Category: Statistics

Insightful numbers.

Follow Up Email Improves Your ROI

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Guest Post By: Erin Alli

You know follow up emails are important to your business. You’ve heard the statistics.

Do you have them in place though?  Many people put this off because they think:

  • What should I write?
  • How often should I follow up?
  • What should I expect in return?
  • Will I be bothering people if I follow up?

Sound familiar?

Sales don’t happen in one touch.  It often takes more than a dozen reach-outs before someone realizes they need what you’re offering.

We’ve all done this. We check our emails and skip over “unimportant” ones because we are busy. Then one day we are in the right mindset when we see the email. It hits a trigger for us, and we decide to check out what the person is offering and maybe even buy.

If that person had stopped after the first email, they wouldn’t have gotten a sale and we wouldn’t have had our problem solved.

Think of all the “big name” business owners you follow.  You look forward to their content and they send it out every week.  You don’t feel bothered by it; you feel inspired.

That is what great follow-up and keeping in touch is all about.  It’s a way to stay in front of the people that already said they are interested in what you have to say, so when the time is right, they reach out to you.

A sequence that keeps you in front of people ongoing, such as a newsletter with your latest blog or video clip, is a great way to stay in front of people.   

Your content must be engaging, and you need a great subject line to get people intrigued enough to open the email in the first place.

Data from Yesware, an email software company, states that you have a 21% chance of receiving a reply to a follow up email if you don’t get a response to your initial email.  And if you don’t get a reply to the second email there is still a 25% chance that you will eventually get a reply from the recipient, it just may take a little time.

Make your email personal.  Don’t write to the masses, write to your avatar.  If the person reading your email relates, you have made a connection.

You want to build an ongoing relationship, so the recipient can know, like and trust you more with each email.

Your emails should be valuable to the receiver but to the point.  Don’t put all the information in the email. Put the content that will get them interested and provide a link to a sales page or information page so they can choose to click and read more if they are interested.  They will appreciate you getting to the point and respecting their time.

Add a clear call to action.  What should they do next.  And remember to only put 1 call to action.  Too many options results in no actions being taken.

Follow-up emails are the most important emails you can send. With the right process in place, they can be “set it and forget it” and run on their own in the background while you focus on other important things.

About the Author

Erin Alli is a Business and Certified Health Coach with a specialty in Mental Health.  She is also a Copywriter and Online Business Manager with a team of Virtual Assistants. Erin and her team help clients worldwide to create a strong foundation in their business, put strategies in place to grow, increase revenue and decrease the chance of burnout. She has over 18 years’ experience in supporting clients to start a business, grow a business to the next level, and take better care of themselves so they can be at peak performance levels in business and life.

Active Users on Major Social Networks

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The number of people with accounts on major social networks continues to grow. While some networks are gaining users and the growth of others has plateaued, more and more people in the U.S. are participating on social media.

Below is a chart of active users on the largest social networks from Pew Research Center.

Active users on social media in US

You may find some of this data surprising. Newer channels tend to get a lot of mention, but also often have relatively small user bases.

Of course, the important thing for you to know is where the people you want to reach are on social media. These numbers are an eye-opener, for sure, but the “best” channel for you to use is the one where your audience is hanging out.

Social Media Becoming an Expected Source for Customer Service

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I’ve noticed lately that people expect (demand, really) customer service from brands on social media. Is your social media monitoring and management plan up to the challenge?

Research Shows Expectations

First, some data. Sprout Social’s latest “Index Report” finds a disconnect between consumer expectations of brands on social and how brands prioritize their channels. Consumers increasingly expect great customer service on social, according to the report, which surveyed over 1,000 consumers and 1,000 marketers for the study. Social media is the most-preferred channel for consumers to share feedback about a product or service (31%) and raise customer service issues or questions (33%), with nearly half (47%) saying strong customer service is the top trait that makes a brand best-in-class on social.

Wow.

First Hand Proof

Like many people, I’m still dealing with the fallout of canceled travel plans in 2020. I recently got a notice that credit for one airline was expiring. Since air travel is still iffy these days, I wanted to ask for an extension. Tried to email, no response. Tried to call, hours later, no resolution. Tweeted about the issue and, voila! expiration extended.

Wow again.

Customer Service on Social

You likely aren’t as large as the airline in my story, but their customer service response on Twitter is making me and other consumers look at social media as a platform for getting help from brands.

Moving away from social is as risky for brands as not having a customer service strategy on the platforms. The Sprout Social data also found that nine out of 10 consumers will buy from brands they follow on social, and 86% will choose that brand over a competitor, while 85% will buy from that brand more often. If you are not on social, all of these opportunities fall to 0%.

It’s time to look at how to provide customer service on your brands social channels. What can you offer? What response time can you provide? What resources will you apply to the effort? These and other questions need to be asked and answered.

Just as you have an online marketing strategy, define your online customer service strategy. Map out what you will do and commit to following the plan. Then, let your social audience know how they can engage with you for customer service. Often, setting the right expectations is the key to success.