Franchising World – Your Most Effective Customer Survey Tool is E-Mail

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Release date: October 08, 2007  /  Print This

By Tim Schaden

Just about every franchise system in America has access to the world’s most effective, most relevant customer survey and relationship tool and it is less expensive and more accurate than third-party surveys because the reactions are based on real-world opportunities. When used strategically, e-mail loyalty programs can increase customer frequency and be a guide for shaping future messages to new and existing customers.

Once implemented, a combination of advanced techniques designed to improve e-mail deliverability, response and viral effect will often grow a brand’s loyalty database significantly in the first year and more for many years to come. The most powerful plans combine this increased reach and response with a well-structured customer profiling strategy. This can be especially advantageous for franchise marketers because it can be applied at both the corporate and local store levels, thereby enhancing the opportunity to create the most valuable relationship with the brand and the individual service provider.

Act Globally and Locally

Build the program using the two most powerful franchise resources, corporate brand recognition and local customer contact. When inquiries arrive through the corporate Web site, grab the ZIP code of each online visitor or let them select the store nearest to them. At the store level, allow customers to drop business cards into an entry box to receive information and offers. Of course, an initial incentive can help increase volume. The intake forms should have simple checkboxes designed to create a customer profile for each person entering the program. A good form can yield demographic information, as well as specific product and service interest. Testing can reveal which incentives move people into permission-based programs and which don’t, giving the franchise system a better feel for the tastes of incoming members and to answer such questions as to whether customers value a luxurious trip more than things that are free.

Typically, the e-mail address of each visitor to the site will be tagged with a specific nearby store location. That tag allows the store to provide its local customers an offer exclusive to that location or supplemental Site. For example, when a major sports event is coming to town, the local store can send offers related to get-togethers to the people associated with their store. Deeper community relationships can even be developed by mentioning that a portion of the proceeds will go to support a local school’s fund-raising program. At the corporate level, a message sent to the entire database might include a new product announcement and a “bring-a-friend” offer to enhance frequency and new trial.

Most important and often overlooked is testing a number of variables against each other such as variations in offer, creative and local response. A more complex technique called regression testing can indicate the most powerful combination of these elements for maximum response. The information should also be associated with customer profiles. What did they respond to before? What did they say they were interested in? Future campaigns will be smarter at the local and national levels. Each series of testing and response adds to a picture of the market currently being reached. This process can generate great information about which messaging should be used in other marketing channels, as well as what might need to change to hit new market segments.

Once the franchise system has connected with a loyal customer base, e-mail messages don’t always need to price offers to generate interest from recipients. At the corporate level, they simply may contain announcements about add service offerings; local stores, on the other hand, may offer such news as, “We’ve doubled our parking,” or “We’ve added a new turn lane.” Giving customers a chance to enter a sweepstakes to win a prize can boost responsiveness as well.

Extend results even further by adding a “forward-to-a-friend” feature that brings additional prospects in contact with the brand and the local franchise. This viral element should be part of every e-mail that is sent. In fact, a compelling viral component or giveaway can allow a company to boost its database in the first month. Posting announcements about sweepstakes on message boards or popular online community sites, gain additional branding and reach.

If the company contacts its customers frequently, it’s a good idea to test that market to see at what point the franchise system stops becoming informative and starts becoming an annoyance to its customers. The point can be determined by monitoring the unsubscribe rate. When the number of unsubscribe requests start increasing by more than 1 percent, the system will know it needs to pull back on frequency. To avoid irritating all system customers, test increased frequency and other more risky techniques with only a small segment of the database, perhaps 5 percent.

Getting Through–Gaining Impact

Personalizing e-mail messages can also improve results. Address each customer by name in the subject line and the greeting and write about information that particular customer segment is seeking. A much greater proportion of e-mails will be opened and read. An optimized subject line that included a personalized name can result in many more messages being opened.

Always keep in mind that the company must provide something of personal value when it sends an e-mail, frequency can be a negative factor if customers receive e-mails with no purpose in mind. They’ll simply unsubscribe or block future messages as junk mail.

Segmenting the customer base and preparing the e-mails requires expertise that may be most readily available through a partner online marketing agency. Here are some of the advanced, but important, techniques that franchise systems may call on their marketing partner to provide:

• To prevent messages from being considered spam—and therefore subject not only to deletion, but possible legal penalties—they must be prepared in compliance with the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003. For example, this U.S. regulation bans misleading headers and deceptive subject lines in commercial e-mail messages. Recipients must be provided a method to opt out of receiving future messages and the sender must have a physical postal address. Each violation is subject to a fine of up to $11,000.

• E-mails should be tested with all the various kinds of e-mail “clients,” such as G-mail, AOL, Yahoo!, Microsoft Hotmail and Microsoft Outlook. Wording may come out scrambled in some of these or be rejected by others if not constructed properly.

• Some e-mail clients default to graphics turned “off,” and individuals can turn off graphics themselves in others, so marketers need to provide a link to an alternative non-graphics version or a link to an online site where the graphics will be displayed (though recipients will be reluctant to click on links they may not trust).

• A spam-rating tool keeps marketers constantly up to date on which subject lines or other wording are considered spam. The message should be run through a spam assessor so it doesn’t end up in customers’ deleted folders before they have a chance to see the e-mail.

• Similarly, marketing partners can ensure that e-mails are sent from a “white-listed” server—one not used by spammers and therefore not blacklisted by recipient servers. A local Internet service provider may unwittingly have been blacklisted if a subscriber has used that service to send objectionable commercial e-mails.

• Agencies can track which e-mails have been opened, unsubscribed, blocked or sent to bad addresses and which prompted the most people to take action. Then companies can shape future messages to bring forward the action-generating content for each audience segment.

• Automating e-mails can allow the server to do the work, instead of taking staff time to prepare and send blast e-mails. An auto-responder can pick up a request for an offer and send a response without human intervention. The same can be done for messages on birthdays, gift reminders, life events and service events.

While a professional online marketing firm can help assure that the message reaches its intended audience in good shape, a franchise system can take a number of other steps to develop a message that is likely to be read and answered:

• Keep copy brief and in the format preferred by the customer. Sometimes, for example, customers prefer to receive a graphical e-mail relating to an announcement of an event, but prefer text-only reminders thereafter as the event date approaches.

• Include a persuasive, personalized call to action in the subject line.

• Since many e-mail programs preview only the top half of an e-mail for the reader, include an offer and important calls to action in the upper part of the message.

• Label the offer as an “e-mail-only exclusive.” Customers are likely to keep the message as proof of the exclusive, and they will realize that responding to the e-mail is the only way to take advantage of the offer.

• Over time, send multiple e-mails to each customer to remain top of mind. On average, customers buy after the fifth “touch,” but most sales efforts by the company cease after only the second.

• Design the e-mail campaign as a story, so that readers look forward to the next e-mail for more information or entertainment.|

• Coordinate the e-mail campaign with the customer’s purchasing time frame.

Buying lists and blasting to unsuspecting targets has usually cost more than it is worth. It takes time to build a good customer database, but a strong corporately-backed program can make gains in a short time. When managed with a disciplined approach, the resulting relationships will be rich with possibility.