to make them easy to skim. You will also want to start out doing newsletters quarterly and increase to monthly as the need arises.
“We Missed You” Emails
These emails are very direct, just a little reminder to your loyal customers that you are still here and ready for them to visit your business again. Sometimes it only takes a little nudge to remind a customer how much they enjoyed your offerings and just how long it has been. You could also use this opportunity to entice your most loyal customers who haven’t been around in a long time with a small free promotion item. Nothing is better than being told you are missed then also being given something for free. Keep in mind, these kinds of emails can also annoy your customers the quietest, driving them away. So make sure it’s truly been a good long while since they last stopped in before sending out a “We Missed You” email. 30-60 days since their last visit is a good rule of thumb for these emails.
An effective email marketing campaign can turn first time guests into long term loyal customers by enticing them to keep coming back for more. Your customer’s emails can directly equate to 20% more business, when you effectively implement these types of emails. So long as you don’t overload them with pushy or irrelevant emails. It may take a little trial and error to find that sweet spot, but the effort is well worth it in the end.