Email is certainly one of the most powerful channels that a marketing team has at its disposal - in fact, it generates on average a 44x return on investment according to Campaign Monitor (the average ROI on Endear is 94x). The problem for many brands is that email marketing only serves as a broadcasting mechanism - you can use it to push out messages to your entire audience, but they can't talk back.

But given the positive impact that personalization has on email marketing, we believe that some email campaigns would perform dramatically better if managed by your sales team instead (or both). While in the past you may have had no choice but to send these emails through an email marketing platform for the sake of efficiency, migrating them to Endear can dramatically increase their effectiveness because it will not increase the level of personalization in the copy, but it will also give customers an opportunity to respond - all without costing you any additional time up front. As we've pointed out before, while Endear has a higher average conversion rate than email marketing overall, that number blows up even more when you specifically talk about conversions on messages where the salesperson was getting back to a customer. Below are the campaigns most likely to benefit from a personalized touch from your retail associates.

While the email marketing version of a thank-you note is limited to the logistical details of a customer's transaction, a thank-you sent by your sales team can be personalized to include details about the customer's store visit, or create an opportunity for the customer to ask additional questions to an expert if she happened to purchase online. When a "thank you" email is triggered by a purchase, the customer treats it like what it is - a transactional email. But when a customer receives a note that acknowledges not just what she bought but who she is, the effect can be quite different. In one study of users' outreach through Endear, thank-you notes had more than double the conversion rate of messages overall. Migrating this particular thread into a platform like Endear creates space for the customer to get to know your team on top of knowing your products.

Loyalty programs have grown in popularity alongside e-commerce and have done their jobs to get customers to stick around for longer. But loyalty programs were originally designed to be a scalable, automated version of a true VIP experience. They rely on specific activities and behaviors to trigger specific rewards. But they often fail to put the P in VIP. It's not about the person, but what they did, what they spent, or what they shared on social media. By migrating your VIP outreach into Endear, your sales team will be able to bring the personalization back into how your brand makes customers feel special by providing them with more than a discount or points - you'll be providing them with true white-glove service whether they shop online or in-store.

No one understands your local customers like your store teams do - so why outsource store marketing to HQ? There's no question that your marketing team has a ton on their plate, so giving your store associates the opportunity to lead the charge on detailing what services are available locally can be a great way to redistribute responsibilities. With Endear, each store operates as its own "team", which makes it easy for all managers and associates to stay on top of what content is going out and responses from customers that come in. This strategy can be especially helpful when services vary from store to store. Allowing each team to communicate with customers means that you don't need to overload your email marketing flows with a dozen different versions of the same email and you can ensure that if a customer has questions, they go to the person who can answer most accurately. Most importantly though, each store team will know how to put these services in the context of the area, personalizing the email with details that only a local would understand.

In a similar vein, giving your store teams the ability to market what's in-stock at their locations can be an excellent solution to avoiding unnecessary discounting or dealing with excess inventory. Depending on your inventory structure, store associates can use Endear to market products that might be sold out online but still available in-store. With Endear, they'll even be able to include product photos in their outreach and inform customers of exactly what sizes are still on the shelves. By moving this type of content into Endear, customers can confirm with your associates if and when they'll be coming in, or if they'd like to purchase items over the phone for local delivery.

Between an increase in frequency, collaborations, and market exclusives, the novelty of new products is certainly a powerful way to get your audience excited. With all that in mind, customers may want more information on when new products will hit their local shelves, or ensure that they are set up to actually touch and feel the latest and greatest from your brand. By giving your stores the power to market product drops in tandem with your digital marketing team, you're ensuring that customers have a direct line to the people that can field product-related and purchase-related questions in order to speed up a customer's conversion.

As retail opens up more and more, stores will also look to re-introduce store events into their marketing mix. Local events are a great opportunity to invite a specific audience to shop collectively at your stores, maybe with an exclusive discount. Often times a store team is best-equipped to understand exactly which audience to invite in, and what merchandise or type of event will appeal to that audience most. With Endear, your store teams can execute an entire event marketing campaign completely on their own in order to generate additional business before or after traditional store hours.

Relationship management is a fundamental piece of how businesses grow and succeed. Your email marketing team is a great resource for nurturing subscribers who are new to the brand, but coupling their efforts with those of your sales team can play a larger role in making sure that your customers feel a one-to-one connection with your brand. Learn more about how you can introduce authentic communication into your strategy by booking a demo of Endear.