Maximize the impact of email marketing

A few weeks ago, I had a really interesting discussion with the owner of a small independent retail store. The stores is a specialty wine store, who started this business out of his garage.

The owner told me about his struggles, he like everybody else, wants to increase the customer base while driving frequency with his regulars. With this challenge comes a close to non existing budget.

Can you make efficient marketing on a shoestring budget? YES, he can make a simple 3 legged strategy, which can elevate to a higher level.

• Location and shopping experience

This point is aced. When you enter the showroom, which is in a nice location, on a busy street, you are greeted by the owner, who is passionate, knowledgeable and present.

• Word of Mouth (brand advocacy)

The shopping experience customers receive, is way above average, the owner gives his customers a good experience, and the do tell about their experience, and he experiences that traffic is increasing, however not fast enough.

• Email marketing

The big key is build a solid mailing list and set-up an emailing program which takes advantage of the content of this mailing list, to segment the content to different mailing groups

Learn about guerilla marketing.

Building an effective email platform is NOT expensive but requires hard work. Here is my advice:

• Take advantage of the personal shopping experience and ask customer to join the mailing list. Throw them a bone…. inform them what to expect from the email they are to receive and why they are relevant. Exclusive sales, invites to tasting events, competitions and relevant product information

• Ask the customer to leave more than their email. They should leave the following information: First name; last name; email; postal code; gender; age; preference as a minimum   

• Form a number of relevant segments (mailing groups) based upon the above mentioned details, examples of this:
• Group with young men, who is willing to strop in the market and learn about wine
• Group of men, who is interested in the best deal
• Group of women, who like other types like rosé and white
• Etc.

• Write content that matches the segmented groups. consider that each email should hold about 3-4 topics, some can be generic, which others must be targeted directly to meet the expectations of the group.

• Start sending emails. I prefer to use mailchimp.com is a very user freindly platform, that is free to use in the standard format with list <2000 subscribers.

• Remember to include social media sharing options

• Never stop testing, test placements, links, colors, buttons, headlines and much more.

This program will do well for this independent wine store, and it would do well in plenty of other businesses. The key to maximize performance starts with building a high quality mailing list and using the details of the list to get as personal as possible.

Personalized information will always be better over the generic emails. If you get this and the design and landscape of the email right, you will experience high opening rates, click rates and conversation rates.

For the wine store, this will drive enough revenue to invest more into the business and expand it further.

Good luck

Keep your sales team motivated

It is absolutely essential for your business health, that have motivated and energized sales team. Think of a salesperson as the soldier fighting in the frontline, what does he need to keep motivated and energized to keep up the fight and bringing home those orders.

In addition think of the personality of salespeople as strikers in football / soccer team, they are goal scorers. They depend on their confidence and the ground work of other members of their team. They also play the first level of defence, as they master relations and get valuable market information before everybody else.

Here is 8 points you need to consider to keep your team motivated and bringing home the orders:

1) Transparency

Keep your sales staff in the loop. You will have to be clear on targets, informing about new products and other relevant information. Information like this very valuable for the sales person, not only because it is important that he or she has this information, when talking to customers, but also for emotional reasons. Keep them involved.

2) Pay commissions promptly

Salespeople is competitive by nature, you should enforce this instinct with a compensation package, where a substatial part of their paycheck is based on their performance.

When the salesperson reaches a target, make sure to pay compensation straight away. Pay bonus every month over every three months or yearly.

Paying promptly encourages salespeople to sell more, at they quickly see the results of their work.

3) Keep sales targets reasonable

Make you sales targets thoroughly and ensure your salespeople gets paid for their results. Do not set to ambitious targets, but set targets which can be reached and bonuses can be paid.

4) Do not undercut them

Your salespeople should be able to offer the best possible price, period. Customers should not be able to find a lower price on the company website or by buying directly. This will upset your salespeople and in worst case make them leave the company.

5) Distribution of leads

Make sure you spread your leads fairly among your salesstaff, each should get an equal number of good and poor leads. If you prioritize some reps over others, some will have a negative opinion about this. Keep in mind, you can cultivate new talant this way, over just feeding the "the usuals".

6) Support their efforts.

Make sure that your sales team always has access to leadership and senior staff, who can assist them negotiate and close deals.  Make sure, that the most popular products are available to the salesstaff, for them to demonstrate, which is important to close a sale. 

In addidion, give them support and convey learning from failures and success, to help develop.

7) Give them time to sell.

Do not overload your sales staff with administrative reporting and trackers that "steal away" their time, that could be spent selling.  CRM may create great reports, but at what cost?  Have a support function, to assist with reporting and such.

8) Have fun

Sales should always be fun. Fun do not they should not work hard, but rather a place where people experiencing success, feeling supported, learning, growing and enjoying what they do.