How to use email to improve your business

You might be considering using email marketing to promote your products and services but have you ever considered how you could use it to support other areas of your business?

Recruitment and customer service are just two of the areas that can benefit from a well-constructed and carefully thought out email marketing plan.

This could not only make the difference between hiring your first choice and your last resort but help build a talent bank, promote you as an employer of choice and increase customer satisfaction – not bad for a few hours of lateral thinking.

Optimising recruitment

First, let's take a look at how email marketing can support your recruitment efforts.

Every day, people who may be interested in working for you are visiting your site. If only you could capture their contact details, send them your company newsletter and personlised alerts on opportunities that match their skill-set.

With smart use of email marketing you can. A system with a 'list-building interface' will allow you not only to capture contact details but immediately add them to your company newsletter list.

But let's get really smart. If you add a few more 'questions' and 'field' options besides the usual 'name' and 'email address', you can get a better understanding of the roles, locations and salary brackets potential candidates might be interested in.

Now that you have this information you can create job alerts to candidates specifically aimed at the parameters they have defined.

You've now turned your company website into an effective job board and created a talent bank of future candidates.

Improving customer satisfaction

So now we're on a roll – how can we use the same software to support the drive for ever-increasing customer satisfaction?

Every interaction with a customer is not only a sales opportunity but a vital opportunity for feedback.

Once a customer query has been resolved, an email can be sent that asks customers to 'rate' their experience. This can then be tracked using the reporting function of your email marketing package.

This gives you real-time feedback that can be actioned in a variety of ways:
to improve processes, to use as a Key Performance Indicator (KPI) for employees, as measurable evidence for employee appraisals and, most importantly, to keep communicating with your customers.

Email marketing is a great tool for supporting all areas of your business, so let your management team explore the medium today – it could offer just the solution you've been looking for.

If you have an innovative way of using email marketing to support your business practices, we'd love to hear about it. The top ideas will be published in next month's edition.

Click here to find out how to use customer service surveys in your business