Creating conversions with email marketing is one thing, but fostering continued interest from consumers is the next step, and often an even greater challenge.
After all, with the sheer range of social media platforms businesses are active on, consumers are never far from finding deals, discounts or new places to shop.
While these trends are great for the price-savvy consumers, they remain yet another challenge for organisations to overcome. How can they ensure their emails aren’t lost among the crowd?
It’s not always the be all and end all for consumers, but offering reduced prices and other special offers through promotional emails can be exactly what prospective customers are looking for.
What do customers want?
Fostering engagement in a customer base is about finding out what consumers want and then meeting – or exceeding – these expectations. It seems obvious, but if B2C marketing content can supply customers with what they’re looking for, they have little motivation to look for better deals somewhere else.
The majority of people want to receive discounts and coupons over email.
Alchemy Worx investigated the range of different content consumers expect to receive from the mailing lists they sign up to. According to the organisation’s survey, the most popular types of content involve unique deals.
Nearly half (49 per cent) of people expect brands to communicate information about upcoming sales, while the majority of people want to receive discounts (51 per cent) or coupons and vouchers to use online or in store (50 per cent).
Customers also want communication that is relevant. According to the same survey, just 28 per cent of respondents said the majority of the marketing emails they receive are actually useful, suggesting there’s room for businesses to pare back their communication in order to prioritise quality over quantity.
Make deals more appealing
When it comes to promoting new deals and discounts, it’s not always just about what a business says. In many cases, it’s how the message is communicated that makes all the difference, as certain turns of phrase and sentence structures can change how appealing these offers are to consumers.
The University of Pennsylvania investigated the specific phrases and offers that make products and services sound more appealing to consumers. According to the research, deals that promote free shipping often generate the best response from consumers.
Marketing Professor David Bell says this offer is unique to the world of online shopping, hence why it has power over alternatives such as “10 per cent off” or “two for the price of one”.
The university also noted the ways businesses can experiment with these trends to encourage consumers to spend more or return in future. For retailers that don’t want to offer free shipping to any consumer, setting a price threshold can be a worthy compromise. For example, a business may choose to offer free shipping for any order over $50.
What kind of coupons are people looking for?
Give consumers what they need
While deals may encourage consumers to splash out on luxury items or try new goods and services, a report from analytics provider Inmar found it’s important to give consumers what they need as well as what they want.
According to the organisation, consumers want to receive coupons and discounts for the goods and services they use regularly, such as groceries, petrol and other everyday products.
Inmar stated that the increase in coupon use over the past few years is the result of a number of different variables. The organisation found that people are finding more coupons online than they did in the past. In this case, marketing emails could be the key to distributing this content.
Lead Lists provides a range of different marketing lists perfect for a range of applications. Contact the team to find a solution that’s right for your business.2021
