If you’re a marketer for an Enterprise organization, chances are good that you actually are. Treating your most important customers like shit, we mean.
Alright, alright… let’s not get all bent out of shape. We’ll explain.
You know all that time and effort you put into creating beautiful, relevant, promotional emails that convert leads and prospects into customers?
How often do you do the same for a triggered, transactional, or automated email?
And just to be clear, the emails we’re talking about here are all those that are triggered as the result of an action on the customer’s part — a purchase, an app sign-up, an abandoned shopping cart, a password reset… you get the picture.
We’re also talking about automated emails like app notifications — ‘You have a new friend’, ‘Bob liked your post’, ‘Happy birthday’, ‘Recent sign-in from a new device’, etc.
So again, how much effort do you put into transactional and automated emails? Into giving the same kind of awesome experience to your existing customers that your prospective customers have come to expect? Once in a blue moon? Oh, wait, let’s take a wild guess…
Pretty much never?
It actually wouldn’t surprise us. We see it all the time. And don’t feel too bad — you’re far from alone. It’s all too common for Enterprise organizations to leave transactional and automated emails in the hands of product teams and engineers who tend to think of them as set-and-forget communications that rarely, if ever, warrant an update.
But what these emails all have in common is that they are sent to customers. Not leads, not prospects, not potential purchasers — genuine, bona fide, money-spending customers.
And that’s exactly what makes them your most important customers. Don’t believe us? Adobe’s CMO.com compiled some very interesting statistics, including the fact that 80% of your future profits will come from just 20% of your existing customers.
That means that all those new prospects you’re working so hard to convert can only ever hope to contribute towards 20% of future revenue. Less than that, actually, because the remaining 80% of your existing customers will contribute toward that 20% as well.
Pretty sobering, isn’t it?
Clearly, if you’re not doing your utmost to wring the most value out of your transactional emails, by optimizing them to provide the most value to your customers, you’re leaving a lot of money on the table. Just think of all the cross- and upsell opportunities you’re missing out on, not to mention all the reviews and referrals.
Startups, on the other hand, have this transactional email thing down-pat, treating every post-purchase message with the same care and attention — not to mention creativity — that they put into their pre-purchase emails.
But more importantly, startups are setting the standard for treating their existing customers with that same care and attention, making every product experience awesome, throughout the entire customer lifecycle. The result is fanatically loyal customer bases that most Enterprises still only dream of.
So why not take a lesson (or six) from some stellar startups who are known for excelling at transactional and automated email? It just so happens we have an entire white paper that will help you do exactly that. It’s called, How to Engage Customers and Deepen Relationships: What Startups Can Teach Enterprise About Transactional Email.
Our white paper explores the reasons Enterprises struggle with these emails and why startups are getting them so right, including examples of both the bad — (sorry, Air Canada – love you!) — and the good.
You’ll also discover practical guidance on how to implement similar strategies within your own organization.
So what are you waiting for? Isn’t it long past time you stopped treating your most important customers like shit?
Want to learn more?
Join Sendwithus CEO Matt Harris in a discussion about the serious wake up call Enterprise marketers need regarding the creation of exceptional transactional email experiences. Learn how these crucial communications can help you realize the full revenue potential of your most important customers — those you’ve already won. Using real-world examples, we explore the significant lessons that startups can teach Enterprise about optimizing transactional email to maximize growth.
