Enhancing the Customer Experience through Email

I regularly sign up for newsletters and one thing I have noticed is the lack of effort many businesses put into ensuring my experience as a subscriber is engaging, intriguing and memorable. A recent study carried out by Responsys revealed that over a third of the UK’s top 50 online retailers fail to ‘welcome’ or ‘thank’ customers who actively subscribe to email communications. To me this is quite a shocking stat.

I’m sure most businesses understand that permission marketing via a double opt-in subscription process is a very important part of email marketing, but do they understand that it does not have to be a cold experience? 91% of email users that have subscribed to a company’s email, then later decided they no longer wanted to receive the emails and unsubscribe, so building a solid relationship from the beginning is very important.

The Standard Double opt-in process:

From signing up to many newsletters, I noticed that although many companies are using a double opt-in subscription process they appear to be missing an opportunity to engage with their new subscribers. The general process & messaging appears to be fairly standard across the board; You input your name and email address then hit submit. An email is then sent to your inbox for you to confirm your details, that looks something like this:

“Please confirm your email address… before you’re added to our list please confirm your email address.”

Once the link is clicked a confirmation message will follow:

“Thanks, you’ve now been added to our list and will start receiving our newsletters.”

And that’s it…

In both messages there is a massive opportunity to get me, as a subscriber, engaged with the brand. The initial validation email is fairly limited as all you are asking them to do is click a link, but by playing with the way you word the email, you can start to get the company personality across. As for the confirmation email, this is where you can really begin to ‘welcome’ your new subscriber.

Think of it like gaining a new friend rather than just another cold, lifeless email address that you send your newsletters to; after all they’ve taken the time to sign up to your newsletter, shouldn’t you take the time to make them feel welcome and thank them for that?

The Enhanced Double opt-in process:

When recently working with New Zealand wine manufacturer, Little Beauty, we wanted to take advantage of every opportunity to engage with the customer. Based on the experiences I have had when signing up for newsletters, we agreed we wanted to offer each new subscriber something warm and welcoming. To do this we went back to square one and started looking at each step of the subscription process from the sign up form to their first newsletter.

The brand itself is very personal and is the only wine to present itself in the first person, so we wanted to keep that personal nature throughout this process. The area on the website for people to sign up is called ‘Become My Friend’. On this page we wanted to make it very clear what the Value Proposition is and to be 100% transparent about what the subscriber will receive from Little Beauty after signing up, so we came up with this:

On signing up to their newsletter, the first email the subscriber receives is a plain text email saying:

“Dear *first name*,
As a new Friend of Little Beauty, I wanted to check I’ve got your correct details. Please click the link below as this will confirm to me that your details are indeed correct!
*Unique Link*
And then your Little Beauty Friendship journey begins….”

Instantly we wanted to make the subscriber feel valued and also wanted to let them know that it’s not going to be a lifeless subscription. As this email is just to confirm an email address, the messaging needs to be short and to the point but the choice of words like ‘journey’ & ‘friend/friendship’ inject personality and life into the email.

Once the subscriber clicks on the link they are sent the HTML welcome message; which you can see here:

The beauty (pardon the pun!!!) of this welcome email is that right from the first interaction, the subscriber is being thanked for taking the time to engage with Little Beauty and it reiterates the fact that they are becoming ‘friends’ rather than just another email address on a list. The subscriber is rewarded for their friendship with an exclusive, unique discount URL where they can regularly get 15% off orders. The email also explains exactly what they can expect from future email interactions, which helps build the trust within the friendship. Finally as friendships are a two-way thing, Little Beauty asks the subscriber to complete some further information about themselves in order to get to know them better, allowing for more relevant and targeted messages in future.

Comparing this double opt-in process to most of the others I have subscribed to, Little Beauty stands out from the crowd already and stays true to the brand’s personal nature. New subscribers are really put first, with their experience being enhanced by simply spending more time thinking about what the customers would want to see.

Enhancing it further with an Early Engagement Strategy:

Going back to my sign up experiences, after I’d gone through the double opt-in process and I’m confirmed as a subscriber to a newsletter, I appeared to have no further unique interactions from any of the companies. There was no drip campaign, early engagement process or personal interactions, which to me was another missed opportunity… The battle of the emails in my inbox means that only the ones I really want to read will get read, so what are companies doing to make sure they’re the ones getting read? Yes, content, subject lines, deliverability and other factors play their part but wouldn’t you much rather read a message from someone you knew and had a relationship with, than a faceless, impersonal company email?

This is another experience we took on board with Little Beauty. We set up an early engagement process for new friends joining the newsletter list. From this we wanted to plan the subscribers experience and journey by putting ourselves in their shoes… The big question being, if I’m into Little Beauty what would I want to get? Then we thought we’d throw in a few extras too.

So to enhance the customer experience we drew up a list of things we felt customers would appreciate and engage with, we also listed the things that Little Beauty as a company wanted to achieve from the engagement process and came up with three key messages:

• 3 Days after signing up the new friend is sent an email with a downloadable Food matching table, which details the styles of food that go perfectly with each variety of Little Beauty wine. The message also prompts the individual to post their ideas and recommendations of their favourite combinations via Little Beauty’s Facebook Page or by directly emailing Little Beauty. Finally the email also includes an order delivery fee comparison against other leading competitors to emphasise the benefits of purchasing Little Beauty. Back this up with the already received 15% discount link, the new friend can clearly see the value of the Little Beauty friendship.
• 10 days after signing up they are sent an exclusive ‘Taste The Range’ offer where they can order a mixed case of the entire Little Beauty range at a largely discounted rate, getting to know the brand better and encouraging them to share the wine with their friends. There is also a detailed breakdown of the taste sensations the user will experience from each variety.
• 30 days after signing up they receive a recipe that goes perfectly with Little Beauty’s best seller; Sauvignon Blanc. They are encouraged to share their experience with Little Beauty directly via Facebook by asking people to post their feelings about the wine, dinner party photos and recipes they’ve made.

The whole user experience from sign up to 30 days is all about involving the new ‘friend’ with what Little Beauty does; Giving them discounts, opportunities to get to know the wine varieties, gaining a deeper understanding of the tastes/flavors & how to make the most of the wine experience with selected recipes. The experience also encourages interaction via social media, requests further information on the subscriber to help send more detailed messages in future and provide opportunities for the subscriber to contact Little Beauty directly with any questions they may have. The user’s sign up experience is enhanced at every opportunity and the results provide good statistical data to justify the reasoning behind the process:

Results so far

• 87.8% open rate
• 62% clicked on the friends discount link (welcome email)
• 45.45% downloaded the food matching table (3 day email)
• 14.81% clicked on the taste the range link (10 day email)
• 33.78% clicked on the recipe (30 day email)

There is still more that can be done to enhance the user experience further for example we could generate the early engagement messages based on the subscribers behaviours and interactions with them, providing a totally unique experience based on what they do. We can also look at the email results and change the design of the emails to try and increase the CTR further. It’s an ongoing process and we’re always learning about how customers interact with emails, so planning, testing, analysing and refining is the key ethic behind enhancing the user experience.

By thinking about what we want our customers to experience when they interact with us, be it through email or other mediums, we can set up strategies in order to ensure the experience is satisfied. I believe enhancing each and every customer experience should be a top priority for any business and spending the extra time to make that happen will undoubtedly generate positive results in the long run.

What do you believe is a good way to enhance the customer experience through email? Do you agree that this double opt-in and early engagement strategy is effective and really does enhance the customer experience of the brand?

Please leave your comments below and examples of how you have enhanced the customer experience through email.