BIRAYANG BERBAGI

by Cindy Siow

5 Ways to use Emails in your sales process
If you have been trying new methods of traffic generation such as twitter, Youtube or facebook marketing, then you may have overlooked a 'goldmine' of sales opportunity in your sales process-that is the use of the simple email.

Email is a fast and effective means for delivery information to your customers. Almost everyone has an e-mail account. But not everyone has a twitter or facebook account. Hence email as a form of customer communication is still as effective.
Here are some ways you can use e-mail in the sales process for your business
1) Customer Follow-ups
Customers want to know that you care. After they have made a purchase, a simple 'thank you' email can go a long way towards building customer loyalty and goodwill.
• In addition, you can also increase the dollar amount of sales by doing some upsells through your emails. For example, you can send a 'thank you' email and give coupon discounts off another product.
• This approach is used by some very smart online marketers who present a series of upsells once you have made a payment thru the payment gateway. Remember, you were brought to a page which offered you a 'one-time-offers', followed by another after making an online purchase?
• Even big companies like Amazon used this approach to give you several recommendations of book titles related to the one your have bought.
2) Giving new information and updates to customers
If you have a customer database, you need to have a form of constant communication with them. The best way to do that is through e-mails. Email is a good approach for presenting the latest information about your organization, latest products and promotions to your customers. You may even do some prelaunch of your new products at this stage.
3) Educating customers
Whenever there are industry news that are relevant to your customers, sending them a simple e-mail with your analysis of the situation can position you and your organization as the expert in this area.
For instance if your organizations specializes in selling house alarms, you notice that there is an increase in recent break-in after daylight savings has started, you can do some research and present little known facts that may help your customers improve security in their homes.
4) Answering customer queries
Granted, some customers may have more questions before making a purchase. Thus e-mail is a good way to answer most if your customer's queries.
It also eliminates the need for them to suit your time especially if you are on E.S.T and they are on P.S.T.
In addition, you can also consolidate a series of common customer queries and place them in your website as F.A. Qs.
5) Special Promotions
Running a special Thanksgiving sale? The humble email is the best way to let your loyal customers in on the best deals you have.
Email promotions is still the best way to give them coupon deals, package prices or even promote your subscription deals.
Emails can do wonders in your sales process from prelaunch to moving your customers through every stage of the sales process. So before you buy into all the Web X.0 promotional tactics, fall back on the humble email for an immediate boost to your sales.