A few months back I bought some wine from Waitrose via the web. It was my first time using their delivery service, run by a company called Ocado. I bought this wine because I have visited the maker in France, it’s good, inexpensive, Waitrose were offering 20% off first time on-line orders and Ocado were offering another £15 off as well. It was too good to miss.

But I didn’t make a second online purchase. Why? Well, we already get a lot of supermarket stuff online from another well known outfit. Plus, I don’t mind going to the supermarket. Sometimes I find it quite inspiring…

But I was on Waitrose’s radar. They started to email me. They made me offer upon offer to make that second purchase. Money off this, money off that. To get me over the energy barrier that exists in switching from one supplier to another. I quite like Waitrose, I am predisposed to them. But the shop is a 15 minute drive and life’s too short. I didn’t buy for the second time. That elusive repeat purchase. I reckon they emailed me 3 times a week for 4 months. I didn’t unsubscribe. Because I was interested. I was an “A” prospect. So they persevered with their emails until they got me. Email number 39 turned me into a repeat customer. Now I buy half my stuff from them, and that proportion is growing.

What finally got me was their offer of unlimited deliveries for a year for £40. I bit their hand off. That’s about 100 deliveries. That’s 40p per delivery. Now that may not have turned your head. But that’s not the point. Some other offer would probably have worked for you, eventually.

Interestingly, one of my mentors was talking just the other day about a 40 email follow-up sequence….

What has all this (re)taught me?

• When you have an “A” prospect, someone who has expressed a strong interest in what you do or has bought from you already, market to them ceaselessly until they buy or ask you to stop communicating with them.
• It can take some time. So, don’t give up.
• Don’t feel embarrassed about the constant contact– they are prospects and some of them will gladly become customers if presented with a compelling enough reason to do so. If the email “unsubscribes” you get from your CRM system upset you, don’t read them.
• Don’t be afraid of irritating some prospects. That means they’re probably not “A” prospects.
• Make many different offers. One will be right. Even if you have only one product, you can slice it up and repackage it in different ways for different people.
• Email marketing is cheap. Someone in Waitrose wrote a 40-odd email follow-up sequence. Maybe it’s more, who knows? That’s a fair bit of work but it’s a damn site cheaper than a TV or newspaper advert. And in time Waitrose will learn which emails convert the most effectively, allowing them to shorten their lead time to conversion, and thereby sell more stuff more quickly.
• Not all prospects are equal. One of my friends also gets the emails but has not been offered the deal I was offered. A year’s worth of deliveries for £40 will cost Waitrose a fair bit of money. So this deal isn’t offered to everyone. Maybe it’s only offered to people who are interested enough to open dozens of emails. Waitrose will be aware of these statistics and can act accordingly.

Email marketing…simple, effective, cheap. Great stuff.

I’ve often wondered about this, so I bought some. A list of 1300 senior business people, in organisations of up to 100 people, in various industry sectors, across the NorthWest. With email addresses. These people are my target market segment, for part of my business.

I emailed them. I was marketing my Business Growth Workshop. I tried to write some attractive copy. I sent one email. I sent another the next week repeating the offer, and offering a subscription to this blog and also asking if they’d like a free consultation with me. I then sent a third email that was just like the second.

Buying the list and writing the emails took between one and two hours. The list cost £350 plus vat.

So, what happened?

First the bad…

My Mother says bad news travels fast. So it seems. Immediately upon sending email 1 I had an unpleasant email conversation with a rude and offensive solicitor. He asked me lots of questions and asked for references. I answered his questions and provided references. He then decided to go directly to my friend and guest speaker, Ian Brodie. Ian, whom I had kept in the loop with this guy’s nasty emails, told him were to get off. He didn’t like that.

I had another initially unpleasant conversation with a man who assumed I was unethical even although by his own admission I appeared legitimate. After a few emails we ended up agreeing that we were both great people and we parted as friends.

I had another reply from someone who suggested I “get a proper job and stop being a bullsh*t consultant.” I checked him out. Goodness me, he knows what he’s talking about. He clearly has had a lot of advice from bullsh*t consultants.

And then the good…

Well, I got about 9 signups to Pearls. History would say one of them will buy within a year.

I got about 7 downloads of my Small Business Healthcheck. Again, this will lead to about one sale within the next year.

I got an email from an MD of an international company who asked for more info. I had a nice call with her and we’ll see what happens. I got a call from another MD of an international company. I have since met him and we have planned to do a pilot coaching programme, and, if he likes it, we’ll roll it out to some of his team. And then maybe the world. Who knows?

Oh, and I got two delegates for the workshop as well.

I got an average 18% open rate, say about 230 opens per email. I was surprised that this was so high. Maybe my copywriting is getting better. They say you should concentrate on the headline, or in this case, the email title. I did.

So, what is my return-on-investment?

Well, it’s £1,700 immediately and a high probability of approximately £3,000 to £5,000 over the next 6 months. There will be more after that, but I’m not going to bother to estimate it. So that’s a total return of roughly £5,700, conservatively.  I will review this properly at 6 months and 12 months.

And there’s still more value to be had from the list…53 people looked at the workshop microsite but didn’t buy…that doesn’t mean they’re not interested…they opened the email, went to the site and spent an average of 3 minutes there. They’re clearly interested. It’s just that they weren’t ready to buy, for whatever reason. But their time will come.

For a first attempt at using cold data I’d say it was a resounding success.

Marketing? Great stuff.