Retailer Engagement Series (Part 1): Leveraging Email Digests To Increase Marketing Program Participation

Cutting through the clutter of messages overwhelming retailers today can be difficult, but it’s not impossible. In this four part series we’ll cover steps that you can take right now to drive higher levels of engagement with your retailers, and hopefully, increase sales.

Part 1: Leveraging Email Digests To Increase Marketing Program Participation

Your retailers are busy and their attentions are divided. If you want to get them to take better advantage of your marketing programs you need to A) Find more ways to get through to them and B) Get them to take action. Retailers tell us that they prefer email over other forms of communication, but what’s the key to cutting through all their inbox clutter? Keep things short, snappy, and action-oriented. And you can do that by sending email “digests.” A digest is a “Just the facts, Ma’am” approach. It’s not intimidating, in fact, just by glancing at a digest you should get the impression that “Hey, this is short. I can read this now.” Which is exactly what you want your retailers to do.

Getting Started

Here are two simple steps plus some tips to help you get started. If you’re already sending digests, these are ways you can revamp your current retailer e-communication efforts:

Step 1: Recruit your retailers to sign up for a digest by telling them that you plan to send this communication more frequently (perhaps weekly) and that it will be filled with important, yet short, actionable tips and benefits. Show them an example so they’ll know exactly what they’re getting. This protects your larger mailings from subscriber fatigue and recruits a core of active, engaged retailers.

Step 2: Deliver the goods. You can prepare big, long, detailed plans, but what you put in your digest will be just one short paragraph, maybe an image, and a link to your site to learn more. Each digest item should be action oriented.

Some Important Tips

• – Use content from your eNewsletters and website. In fact, digests are a great way to direct retailers to this longer form content. Use this sort, snappy email to attract attention. Think of the paragraphs as executive summaries, just enough information to get the reader to click through and read the full article, sign up for a program, or share something successful that they’re doing.
• – The entire digest should be short. Typically three to five items, especially if you’re sending it out weekly. But make them count! The best items to include will be tips, things that retailers can implement quickly and easily.
• – Feature the participation activities of your retailers. It’s probably not a surprise to know that your retailers don’t pay attention to everything you do, but they do pay attention to what their fellow retailers are doing. Featuring your retailers in the digest will help you train and encourage other retailers to take advantage of regular brand-supporting activities. And that will pay off big time.

Coming Soon, Part 2: Using Your Brand’s Facebook Page to Feature Retailers