Connecting with Customers

Posted on by ccsretail

Last week, I talked about using Loyalty Programs in Counterpoint to keep customers coming back.  Another way to keep them coming back is to stay in contact with them.   Most of you have probably heard of Constant Contact – it’s an email marketing program.  But you have to keep it up to date with email addresses and pick the customers you want to send a specific email to.  What if you could have something that connected directly to your Counterpoint database?   What you need then is Customer Connect.   An email marketing program that pulls information directly from your customer database.

Enter you customer’s email just once in Counterpoint and it will be populated in Customer Connect.   No double entry.  Then you set the email campaign you want to send and it will look at your database and pull the customers that meet the campaign specification and send out the marketing piece you have put together.   

Some of the more popular ones are:

  • Welcome email – whenever a new customer is entered in Counterpoint they get a Welcome email from you.  Maybe you want to offer them a discount to come back in.
  • Haven’t See You In A While – Setup a campaign to look for customers who haven’t bought anything in a specific amount of time – email them and offer them a special to come back in.
  • Happy Birthday – get your customer’s birthday – either date or month and put it in a profile field.  Then at the beginning of each month sent out a Happy Birthday greeting and tell them to come in a get a present from you.
  • Sales – having a sales on specific product(s)?  Setup a campaign for that and Customer Connect will search you database for customers who have bought the product(s) in the past and email them that it’s going on sale.

The great thing about this is, for most campaigns, you can set them once and schedule multiple periodic future runs.   You don’t need to do anything other than the initial setup.   If your customer gives you their emails, birthdays, favorite color, animal’s name, kid’s birthday and whatever else you dream up – they will be expecting emails from you.

I know if works for me.  Every August when my birthday rolls around, I start looking for those emails that say I get a free ice cream cone or a discount at a store I shop at.   It gets me back there to spend my birthday money!

Call or email me today about a 3 month Free Trial of Customer Connect.

marilyn@ccscentral.com

HAPPY SWEET 16.

Marilyn

Are You Connecting with Your Customers?

Posted on by ccsretail
Customer Loyalty Programs and email marketing are just a fact of life any more.   I remember when loyalty programs 1st came out at the groceries stores and they wanted your phone number and email.  Everyone thought this was so intrusive!   Today we don’t think anything of it.   I’m signed up for loyalty programs at every store I shop at.  I even have a separate key chain in my purse that just has store cards on it.  And I have a 2nd email that I give out for these programs.  That way I can read them as I have time and not have them clogging up my business or personal email.  More about email marketing in my next blog.
 
I’m also a bargain shopper.   An example is that I shop at 3 major drug stores in our area.   One accumulates points and gives you discounts based on your total points from the previous year.  I’m at their highest level and get a 20% discount on items not on sale.   So if I need something and none of the 3 stores has it on sale, I go to that store to get my 20%.   And of course I buy more than I planned!
 
So loyalty programs work and keep customers coming back. Counterpoint has a number of different ways within the system to setup different programs.   You could do a Senior Discount program by just setting up a customer type.   One of CCS’s customer does just that.   They give 10% discount to seniors every day of the week and then they have Senior Tuesdays where the discount is 20%.  Guess which day of the week they have their highest sales?   And they have loyal customers that keep coming back.   So depending on what you sell and where you’re located, a simple program like this can drive sales your way.
 
There is also a Loyalty Program built into Counterpoint that allows customers to accumulate points on purchases (you define which products or categories) and then those points can be redeemed for future purchases or special incentives.  These points can be redeemed at Point of Sales, just like any other form of payment.
 
Call 800-672-4806 or email us for help with getting going on your loyalty program today!
 

Next Week – email marketing.

Happy 1st Day of Spring!
Marilyn