According to the "E-mail Marketing Industry Census 2010", published earlier this year by Econsultancy, the 'split' of e-mails that are sent is larger for customer retention than for acquisition: 58% of this split is for e-mails with retention purposes, 42% applies to acquisition.  

Both in terms of customer acquisition and retention, there are various challenges involved with e-mail marketing.

The emergence of new communication channels, the apparent increase in promotional messages through various channels and the increasing "marketing fatigue" and control of communication by the recipient, make direct customer acquisition, regardless of the source, difficult to achieve. Especially now that potential customers find their suppliers more frequently than companies themselves find new customers.

Many believe that the solution lies in improving customer retention and loyalty, focussing on word of mouth, referral marketing, influencer marketing, identification of brand advocates etc.

Or in other words: connected marketing, working with communities of loyal customers and their influence, connections and relationships. In this manner, customer retention and customer experience improvement, quality of customer relations and connected marketing naturally become the source for acquisition. It is not a surprise that affiliate programs, social media (word of mouth, influencer identification, communities, etc.) and customer retention efforts are so common-place.

However, these developments do not mean that the role of email marketing for customer retention has lost its appeal. On the contrary.

According to the Econsultancy study, it appears that fewer companies send out acquisition mails and more companies will work on customer loyalty, cross-selling activities, etc.

Challenges for customer retention communication strategies

This is about much more than the old adage that it is cheaper and easier to generate more revenue from existing customers than by new customers. It is a trend.

However, there are many challenges for companies that are interested in doing (want to do) more with e-mail marketing for customer retention purposes. The greatest risk is undoubtedly an over-saturation of the target groups due to an increase in volume of customer loyalty and retention e-mail campaigns.

The answer to that risk is simple: an increase of the customer retention efforts in email marketing has nothing to do with volume, but it is all about perceived value, relevance and the introduction of the customer-centric, conversational marketing and participatory connected rules.

Keywords are personalization, content, choice of channels, more focus on recipient preferences and a careful analysis of all metrics that may indicate a list fatigue.

What is relevant and customer-centric will be valued and shared. And ultimately that is the best guarantee for both acquisition and retention.

J-P De Clerck is a content, conversion and social media consultant. You can connect with him on Twitter or via his blog.