Companies spend millions of dollars each year in an effort to acquire new customers online. Money well spent? For those marketers who consider a complete marketing strategy, the answer is yes. Online customer acquisition is the most cost effective way to add new people to a company’s in-house file. The problem is that most marketers are missing a key ingredient in their acquisition strategy: Confirmation Emails.
Think about it, in the last month how many times have you signed up for some new service or maybe purchased a product online that required submitting an email address? Even if you only did it once, in a best-case scenario you would have received a text base email confirmation of your information submission. Typically you submit your contact details into the void and hope that no one is stealing your private information or worse yet, that you’ll start getting the S word…SPAM! This experience is where marketers continue to underestimate the power of email.
Why send an email confirming a registration? Let’s put online sales aside for a second and consider online sign-up for things like newsletters or promotional communications. After asking a person to submit all of their personal information they are sent to a thank you page (Or should be!). By adding a confirmation email to the process you not only provide the person signing up confirmation that their information actually went somewhere but you are opening a line of communication with that user through email. The email should not only confirm but should thank the user for completing the sign-up process. The confirmation email sets the tone of the online relationship, telling the user what they can expect from your company!
What should the messaging include?
When sending a confirmation email the first thing you want to do is confirm whatever information the user has submitted. Consumers like to feel confident that information is received and will not be treated poorly. The message should also include a dialogue to the recipient regarding what types of email communications they will be receiving from your company. A confirmation email also offers an opportunity for your company to thank the user for signing up or making a purchase. By reinforcing your appreciation for their business you help foster loyalty and have a greater likelihood of retaining the customer. If there is a welcome message in your on-boarding strategy (and there should be) you don’t need to go into a lot of detail but simply provide information stated above. In these first communications to your new users it is important to set their expectations in regards to the email channel and the types of emails they will be receiving.
Email confirmations provide the perfect opportunity for you as a marketer to plant a seed with your customers regarding email communications. It is also a great opportunity to show users that you appreciate their patronage. If done right it will only reinforce your brand presence with a new customer. Online registrants expect a confirmation email…Give it to them!
Until Next time…Always be Curious…
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Very true George.
A Confirmation Email is The First Step Towards Customer’s Delight.
The online registrants are expecting a confirmation email and their response to these seems to be very much high. On the receipt of the confirmation email, the customer not only feels good about the brand but also helps in building the company a ‘Non Spammer’ by replying. As the ‘deliverability’ seems to be the most challenging part in email marketing these days, the confirmation emails will definitely make the company’s IPs perform better (at least for the first few times).
Though there are different types of confirmation emails (don’t reply, just reply, click to confirm etc), the ‘Just Reply with out any information’ option seems to be user friendly as it saves the users’ time and automatically adds the from address to their address book (some domains like Yahoo give option to add).
I feel that the confirmation emails should only have the details of the sign up to the brand and the steps to confirm it but not any Graphics / Ads. This way the companies can ensure that they are not spammers and they care for customer values.
Thanks authors for the specified materials, a lot of the compelling data. All good.