Be An Effective User Of Email Marketing During A Crisis
I have been talking with many clients about email strategy during the current COVID-19 crisis. How much to email? Who to send the emails to? What to say? These are all tough questions and the answers vary depending on your type of business.
If you are a non-essential business and you have had totemporarily shut down, a simple notification that you are offline, a number oremail to use in case of emergency and a promise to notify all concerned whenyou are back up and running is the best plan. The majority of businesses areeither essential or offering limited services during this challenging time. Thediscussion below is for those businesses.
1. Be a resource to those actively engaged with your business.
COVID-19 messages are designed to go to those customers that you are actively engaged with so don’t send them to your entire database. Restrict it to active customers and those that you have engaged with within the limits of your normal sales cycle. If these guidelines do not make sense, use 6-12 months as a guideline. The risk here is high opt-outs, spam complaints, and general recipient malaise which could negatively affect your ability to use email to communicate with your customers during these difficult times.
2. Be honest about the reality of the current situation.
Inbox activityis up 27% according to World Data. People are opening and reading emails thatacknowledge the current situation. They are at home staying in touch via emailand opening and reading communications that provide information on the thingsthat are important to them. Let your customer base know what you are doing tokeep your customers and your team safe during these unprecedented times.
3. Be a solid resource for your customers. Be a good neighbor.
Respondquickly to changes in status, and be sensitive and compassionate to therealities of sheltering in place and maintaining social distance. Making jokesabout the current crisis is risky at best and offensive at worst. Providesolutions to the unique challenges of sheltering in place and working fromhome. If you have a product in high demand or can provide a service over andabove your usual set of services, provide it and be sensitive to the effectthat raising prices or overcharging could have on long term customerrelationships. Be careful about being perceived as capitalizing on fear, butrather try to provide services and perspective that make your customers feelsafer and less afraid.
4. BE a believer in the metrics.
Use the dataon your email program to analyze how your COVID-19 emails performed. If clicksand opens are low, re-evaluate what value your email is providing yourrecipient. If opt-outs are high, evaluate your content to be sure that you areproviding solutions and helpful information. Don’t ignore what your audience istelling you about your email approach.
Bottom Line:
Email inboxesare literally overflowing with COVID-19 messages. Be sure to communicate withthose who NEED and WANT to hear from you. This is not a time to promote yourbrand or pat yourself on the back for following the government guidelines. Givehelpful information and keep your engaged customer base informed. Remember thatthis will not last forever, and you have an opportunity for your customers toremember how you supported their needs during a crisis. Please do not squanderthat opportunity.
Here are someresources that I would recommend for additional information on this subject:
Email Marketing forSensitive Times
Really Good Emails,Emergency Email Collection
Email First: The New Normal for Keeping You Connected to Customers in Challenging Times
Eric Van Cleave is the Co-CEO and Digital Marketing Director for TIV Branding
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TIV Branding is a boutique branding firm in Sonoma County, California. We specialize in building brands by using traditional, social and digital channels in unison. If you would like to discuss a project or find out more about how we do what we do, please email us at info@TIVbranding.com.