Extend your reach with e-mail marketing: spending your marketing dollars wisely and developing a strategy that includes both you

Franchise owners are adept marketers with an arsenal of tools at their disposal to meet their marketing goals. Many franchises rely on e-mail marketing for its most common purpose: customer communication and retention. However, what they may not realize is that e-mail marketing is also an excellent tool for lead generation.

While it's true that e-mail marketing's benefits are often attributed only to existing customers, there are also new sales opportunities among this group in the form of referrals. Not only are your existing customers more likely to purchase from your franchise again, but if they are loyal to your business, they are also more likely to recommend your product or service to others.

This article will identify some of the ways in which e-mail marketing can extend a franchise's reach beyond its current customer base and offer valuable tips for turning your e-mail marketing campaign into new business opportunities.

Everything Old Is New Again

Few businesses would turn away a repeat customer. Repeat sales generally equate to customer satisfaction and brand loyalty. Repeat sales also take less time and expense to close. However, when businesses consider their lead-generation strategy, they often overlook their best lead source--existing customers. This can result in a huge missed opportunity.

Your satisfied customers are not only more likely to buy from you again; they're also more likely to refer your business to a friend. Their potential referral is often related to an emotional connection they have with your business. They may receive valuable benefits from your service, or your products may help them achieve something personally meaningful, like saving money or losing weight.

In addition, when your customers refer your business to others, they develop a sense of loyalty and even ownership toward your business. It's no longer just a gym they belong to because they pay a membership fee; as they introduce their friends and colleagues, it becomes their gym.

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Satisfied Customer: Better Than Your Best Salesperson

When you hire a salesperson, you hope that he or she will attain a deep knowledge about your business, a passion for your offering and a commitment to a long-term relationship. With that in mind, consider your best customers: they know your business, they value your offering, and as long as you continue to provide the level of service and high quality products they expect, they will return to you again and again, becoming loyal customers. Loyal customers epitomize the best aspects of your business--they're like a walking, talking, success story advertising your franchise. And, they do this without the stigma that can often be attributed to your sales team because their opinion is viewed as "unbiased."

You can nurture and support your customers' natural inclination to share good things with their friends by offering incentives for their referrals or creating newsletters full of great content. If written well and informative, these "forward-friendly" e-mail newsletters will be sent on to friends and family with a personal recommendation for your business.

Why E-mail Marketing?

E-mail marketing is largely recognized as an effective method for customer communication and retention--and rightly so. E-mail marketing offers franchises an affordable and easy way to stay in touch with customers, but it's also a natural tool for generating referrals and new business leads.

Some of the many compelling reasons for using e-mail marketing include:

* It's inexpensive: E-mail marketing is an affordable way to stretch a tight marketing budget. It's also 20-times more cost effective than direct mail.

* It's effective: E-mail marketing enables you to proactively communicate with your existing customers and prospects instead of passively waiting for them to return to your Web site or storefront.

* It's immediate: E-mail marketing generates an immediate response. Initial campaign response generally occurs within 48 hours from the time the email campaign is sent.

* It's targeted: You can easily segment your e-mail lists using a variety of criteria or interests so that you can personalize the message for the individuals most likely to respond to a specific offer.

* It's easy: Today's Web-based e-mail marketing services, such as Constant Contact, are convenient, affordable, and easy to use. Most include professionally designed HTML templates, as well as tracking and reporting so you can monitor the results of your campaigns.

Colorado-based Bark Busters Home Dog Training increased its customer reach by implementing an e-mail newsletter campaign that now consistently generates more business. According to Kristy Pring, Bark Busters' director of marketing and communications, "Our franchise owners have been able to increase their distribution lists because their customers find the newsletters to be informative, and they forward these e-mails to friends who are fellow dog owners."

Bark Busters' existing customers receive a monthly e-mail containing important information related to the care of their dogs. They may forward the e-mail to a friend one day in an effort to share a key piece of information, and often that contact will sign up for the newsletter or for training for their dog. The e-mail newsletter becomes a resource and an educational tool that eventually leads prospects to become paying customers, and customers to become referral sources. "Prospects can also sign up on our Web site to receive the newsletter. Even six months later, these people will sign up for training," Pring says.

Forward-worthy E-mails

It may sound somewhat effortless, but there are some specific criteria needed to develop a forward-worthy e-mail. One is a clean, permission-based list of subscribers. It's critical to get permission from every customer and prospect you add to your email list, and to set their expectations on what they will receive from you and how often to expect it. If you do not build your list in a permission-based manner, then recipients may consider your e-mails as unsolicited and view them as spam.

Respecting your recipient's permission is extremely important because the same word of mouth activity that generates referral leads for you could also get you labeled as a spammer if you do not follow permission protocols. This can potentially result in serious damage to your franchise's reputation. Just because someone forwarded your e-mail does not enable you to auto-add this person to your list. The safest approach is to always ask permission from your customers and prospects before adding their e-mail address to your e-mail marketing list.

The second element to a forward-worthy e-mail is content. Are you telling customers something that they will want to share with their friends? Many times, the most compelling content to share is educational in nature and interesting in substance. This is in contrast to many emails that come across as a straight sell. Your customers want to know what you know, especially if it's related to a subject on which they consider you an expert.

For example, imagine that you own a landscaping franchise and want to promote your spring lawn package. Rather than a blatantly promotional e-mail with a coupon, your e-mail could include interesting, educational content about lawn care, such as how to identify typical spring weeds, what to do to prevent crab grass, and other timely, informative topics. Or, perhaps it is a review of which types of shrubs do well in a very shady area versus those that do well in a sunny environment. You can still include a promotion, but it should only take up about 20 percent of the total content.

Once you are providing content that is both relevant, and valuable to the recipient, then you can expect to see "forwards" of your e-mails to your recipient's friends.

There are ways to encourage this behavior as well. Include a "Forward to a Friend" suggestion in your content. The most effective usage tends to include a button or link that encourages the recipient to forward the e-mail to their friends, and the location is usually found in the upper third (above the fold) section of the campaign. If you are using an e-mail marketing service, they will typically provide functionality in the campaign that provides a CAN-SPAM compliant method for safely sharing an e-mail between a subscriber and non-subscriber. Ideally, this Forward to a Friend feature will send a copy of your e-mail to the referee that also enables them to join your e-mail list directly from the forwarded e-mail they receive. Be sure to also include a link to your Web site in your campaigns as well, or to a specific promotion on your site so anyone receiving the e-mail from a friend can get more information or sign up for the newsletter themselves. Once they do, it's just a matter of time before your informative, engaging newsletters will entice them to buy.

Don't Rely Only on Your Customers

Your customers can sell your business almost as well as you can, and their opinion is viewed as independent, which many times carries more weight for the referral. And as mentioned earlier, it is clear that current customers are often your best source for referrals. Yet, you likely have some prospects on your e-mail list that you will need to personally convince to take that next critical step. Here are a few e-mail tips to keep in mind:

* Make an offer: You can't expect anyone to buy from you if you don't offer them something in the first place. An appropriate offer should sweeten the purchase; it should super-charge your readers' desire to buy or sign up now. Examples of compelling offers are "Buy one, get one free" coupons or ones with a percentage off, or giveaway items with a purchase, such as "Buy $75 worth of flowering plants and receive The Handbook for Gardeners, by award-winning gardener and author, Bob Greenthumb."

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