Could Your Successful Email Campaign Lead to Too Many Customer Orders?
Could Your Successful Email Campaign Lead to Too Many Customer Orders
?
It may seem like an odd thing to say but your email marketing campaign could actually end up being a little bit too successful if you are not careful.Email is such a potentially powerful way of getting your message across that it could, at least in theory, lead to you being inundated with customer orders.
While this may sound like a marketing dream it could all too easily turn into a marketing nightmare if the orders all flood in at once and you don't have the capacity to fulfill them in a timely manner.Now your happy customers who have just paid up for your latest promotion could turn angry if they are kept waiting longer than you originally promised or longer than they might reasonably expect to wait.
Should this happen to you then the best thing to do is to be as honest as you can with your customers as soon as you realize there is a problem. Send an email to everyone who ordered from you and explain that due to unprecedented demand the goods will take longer to reach them than you had planned. Explain what measures you have taken to minimize the delay and provide a new realistic timeframe for the orders to be met. Many of your customers will be understanding enough to wait just a little bit longer and may feel comforted that the high level of demand reassures them they have made a good buying decision but some may give up and ask for a refund. In any event you will have to work around the clock to meet the orders you have already taken and keep the disappointment to a minimum.
If your list is particularly large then sending out offers to one section at a time may be a better way to go and would allow you to manage the response to any given mailing.
Another problem that many internet marketers have is deciding just when they should end an email campaign. The answer will depend on how the campaign is performing and the decision to end the campaign may come earlier or later than was originally intended.
Perhaps the easiest campaign to end is one where you had set a particular goal and that goal has been reached. If you can accommodate only 50 customers on a new training programme, but not 60, then the campaign should end when all the places are full.On the other hand if the take up rate is rather slow it may be wise to rewrite the sales copy and extend the campaign until the goal is met.
Finally you may be in the lucky position to have an evergreen' product or service, such as a long-running subscription newsletter or website. Here you may get new customers month after month and you could promote this by email indefinitely. As long as the emails keep working there is no reason to stop sending them.