5 ways email marketing can improve customer loyalty

Boasting a loyal customer base is the golden ticket for every business.

Devoted fans who come back to purchase more, spend more, and become your biggest cheerleaders. 

But the question for many businesses is “How can we build customer loyalty?”.

At Jarrang, we are firm believers in the positive impact that email marketing has on customer loyalty. Not only does it offer a reliable, cost-effective way to directly engage with customers, but with the use of data, automation, personalisation, and dynamic content brands can easily provide a tailored, unique experience to make their customers feel special.

In this blog post, we offer 5 of our favourite ways that email marketing can improve customer loyalty, to help you build a community of dedicated brand advocates.

Rolling out the red carpet

Recommending the perfect product

Being a useful brand

Asking for feedback

Charming lost customers

Rolling out the red carpet

Building customer loyalty begins with their very first purchase. So it’s important to make a positive, lasting impression that will encourage customers to come back to shop with you in the future.

A welcome series is the perfect way to roll out the red carpet for new purchasers. Not only are welcome emails proven to generate an open rate of 63.91%, but they also provide brands with an opportunity to introduce themselves, offer relevant information, and showcase their happy customers (to name just a few ideas).

And don’t forget to craft a welcome series that grabs attention. Pull out all the stops in creating a beautiful design, engaging visuals such as GIFs or videos, and focus on snappy copy. 

We love the below example from Silly George. The colour, copy, and imagery exude the Silly George brand. And the opening line “Welcome to our squad” immediately brings the new customer into the Silly George community, helping them to connect with the brand.

Recommending the perfect product

56% of consumers report that they will become repeat buyers after a personalised experience, meaning that the ability to personalise communications can make or break a brand.

When it comes to improving customer loyalty, personalised product recommendations are a hit. They offer the perfect way to show your customers that you’re paying attention to them, and you care about their needs. And it makes their shopping experience much more straightforward; saving them the hassle of trawling through endless websites and product pages.

Depending on your personalisation sophistication, you could provide recommendations based on customer segments; promoting the same items to similar purchasers. Or, you can use individual customer data, such as past purchases and browsing history, to tailor their communications with dynamic product recommendations, especially for them.

Airbnb utilises browsing and booking history to create highly personalised accommodation and experience recommendations. Their email below is an example of a post-booking series which promotes highly rated experiences based on the customer's up-and-coming trip.

Being a useful brand

Customer loyalty isn’t about the hard sell. Far from it.

With 61% of global consumers reporting they have cut ties with a brand over poor customer service, being a useful, helpful brand is essential to keep customers happy. Providing advice and content that can complement their purchase, enhance product usage, and support their buying decisions.

Consider product guides and how-to videos, demonstrations, trend updates, and latest release promotions. You can even pull from your user-generated content (UGC) to offer helpful advice from your own customer base. 

All of this content can be structured in a variety of ways through email. Welcome and onboarding series are perfect for showcasing content to get customers up and running with your products and services. Whereas ongoing nurturing series are ideal for keeping longer term customers up to date with useful information in a structured, automated way.

Monzo is an example of a brand that knows how to keep their customers engaged with useful content. Finances can be complex, so they regularly communicate with their customers showcasing their most useful features alongside how-to tips.

Asking for feedback

When customers feel that their thoughts and opinions are valued, it not only deepens their connection with your brand, but also provides you with invaluable insights that can be used for ongoing improvement. 

By using email automation functionality, brands can trigger post-purchase feedback and review requests to catch customers’ thoughts whilst their purchase is fresh in their minds.

This can be expanded on through regular NPS (net promoter score) surveys to gather a high-level understanding of whether your customers would recommend you to others. Or, be delved into further through regular questionnaires that ask more specific questions to help inform strategy.

And don’t forget to also include relevant support contact details within your email communications so that customers can engage with your brand directly with any feedback or queries they may have. 

Brands such as ASOS rely on the reviews of their customers to promote their products. Therefore, they have feedback automations in place to encourage customers to rate, review, and even add photos of their latest purchases within a few days of receiving their new items.

Charming lost customers

Despite your best efforts, sometimes your customers will become distant.

But there’s no need to panic, because email offers the perfect channel to turn up and charm and win them back.

When it comes to a re-engagement campaign, you’ll want to go all out to win your customers back. Think bold designs, engaging copy, personalisation, and of course incentives such as offers or discount codes that will encourage a customer to come back and purchase.

The little details can make a big difference. Remind the customer of who you are, why you are trustworthy, and how much your customers love you. This can be achieved through brand messaging, reviews and ratings, and sharing social profiles.

While it may be hard to swallow, some customers simply may want a break from you. So empower them to do so by incorporating a preference centre so that they can choose the types of emails and frequency that they hear from you. Leaving your relationship on a positive note.

Below, Currys utilises a friendly re-engagement campaign for customers who haven’t opened their emails in a while. The imagery and copy are striking so immediately grabs attention, and their £100 gift card competition is the perfect way to prove the worth of their email communications.

Next steps

We hope that this blog post has inspired you to show your customers a little extra love and give them the focus they deserve.

If you agree with us that email marketing is the key to keeping customers happy, then we can help you implement strategies and campaigns that will improve loyalty, repeat purchases, and customer recommendations.

Get in touch with our friendly team of experts to find out more.