Following up with your customers is so important. Without follow-up you are relaying on your last interaction with your customer to be the one that keeps them engaged. Following up with regular valuable content is vital to stay engaged, and keep your customers thinking about you and coming back. In fact not doing it is the biggest mistake we have seen people make in any business
- Create a content calendar
Plan out the next 3 to 6 months around what is coming up seasonally, what marketing campaigns are coming up. Once you know what’s coming then you can plan your content around the rest. Use a tool like Google sheets, Asana, or Monday, to plan it out and keep track of it so you know you are staying on track.
2. Brainstorm the content
Sit down with your team, and blurt it all out. I find it’s the best way to work out exactly what content is going to work. Get it all down on paper and then start working out when its going to fit within your content calendar. Is there a seasonal related condition that you can prepare people for? Do people get more stresses in the winter, or round xmas time? Make the content suit the customer and their problems and you find it gets loads more engagement. An exercise I like to do is the 5 and 5. Write down 5 problems your customer has. Then write down 5 pain points around the problems, and there you have 25 solutions you can provide…
3. How often?
You have to test and decide what is right for your marketplace. I generally say a minimum of once a fortnight, if you are sending valuable content. More if your customers are lapping it up, less if they are not engaging. Then I generally say, 4 items of content, to 1 sales email.
We want to train our customers that we email them, and they click through and get a solution to a problem. So then when we want to send a sales or action based email, again they will click through and get a solution to a problem. This one they may just need to pay for or make a booking for.
4. The format?
Well first, lets get it clear. 1 problem, 1 pain point and 1 solution to a problem. Keep it simple, easily consumable and something the recipients can use and put in action straight away.
If you are in a customer facing role, where you need trust… Then video is the best format. Especially in the health niche, where exercise and health tips can be very physical, get in from of the camera and show them how to do it.
5. Monitor and report
Finally, don’t just send them out. Make sure you are monitoring and reporting on the results. How will you know if people are engaging? How will you know if you need to change the frequency? Look at the email stats of course.