Your customers may not buy from you every week, but by sending them an email you can make sure they remember who you are next time they want to buy something.
 
Encourage Lapsed Customers

You may have customers that used to buy from you, but have not done so recently. You can use an email to remind them you are there and to emphasize the qualities of your business (E.g.: Low prices, good service, wide choice etc). You can also provide them with discounts or special offers to encourage them to buy from you once again.

Example: I recently received an email from an online games retailer which I had not bought from in three months. The email said “We miss you, please come back!” and had a £3 money off voucher code as an incentive to buy from them again. Unfortunately, even with the £3 off they were still more expensive; but that is another article altogether!
 
Competitions

Running a competition can help to attract people to your business. It can help bring people to your store or website, it can promote a new product (by offering it as a prize!), and it can help promote a positive image of your company.
 
Building Relationships with Your Customers

Emails are a good and cheap way to build a relationship with your customers. You can keep in contact, invite comments and complaints which you can solve, and even offer tips on using your products/services. By demonstrating that you care about your customers, you help to build trust in your business; this will help create loyalty and can lead to increased custom.

If you only have a small number of customers, or you sell products which are expensive and bought infrequently; then email is a great way to maintain a good business relationship. You may consider producing more personal emails which show the customers that their individual custom is appreciated, and that you are there to make sure they get the best out of their purchases.
 
Examples:

If you think carefully, every business can find a use for their customers emails. Here are a few examples to get you started.

A builder who is usually busy can email regular clients or those who have expressed an interest in some work to let them know of any cancellations of free days available to do work.

A local shop can email customers with details of new special offers, saving on the cost of leaflets and other common promotions for such deals.

A car dealer can email customers from the last year to check that their purchases are working well, maybe offering a discount against services (E.g.: Mot, new tyres, inspections). This shows the customer that they care about them even after buying. They could also email customers from over a year ago with details of new offers and even offering a special deal to previous customers (E.g.: No deposit, better part exchange offer, etc).


Article Index

1 Introduction
2 How to Collect Email Addresses
3 Example: BizHelp24
4 Legal Issues
5 How to Create Your Email
6 Monitoring Success
7 Links