Holiday action saves a sour shopping season
by Beka Ruse
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 email 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 email 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 email 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 emails 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!
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