CRM systems do not necessarily include an ESP (Email Service Provider), but many do. In fact, for most businesses, CRM and Email are joined without much distinction between them. There are a lot of good reasons for this, and we'll take a look at some of the most important features of Email that make it the prime choice for keeping your customer relationships relevant and engaging.
Most important is that pretty much anybody who is interacting with your business digitally also has an email address. The importance of an email address to customer's digital lives cannot be understated. It's not only used to send and receive messages, but as a means of registering with other websites, resetting passwords, and keeping track of important conversations. Without an email address, you become quite limited in what you can do online.
The ubiquitous nature of email makes it a common cornerstone of CRM programs, serving as both a means of linking interactions back to a single customer, but also as an inexpensive means of reaching your customers reliably.
Cost
Emails are a cost effective way of communicating with your customers. Even at low volume, emails can be anywhere from entirely free to send. Professional programs tend to start at around $0.001 per email. This means that you can feel secure in the ad spend around an email program-- often netting more than 37:1 Return-On-Investment.
One of the things to remember about this massive return is that it's not entirely scalable. Your customers will not engage to the same degree if you're sending 100 emails per day. Finding the right balance is important, and helps drive a healthy profit along with positive customer relationships.
Engagement
Customers make the choice to join an email list, and as a result tend to be far more engaged with your email program than other more broad forms of advertising. Compared to the click rate through an affiliate, Social, SEO, or Display campaign, a good email campaign will beat them all every time. Add in the additional relevance of order confirmations, scheduling updates, and site re-marketing to see why emails can drive tremendous (and mutually beneficial!) engagement with your brand.
Engaged, happy customers help spread your business through positive word of mouth and can serve as a basis for further customer "lookalike" acquisition through other channels, growing your business.
Want to understand your customers better while unlocking sustainable business growth? Have more access to 'levers' you can pull to increase sales? Email is a great place to start your customer relationships. We have the experience to ensure your program is the best for your business needs, and your customers.