StreamSend Guidelines: Improve Customer Retention with Email Marketing

Sacramento, CA, July 08, 2009 --(PR.com)-- StreamSend, a leading email marketing solutions provider, today released guidelines for strengthening customer relationships with email marketing programs. These client-tested best practices have helped thousands of organizations improve their customer relationships and customer retention through email marketing.

“The number of active email individuals will grow from 145 million in 2009 to 153 million in 2014… Marketers tell us that they enjoy an ROI (return on investment) that is two to three times higher with email than it is with any other form of direct marketing. And these costs will see more and more customer communication/relationship/retention communications moving to email.” [Source: Forrester Research, US Email Marketing Forecast 2009-2014]

“Email has emerged not only as a cost-effective, high ROI tool to reach new customers, it has also become a brand tool that can help create and sustain customer relationships at different levels,” said Dan Forootan, president and CEO of StreamSend. “While competition keeps heating up to reach inboxes, the need to respect customers’ individual needs and wants with email has become equally important.”

StreamSend guidelines for improving relationships through email include these seven rules:

Use newsletters to communicate regularly with customers

· Make them relevant, valuable, timely and tailored to your customers needs
· Design your emails so they are easy to read and provide the primary information clearly
· Know the type of device on which they receive and read your emails, and design accordingly
· Send on a regular schedule so messages are expected
· Keep subject lines short; less than 50 characters is ideal
· Use a consistent ‘from address’ -- customers open email messages they are expecting to receive

Give options and set expectations

· Kick off the relationship with a welcome letter where you can set terms and expectations
· Look to provide customers only information they need or would like to receive
· Find out when, and how frequently they would like to receive it
· Tell them how frequently they’ll hear from you and stick to your promise
· Segment lists to best match your customers’ needs

Make your emails “work” for your customers

· Know your audience
· Make your customers’ lives easier with valued information and reminders
· Keep customer motivation as your main focus

Keep it personal with “triggered” communications

· Send date-based triggers to remind customers of action needed to continue providing uninterrupted service.
· Recommend products or information that may meet their needs
· Recognize milestone dates, such as birthdays, anniversaries, or thank them for time as your customer

Interact

· Whenever possible, encourage your customers to interact with you -- ask their opinion, offer surveys or polls
· Listen to feedback and use it

Make sure they still want to hear from you

· Maintain good list hygiene, remove hard bounces or registered complaints
· If a customer hasn’t opened an email in a certain amount of time, send them an email asking if they would like to continue receiving your communications
· No matter what, always remove and respect unsubscribes

About StreamSend
The StreamSend Email Marketing Software is the most comprehensive and cost-effective permission-based e-mail marketing suite available, used by marketers, entrepreneurs, online retailers and resellers around the world. StreamSend offers a number of industry-leading, standard pricing plans and also has strong email marketing reseller and affiliate programs. StreamSend is the flagship product of web hosting and design company EZ Publishing, founded in 1998.

###