Guidelines and best practices for communicating Covid-19 updates

4 minute read

Could your Covid-19 email updates cost you future business?

The Covid-19 pandemic has had a widespread impact on businesses and industries around the globe. People are searching for answers and reassurance in uncertain times from our government officials, but additionally from our business partners and vendors. These are the people who fulfill our orders and service our customers and our employees. Over the past week, we’ve all received emails from vendors and companies we work with providing their own updates, some including relevant information and some that do not. It’s those emails lacking relevance that has prompted this communication to our customers, because of the negative impact it could have on your future sales-related email campaigns.

Mothernode customers have been no different when wanting to communicate with their customer base. Because Covid-19 communications from businesses to their customers are quite popular these days, many companies question whether they should be sending out Covid-19 emails to their customers, or more importantly are they doing something wrong if they don’t? The answer to that question is based on your industry and how you service your customers. Essentially, ask yourself this basic question, “does your email distribution list need to hear from you?” If your ability to service your customer base has been interfered with or changed in any way, then the answer is “yes”, and communication is necessary, and will be appreciated and better received. On the other hand, if it’s business as usual, then email blasting your 30,000 contacts in your contact list might not be a good idea, especially if you are depending on that list for future sales or more targeted email campaigns.

There’s no doubt that Covid-19 will have an impact on every business, some worse than others. We’re encouraging Mothernode customers to evaluate the necessity of communication with their customers based on the services they provide. Tighter, more segmented distribution lists are also recommended when applicable. 

In the past week, we’ve seen heightened priority emails sent out from Mothernode CRM customers to their respective clients. An important observation that we wanted to share is the messages that had the least impact, or none at all, on the customer’s experience with their service were the messages that had the most complaints (tagged as spam by the recipient) and the highest unsubscribe rates. Complaints increase your spam score along with drops resulting from sending to a ‘dirty’ list filled with bad or outdated email addresses. This could have a short-term impact on your next email marketing campaigns to those who still want to hear from you because even the email recipients who are interested in hearing from you might not receive your next run. It’s possible that their email service provider has identified your email as spam based on the complaints made by others and/or drops from the previous email-send. 

The long-term impact from those who have removed themselves from your email list via unsubscribe or tagging you as spam is that they will miss out on all the future communications that might be more relevant to their interests. Your email marketing efforts will no doubt play a critical role in the coming months to help generate more business opportunities. Therefore we’re encouraging email marketers to be mindful of doing what they can to prevent unsubscribes that will extinguish future sales opportunities that otherwise could have been ignited by quality, content-rich email marketing campaigns.

With this said, we’ve prepared a few alternatives, cost-effective communication strategies that can prevent you from losing future sales opportunities via email to complaints and spam:

 

Add a Covid-19 Statement to your website

One of the most practical solutions to update your customers (in real-time) on how your business will continue to minimize service interruption and address popular concerns related to the Covid-19 pandemic is by preparing a statement on your website. This ideal solution lets you post the latest information, keeping your clients informed.

 

Modifications to your email signature

In conjunction with your website notice consider an amendment to your signature to direct your readers to any information you want to share with them about the latest updates within your company. 

Examples: 

We’re committed to doing our part to stopping the spread of Covid-19. Here’s how

or

Covid-19 Updates: For the latest updates on our hours of operations Click here

 

Packaging your shipments

A great way to reassure your customers that you’re committed to the health and safety of their employees is by adding additional information on their packaging. Add a personal touch by printing your own labels that communicate the extra care your shipping department takes when packaging items for customers. This may include sharing sanitizing practices such as routine hand sanitizing, and personnel wearing gloves and masks.

 

Packing Notices

Alternatively, you may consider a friendly packing notice that accompanies your packing slips that communicates the aforementioned. 

 

These strategies provide effective and thoughtful alternatives when communicating with your customers, enabling you to ‘save’ your email campaign opportunities for specific, targeted and relevant communications. Employing the above guidance and techniques will help to minimize email complaints, spam-tagging and unsubscribes while keeping your customers and prospects informed today and eager to read about new and exciting, revenue-generating opportunities tomorrow.

4 minute read
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Copyright 2023 Mothernode, LLC. All rights reserved.

Copyright 2023 - Mothernode, LLC. All rights reserved