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Closures, Launches And Everything In Between

Fri, 07 Jun 2024 13:43:32 GMT

To say that the last few weeks have been extremely busy would be an understatement. There has been a lot of change over the last few weeks and we’re still in the midst of it. So, what’s been going on?

Some brands were let go.

Seven of the bingo brands that I was looking after have been sold to a new owner. This meant a lot of handovers, finishing of campaigns and preparing as well as executing the exit strategy well.

It was with mixed feelings seeing these brands go as I’ve been working with them for over eight years. However, feelings aside, it was a very good business decision.

Some brands were migrated.

On top of handing over existing brands, I also managed to migrate one of our current casino brands to a casino environment that we’re already using with the remaining casino brands. This was actually a very smooth process as most of it was handled by our partner Progress Play. Nevertheless, the CRM journeys had to be updated and we also took this as an opportunity to give the marketing material a bit of a refresh.

Two of our bingo brands are being launched at a completely new platform with a company in Manchester called Grace Media. This has been very time consuming as we’re starting completely from scratch. I’m getting to know new systems like XtremPush which I’ve not used in the past. Setting up new CRM journeys, promotions, terms and conditions as well as updating the look and feel of the brands has kept me very, very busy.

New brand was taken on.

As part of the new partnership with Grace Media , we took on a new bingo brand called BOGOF along side our two brands that we’ve migrated to Grace Media. I had the pleasure of going to Manchester and working with the team for a week.

What else?

On top of that, I started work with a new Klaviyo customer called Blue Line Abrasives . It’s an industry that I know where little about so it’s great to have their team at hand to assist when I have product related questions.

What’s next?

Over the next few weeks, things should slow down and settle a bit. Fingers crossed.

ICE London 2024: The Importance of CRM in Online Gaming

Mon, 12 Feb 2024 14:08:12 GMT

Introducing ICE London 2024

Last week, I attended ICE London 2024, one of the most anticipated events in the gaming industry. This annual conference brings together industry leaders, innovators, and enthusiasts from around the world to showcase the latest developments in online gaming. This has been my tenth time attending the event and it has been one of the busiest one yet.

The event was held at the ExCeL London, a renowned venue for international conferences and exhibitions. The exhibits featured a wide range of companies, each offering unique products and services to enhance the gaming experience. Among the many exciting advancements showcased at ICE London 2024, the importance of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) in online gaming stood out.

With this in mind, let's look at the reason why CRM plays such a vital role in the success of any online gaming business:

CRM in Online Gaming

In the highly competitive world of online gaming, maintaining a loyal customer base is crucial for success. This is where CRM comes into play. CRM in online gaming refers to the strategies, tools, and technologies that enable gaming companies to build and maintain a strong relationship with their players. It goes beyond just acquiring new customers and focuses on fostering long-term engagement and loyalty.

The Importance of CRM in Online Gaming

CRM plays a vital role in the overall success of an online gaming business. Here are some key reasons why CRM is crucial:

1. Comprehensive, Unified View of Player Data

One of the primary benefits of implementing a CRM software is the ability to have a comprehensive and unified view of player data. By integrating and analysing data from various touchpoints, gaming companies can gain valuable insights into their players' preferences, behaviours, and playing patterns. This data can be used to personalise the gaming experience, tailor promotions, and offer targeted rewards, ultimately leading to increased player satisfaction and loyalty.

2. Financially Viable Advanced Segmentation

A CRM allows gaming companies to segment their player base based on various criteria, such as demographics, playing habits, and spending patterns. This advanced segmentation enables them to target specific player groups with tailored marketing campaigns and offers. By focusing their resources on the segments that yield the highest return on investment, gaming companies can optimise their marketing efforts and maximise revenue.

3. Ability to Automate and Tailor Experiences

CRM tools and technologies enable gaming companies to automate various aspects of the player experience, saving time and resources. Automated features such as personali s ed messages, reward distribution, and targeted recommendations enhance the player experience by providing timely and relevant information. Additionally, CRM allows for the customisation of the gaming experience based on individual player preferences, ensuring a personali s ed and engaging interaction.

Online Gaming Grows With Enhanced CRM Software

The implementation of a CRM can significantly enhance an online gaming business in various ways. Below are some key features of customer relationship management that contribute to the success of online gaming companies:

Personalised Offers : By leveraging player data, CRM enables gaming companies to offer personali s ed promotions and bonuses to individual players, increasing their engagement and loyalty.
Data-Driven Decision Making : CRM provides valuable insights and analytics, empowering gaming companies to make data-driven decisions regarding game development, marketing strategies, and monetisation opportunities.
Predictive Analytics : By analysing player data, CRM can predict player behavio u r and preferences, allowing gaming companies to anticipate and respond to their needs in advance. This proactive approach enhances the overall player experience.

In conclusion, CRM plays a vital role in the online gaming industry. Its ability to provide a comprehensive view of player data, financially viable advanced segmentation, and automated tailoring of experiences makes it an indispensable tool for online gaming companies. By implementing a CRM with a in-depth CRM strategy, gaming companies can enhance player satisfaction, boost player engagement, and ultimately drive business growth. As the gaming industry continues to evolve, the importance of CRM in online gaming will only grow stronger.

Make sure to seamlessly integrate your CRM and respective strategy in your online gaming business to stay ahead of the competition and foster lasting relationships with your players.

Google + Yahoo’s New Sender Requirements

Fri, 12 Jan 2024 13:30:26 GMT

What You Need To Know

In the ever-evolving world of email communication, staying up-to-date with changes and requirements is vital. Recently, both Google and Yahoo have introduced new sender requirements that can significantly impact email deliverability. As a user, it's essential to understand these changes and take the necessary steps to ensure your emails reach their intended recipients' inboxes. In this article, we will explore the details of Google + Yahoo's new sender requirements, what they mean for the user, and what actions you need to take to maximize deliverability.

Google + Yahoo’s New Sender Requirements: The Changes

To combat spam and enhance the user experience, Google and Yahoo have implemented stricter sender requirements. These requirements focus on email authentication and sender reputation. Here are the key changes you should be aware of:

Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance (DMARC) : Both Google and Yahoo now require senders to implement DMARC authentication. DMARC ensures that an email coming from a specific domain is legitimate and not forged.
Sender Policy Framework (SPF) : SPF records define which servers are authorised to send emails on behalf of a domain. Google and Yahoo now expect senders to have correctly configured SPF records to improve email deliverability.
DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) : DKIM adds a digital signature to your emails, assuring recipients that the message hasn't been tampered with during transit. Google and Yahoo now require senders to implement DKIM for better security.

What Does It Mean for the User?

While these changes by Google and Yahoo aim to enhance email security and minimise spam, they can impact legitimate senders as well. Without meeting the new sender requirements, your emails may end up in recipients' spam or junk folders, significantly reducing their visibility and hindering effective communication.

Steps To Ensure Email Delivery

To ensure your emails reach their intended recipients' inboxes, it's crucial to take the following steps:

Implement DMARC, SPF, and DKIM : Make sure your domain has properly configured DMARC, SPF, and DKIM records. Consult your email service provider or IT department to ensure these protocols are correctly set up.
Regularly Monitor Sender Reputation : Monitor your email sender reputation using tools like Google Postmaster Tools and Yahoo's Feedback Loop. These tools provide valuable insights into your sender score, domain health, and deliverability performance.
Send Engaging and Relevant Content : To maintain a positive sender reputation, focus on sending engaging and relevant content to your recipients. Low engagement rates, such as low open and click-through rates, can negatively impact your deliverability.
Maintain Clean Email Lists : Regularly clean your email list by removing inactive or unengaged subscribers. Sending emails to uninterested recipients can increase the chances of being marked as spam.
Monitor Feedback Loops : Enable feedback loops provided by email service providers. Feedback loops notify you when recipients mark your emails as spam, allowing you to identify potential issues and take corrective actions.
Seek Professional Guidance : If you're unsure about implementing the new sender requirements or need assistance in optimising your email deliverability, consider seeking professional guidance from email deliverability experts.

In conclusion, Google and Yahoo's new sender requirements emphasise the importance of email authentication and sender reputation. By implementing DMARC, SPF, and DKIM, monitoring sender reputation, sending engaging content, maintaining clean email lists, and utilising feedback loops, you can increase the chances of your emails reaching recipients' inboxes and forge effective connections through email communication.

3 CRM Mistakes No One Should Make

Fri, 22 Dec 2023 15:02:34 GMT

This post was first published in 2015.

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Has it really been three years?

Fri, 22 Sep 2023 11:03:37 GMT

On a Friday afternoon, when all the main tasks had been done, I wondered when was the last time that I uploaded content onto my blog? I knew it has been a while, but I would have never thought that it was close to three years. Yikes!

It’s one of the key rules of digital marketing to stick to a frequency of posting content online but as everyone can see, I failed.

Luckily, the reason puts a smile on my face. I'd always hoped that I would be in this position when I first decided to set up FouldsCRM. I’ve just been incredibly busy.

Over the last three years, I’ve increased my client portfolio quite significantly. Here is a quick overview:

I started to work with the email marketing platform Klaviyo assisting three of my clients to migrate from Mailchimp to Klaviyo. None of them have regretted their decision and have seen a boost in email marketing sales due to changing the platform.
I started to manage the CRM for 8 additional casino brands who use the Progress Play software. This was quite work intensive as we were the first ones to run their own CRM out of all of the Progress Play partners. It’s been an incredible 12 months since we took over the CRM.
I welcomed back clients that were lost due to COVID which was really lovely. The travel industry was hit especially hard so being able to work with these businesses again has been really rewarding.
I joined Mayple as one of their email marketing experts as part of their partnership with Mailchimp. The project aimed to show existing customers how to use the platform more effectively. Even though I thoroughly enjoyed being part of the Mayple community, I decided a few weeks ago to stop as most of the clients are based the United States. The time difference wasn’t working for me and my family. Family always comes first even though I’d have loved to continue working with the Mayple team.
I worked on a few ad-hoc projects.

Even though my blog and overall website haven’t been updated as much as they should have been, FouldsCRM is busy and I’m open for business!

FouldsCRM Client Wins Best Dragonfish Site in 2020 BingoPort Players' Award

Tue, 01 Aug 2023 13:18:58 GMT

This post was first published in 2020.

It’s that time of year again, when we ventured out to London to attend the annual BingoPort Players' Choice Awards. Even though we rallied the players around us expectations to win another trophy were low. Well, we happy to say that we DID it again and managed to scoop in another award for our client Chit Chat Bingo !

The long-standing bingo brand won ‘Best DragonFish Bingo Site’ which means it has won now three consecutive awards in the annual event. This is a first for BingoPort and generally doesn’t happen very often in a fast-moving industry such as online gaming.

What are the BingoPort awards?

Each year, BingoPort celebrates the best and brightest in the online bingo and slots world with the BingoPort Players’ Choice Awards. The awards ceremony is held each February, and nominees are invited for an evening of glamour, fun, and excitement as they eagerly wait for the winners to be.

How did Chit Chat Bingo win the award?

The awards are decided by the players via a simple vote. This year, votes have gone through the roof underlining the fact that the industry is taking these awards more seriously and actively promoting them to their players.

The category in which Chit Chat Bingo won is one of the most competitive categories due to the huge amount of bingo brands operating on the popular online gaming platform. It’s a huge success for the team.

What’s next?

With so many changes on the horizon in the world of online gaming, customer retention will be the key to any successful brand operating in this sector. Our proven track record and annual awards will ensure that Chit Chat Bingo will continue to have a bright future in 2020 and in years to come.

Southern Enterprise Award for FouldsCRM

Tue, 01 Aug 2023 13:09:53 GMT

This post was first published in 2020!

For the third year running, SME News ran their Southern Enterprise Awards rewarding small enterprises and sole traders for their hard work in the South West of England. We are pleased to announce that FouldsCRM won the award ‘ Best Email Marketing & CRM Consultancy 2020 ’.

2020 has been a remarkably busy year for FouldsCRM. As more businesses embraced trading online and marketing digitally, the team has seen an increase in demand.

“It’s been really nice to see that local and national business owners value their existing customer base more than ever. Having the right retention strategy in place has been a real benefit over the past few months and long it may continue” says Christine Foulds, owner of FouldsCRM.

Below you can read the editorial piece that was published in the Awards Magazine:

"Turning a one-time visitor into a lifetime customer over and over again is the holy grail for every business, but FouldsCRM has successfully achieved this, for both their international and South West based clients. We look at how FouldsCRM has flourished in what is proving to be a difficult year for a lot of small businesses.

Each business has its own set of challenges when it comes to retaining customer loyalty. That’s why FouldsCRM specialises in finding a unique solution for each client, by offering a completely targeted approach to client’s customers. They send the right message to the right person, in the right format, at exactly the right time. Which brings huge gains for their clients time and time again.

FouldsCRM Director Christine Foulds says: “By targeting our client’s customers in this way we help businesses increase the lifetime value of each customer which enables their business to grow year on year, sustainably.

“We’re different because we don’t sell CRM software. We take time to understand the specific needs of each company and help them value their existing customers more. By offering our consultancy expertise and Customer Retention Management strategies we can transform how a business operates.”

Using this individual approach, FouldsCRM works with a lot of different systems. From the use of tailored email campaigns in Mailchimp – they are currently the only certified Mailchimp partner in Cornwall - to setting up complete automation in CRM systems such as Active Campaign or IBM Watson .

Staying ahead of the curve is vital for the company. The consultants are already skilled in omnichannel marketing and all-in-one CRMs, as well as embracing the use of AI. All of which when passed on to the client, gives them the edge on the competition.

Many of FouldsCRM clients are in Europe and overseas, based in Cornwall however, the company are set to help more clients locally with their customer retention plans. With digital, tech and now space industry brands all flocking to the region, thanks to superfast broadband and investment, there’s much more scope to expand locally. Because each business is different, they can offer CRM strategies to both SME’s and large-scale multi-national organisations.

For all businesses to grow and stay competitive in today’s market, customer retention is absolutely vital for continued sustainable growth. By utilising new and emerging technologies, and providing tailored CRM strategies, FouldsCRM are not only surviving but thriving in today’s unpredictable marketplace."

Embrace your Unsubscribers

Sat, 01 Jul 2023 14:04:40 GMT

This post was first published in 2015.

Every campaign that I run involves work, dedication and high expectations. I am sure the same goes for you. When you then see that people unsubscribe, your first thought might be: What the heck?! The images look amazing, the content is sharp, the offer is tempting, the layout is user-friendly so why on earth would anyone want to unsubscribe?

My advice is to relax and look at your campaign from the reader's point of view. It will help you to understand why your subscribers decided to cancel their subscription. By doing so you will start valuing your unsubscribers more and most importantly embrace the information that they provide.

Here are some facts that you need to accept:

Some are just not interested
In this case, readers are not interested in your content any more either because it is of no relevance to them or because they don't like the information received. Try not to worry too much about it because turning those subscribers from leads into customers is almost impossible. By unsubscribing you are basically told that they are no longer keen on becoming your customer.

However, if they used to be regular customers, please do follow up and find out if they also stopped being your paying customer.

It helps you identify weaknesses
If you usually don't have many unsubscribes and all of a sudden one email marketing campaign generates a never seen before amount of cancellation, you will need to take a hard look at your mailer and find out what could have caused this behaviour. Use the information to your advantage and adapt future campaigns accordingly so that your weakness turns into your strength.

It keeps you on your toes
Use your unsubscribe rate as a wake up call as it tells you that your content is losing its appeal. Try not to be too repetitive, change your subject lines with every email marketing campaign as well as the images used and content provided.

The main message here is that unsubscribes are frustrating but try to use the information provided to your advantage. Always look at the why. It will help you to keep the quality of your campaigns up and your unsubscribe rate down.

Venus Awards Devon & Cornwall - A Night To Remember

Sat, 01 Jul 2023 14:00:28 GMT

This post was first published in 2018.

On Friday, I went on a little road trip to Plymouth to attend the first Venus Awards for Devon & Cornwall. I've been over the moon to be a finalist in the category Digital & Online Media.

I would have loved to have won but to be honest everyone in the category was rooting for Katie Goode from Triangular Pixels. She is a games developer and managed to cover her developing costs of her new game on the first day it went live. She runs the company in partnership with her husband. Huge congratulations!

The event was booked out and the room was filled with hundreds of inspirational men and women. 15 winners were announced on the night while we enjoyed some nice food, drinks and music.

It was an incredible experience and one I can only recommend to dive into. It's a great community of female entrepreneurs who are very supportive and eager to help each other.

As for now, I've placed my certificate in the office and hopefully can add a few more to it.

Email Marketing Lingo - A Quick Guide

Sat, 01 Jul 2023 13:50:24 GMT

This post was first published in 2016.

Getting your voice heard and your message out is one of the core services we offer at FouldsCRM. One of the tools we use is email marketing. Unfortunately, email marketing is full of industry standard terminology, which can be a bit confusing if you have never come across any of the terms before.

As we like to make things easier for you, we thought it might be a good idea to put together a quick guide on email marketing terminology.

A/B Testing

This is the process of splitting your subscriber list into two equal segments and sending them a slightly different message. It allows you to identify what message was most effective and has achieved a better result. Based on those findings, future email marketing campaigns can be adapted ensuring that your message will be read. Variables that are changeable from one mailer to another include the subject line, content, and colour scheme for call-to-action buttons, images, incentives used, or headings.

Bounce

The bounce rate is an important indicator of how healthy your list is. It indicates how many of your subscribers have actually provided a correct email address and therefore are able to receive your newsletter. A high bounce rate should make you re-think how you acquire new subscribers. It is worth keeping in mind that your IP address will be harmed by a continuous high bounce rate which will lead to your newsletters ending up in the spam folder.

Click Through Rate

The click through rate is one of the percentages that you will come across a lot as it is one of the main indicator whether your campaign can be classified as a success or not. It basically shows you how many of the readers have clicked on any of the provided hyperlinks in your email newsletter. The more people click on items in your newsletter, the more likely it is that they will buy or book any of your services. Therefore, email marketers like to see a high click through rate.

De-Duplication

No one likes to receive four or five of the same newsletter at a time. This can happen though if your list contains a lot of duplicates. Sometimes, the same email address can be linked to a different postal address or name. Luckily, most email marketing providers can clean lists by taking out duplicates automatically during the process of uploading new subscribers.

Double Opt-In

To ensure that you get the best possible results from your email marketing campaigns, you need to have responsive subscribers who want to receive news from you. One way of ensuring this is by using a double opt-in feature during the subscription process. This means that when new subscribers sign up to your newsletter service, they will receive an email with a link asking them to confirm they want to be joining your email-marketing list.

Email Newsletter

An email newsletter is a digital communication tool, which is sent on a regular basis (weekly, monthly...). The content provided is of value to the customer and allows them to benefit from information and incentives that would otherwise be difficult to obtain.

Email Marketing Providers

ESPs or email marketing providers are companies such as Mailchimp, Campaign Monitor or Graphic Mail who facilitate the service of sending out email marketing campaigns to your subscribers.

HTML Email

The most common digital newsletter used is a HTML email (Hypertext Mark-up Language) instead of a plain text one. Just like the coding for a website, the HTML allows marketers to include vibrant images, unique fonts, strong call-to-action buttons and hyperlinks. It makes the newsletter more responsive and therefore can achieve a better success rate than a plain text email.

Hyperlink

A hyperlink allows you to link a certain phrase, word, image or button to a specific page of your website.

Open Rate

The open rate is the most important indicator whether your campaign can be classified as a success or not. Generally, it is shown as a percentage measuring the number of subscribers who have opened your email in comparison to the total number of emails sent.

Opt-In

Opt-In means that the person who subscribed to your email marketing service has granted permission for you to be sending marketing material to the provided email address.

Segmentation

To be able to provide relevant content to your subscribers it is recommended to segment your list based on certain values such as interests, purchasing behaviour, location and so forth. This will ensure that the message you sent out receives the best possible response rate.

Spam

A spam email refers to a marketing email that has been sent without the permission of the recipient. Sending out emails to people who have not opted in to your email marketing service will most likely result in spam complaints.

Subject Line

The subject line plays an integral part in getting your subscribers to open your email newsletter. It is the first thing they read and gives them an idea what the correspondence is all about. When we put an email marketing campaign together we like to use the mantra of KISS for our clients' subject lines: Keep It Short and Simple.

Targeted Emailing

Targeted emailing means that a certain group of your subscribers receives a very specific newsletter with content that matches certain preferences or attributes. An example could be sending a mailer out to people who have stayed in a specific room or have booked tickets for a specific annual event whom you would like to invite back. Generally, those targeted email-marketing campaigns achieve a much higher open and click rate then general mail-outs as the content matches the subscriber profile.

Unsubscribe

When a person unsubscribes from your list, it means that the contact no longer wishes to receive any email marketing campaigns from you or your company. This should always be respected otherwise it could turn into spam complaints.

We hope our little guide on the most commonly used email marketing terminology has made the prospect of sending out your first email newsletter less daunting.

CRM for Ecommerce Businesses

Sat, 01 Jul 2023 13:46:51 GMT

This post was first published in 2017.

Regardless whether you are a B2B or B2C business, online or offline, every business is about customers. A lot of time, money and effort is spent on acquiring new customers and keeping existing ones happy.

As mentioned in previous blog posts, acquisition is much more expensive than retention. It’s therefore no surprise that the continued success of any business heavily depends on repeat purchases from your existing customers. This is even more important for ecommerce businesses as online competition is fierce and relentless.

For every ecommerce business it is vital to stay in touch with their customers, learn about their buying habits and communication preferences to then determine their needs and wishes. This is where your CRM and your CRM strategy come into place.

Why should you invest in a CRM?

1. Collect, Store & Analyse Data

As we all know, data is the new oil. Data allows you to get to know your customers better and provide them with a more tailored communication and sales approach. Just think about all the data that we provide when we shop online: name, address, age, email address, phone number etc. All this data is just waiting for you to be used and to contrary popular belief, customers do value it if used in the right way.

2. Email Marketing

It’s a key tool that you should be using for your retention campaigns. The good thing is that many of the email marketing campaigns can be automated such as abandoned cart, follow up purchase emails, delivery confirmation just to name a few.

3. Social Media Integration

Social media is one of the newest CRM communication tools. It still is primarily used for acquisition and brand awareness, but more and more systems can now integrate your social media channels and provide valuable input into your customer preferences. Even MailChimp which is not a CRM as such provides in-depth statistics once you set up ad campaigns.

4. Analytics

Many of the ecommerce pages such as shopify provide you with some great analytics. Just imagine what you could do with them if they were linked up with your communication campaigns! All of a sudden you can link certain spikes of sales to specific marketing messages.

5. Reactivating Customers

Keeping customers loyal to your brand has become more challenging but it’s not impossible. The key to great conversions and even better retention is continued communication with your customers. To be very blunt: Don’t assume! Don’t assume just because they liked product A, they will come back for product B. Don’t assume, just because they’ve found you on their own that they will return. Keep talking to them with targeted content and always use their preferred communication channels.

There are many CRM softwares available and each one of them has their pros and cons. Having said that they all provide you with the same thing: DATA. And data will play an essential part in keeping your customers happy.

Customer Acquisition vs Customer Retention

Sat, 01 Jul 2023 13:43:59 GMT

This post was first published in 2017

When you first start out everything is about gaining new customers and getting the business off the ground. Money is primarily spent on advertisement, promotions and sales incentives to get the brand name out and customers to spend. What happens though when you have accumulated a healthy pool of clients? Do you shift your focus from acquisition to retention?

Ideally, the answer should be yes. All businesses should have a retention strategy in place but unfortunately that is not always the case. There are plenty of reports out there showcasing that ROI is much better when part of the marketing budget is spent on retention rather than only on acquisition.

So why is it that we as customers do not get rewarded for our loyalty? Maybe even more importantly, why do we as customers accept that new customers get the big discounts, free membership trials and welcome gifts? Can you remember the last time you requested to receive the same? Honestly, even I who is banging on about customer retention cannot remember the last time I asked to receive the same benefits.

Personally, I believe that customers will start demanding to be treated the same way as newly acquired clients and will therefore force companies to rethink their spending policies in regards to acquisition versus retention. The big market players have already started to refocus their marketing efforts. Just think about the tailored shopping vouchers you receive from the various supermarket chains. Less than 10 years ago, supermarket chains did not fight as hard to get us back because competition was less fierce.

I am not saying that you should start using discount offers but instead to look at your existing customers and have a think about how you could reduce customer attrition. And when you sit down next with your marketing department and develop a plan and a budget, make sure to not only include strategies but also money which focuses on your existing customers.

Email Marketing vs Social Media

Sat, 01 Jul 2023 13:41:41 GMT

This post was first published in 2018.

With the rise of social media many predicted that email marketing would disappear from the marketing mix and marketeers would primarily depend on social media.

We all know now that this is not the case.

Both play an essential part in any business but which one out of the two brings you the best return on investment? Which one should you focus on?

Email Marketing

Let me ask you this: How many email addresses are you currently using? I have four which I check frequently thoughout the day. I imagine it’ll be the same for you and the majority of people. Everyone has an email address.

Now, sending out an email newsletter doesn’t guarantee success. To be honest, box standard newsletters are a dying out breed. Why? Because they’re not personalised and have nothing to do with the needs and wishes of the customer.

So, think of your customer communication lifecycle . At what point do you initiate contact, provide valuable information and seal the deal?

Your customer data is the fuel that keeps your email marketing engine going. Without the data, there will be no email marketing.

Think of all the data you’ve got on your customers and at what stage they are on your customer lifecycle. Do they have an abandoned cart? Is there a birthday coming up? Do they prefer a specific fabric/colour/service? Have they made a repeat purchase? Or not?

Most of these targeted email correspondences can be automated. MailChimp, Campaign Monitor and other providers offer an automation functionality which is very straight forward to set up.

Email marketing allows you to give your customer personal attention through automation which means personalised communication has the potential to be scaled infinitely. What does that mean for your business? Growth.

Social Media Marketing

Social media has been growing at an incredible rate and it’s going to continue. It’s a digitalised word-of-mouth marketing channel that can do wonders for your business.

As we all do, your customers search for recommendations, pre-purchase information and user experiences. It’s what we used to do face to face.

The reason why social media is still growing, and most businesses are embracing it whole heartedly, is that you can join in on the conversation your customers have about you. You can now strategize your digital word-of-mouth by re-assuring potential customers and re-affirming your expertise to existing customers.

Building relationships and trust on social media takes time and is not always as straight forward as the above paragraph makes it look like. There are many businesses out there who spend a lot of time on their social media channels but hardly get any return for it. That’s not the fault of social media but rather of the messages that are put out there. But that’s a blog post in itself.

So what next?

As you might have expected, use both if you can. However, if you struggle with time and social is not working so well, focus on email marketing by working on your customer communication lifecycle, your automation processes and in general a much more targeted email marketing approach.

Once that is in place, maybe you will find the time to revisit your social media marketing and use it as a lead generation tool.

Email Marketing: Subject Line Tips

Sat, 01 Jul 2023 13:38:40 GMT

This post was first published in 2018

In recent months, I have noticed that businesses are trying to pack in as much as possible in one newsletter. This leads to an endless seeming mailer which is packed with different marketing messages, long subject lines and various small images. Therefore a simple marketing campaign becomes all of a sudden very complex and most of all confusing to the reader.

I am a great believer in the motto KISS: Keep It Short and Simple. After all, your subscribers will receive not only your mailer but eight, nine or even ten other messages from various companies within the same day. For a marketing message to be able to stand out, it needs to be precise, straight to the point and short. These are also the attributes that a subject line should have.

So what should you consider when you think of a sharp and convincing subject line. Here are 3 quick easy fixes to improve your subject lines.

1. Don't sell
First of all remember, a subject line is not there to sell your product but to inform the subscriber on what the mailer is about and to convince them to open the mailer based on the content provided. Therefore stay away from certain phrases and words. Free or Sale are words that will most likely get your mailer in the spam folder and if not that, will generate a very low open rate. Using words written in capital letters only will also not work in your favour and same goes for an over usage of exclamation marks.

2. Keep it short
Subject lines that are too long will be cut off by most of the inboxes such as gmail, hotmail and yahoo. On top of that, if the message is not straight to the point subscribers will most likely not open the mailer as the basic information has not been communicated well. To avoid this, try to keep the subject line to a maximum of 50 characters.

3. Create a new subject line for every mailer
Coming up with a new subject line is time consuming and involves a lot of testing. For me it's not a surprise that some businesses decide to hardly ever change the content used. However, by doing that they also face an ever decreasing open rate because subscribers are not encouraged to continue reading the messages prepared for them. It's essential to always come up with a new subject line. Vary the wording, use a question every once in a while to keep subscribers engaged, check what your competitors are sending out and try not to repeat their subject line. For example there is a tendency to use the following phrase: 'Beat the January Blues'. If several businesses are already using it, try to stay away from it.

There are of course more steps that can be taken to improve subject line performances such as using more proactive verbs and not always start with a noun but if the discussed three points are put into practise, your mailer performance will start improving.

How To Combine Direct Mailing With Your Email Marketing

Sat, 01 Jul 2023 13:35:21 GMT

This post was first published in 2019.

With the rise of email marketing, many predicted that direct mailing would become obsolete…just like social media marketing was meant to make email marketing a thing of the past.

As we all know, the opposite is rather true as the different marketing channels and strategies go rather nicely together.

As part of my recent Christmas marketing campaign, I created a mix of email marketing and direct mailing content which made me realise that both channels have quite a few similarities.

Both require a very similar strategic and informed approach to ensure they achieve the best result possible. In combination, they can exhale and provide an even better ROI because communicating the same message on your various communication channels will ensure that your customers are paying attention.

So why should you use direct mailing in combination with your digital marketing tools?

1. It’s more difficult to ignore!

With one click, your email marketing campaigns can be deleted. This is not the case with a direct mailing campaign. There will be a customer interaction with it. Assuming that the direct mailing campaign is well targeted and designed, your customers will respond.

It’s also proven that when you get something tangible your customer is more likely to remember the brand and that is across generations.

2. Keep it personal!

Gone are the days of random leaflet drops. Content and design of a direct mailing campaign need to be personalised and have meaning to the recipient.

3. Pick your time wisely!

Direct mailing will only make the impact you need when the timing is right. Think about when your customer is most likely to buy or in need of your product or service? Or quite simply, when do you want to say thank you or remind them of your existence?

4. Be unique!

As with everything in marketing, try to be unique. You don’t need to reinvent the wheel but ensure that you put your personal spin on it.

5. Don’t waffle!

Just like with email, think of KISS – Keep It Short & Simple. You do want your customers to spend time with your mail but for all the wrong reasons. Don’t keep them guessing. Tell them what you want them to do and where. Do they need to go online to use a specific offer? Is it a birthday wish? Whatever it is, include your brand and if you can website link and phone number.

And finally, don’t do direct mailing too often as it will lose its impact and starts to be annoying.

Case Study - Mailchimp Automation with EatDrinkSleep

Sat, 01 Jul 2023 13:32:22 GMT

This post was first published in 2018

Over the past few months, MailChimp has added some new features to their email marketing software including tags, post card designs and new automation functionalities. It’s changing more and more from an ESP to a CRM.

I therefore wanted to show what a possible automation could look like without the need of having MailChimp integrated into your content management system such as Wordpress and Shopify.

In this instance, my client EatDrinkSleep wanted to push a specific seasonal offer with the aim of increasing overall bookings and generating new subscriptions to their newsletter service. And this is how we’ve done it.

1. Set up a landing page
Building the landing page is very straight forward and very similar to putting together an e-newsletter. Before you start though, you need to associate the landing page to a specific list. Unfortunately, the subscribers can’t be pre-tagged or pre-assigned to an already existing segment or group but that can be done later on if you use signup source as a way to segment your database.

Once the landing page is built and you picked a URL, you’re ready to publish it.

2. Include an automation
In our case, we wanted people who expressed their interest via the landing page to receive a specific welcome mailer outlining the seasonal offer. This was easily done with the automation functionality provided by MailChimp.

Once the welcome mailer was built, we had to assign it to a specific trigger and that is the part that some might find confusing as it’s not very clearly structured in the backend.

To link the welcome mailer to a specific sign up source, you need to:

Click on “Filter By Segment”
Click “Choose Segment or Tag”
Click “Subscribers Match The Following Criteria” and then select Signup Source and click on landing page and select the name of the respective landing page in case you have more than one.

You also need to stipulate the timing of when the mailer should be sent out. Most welcome mailers will go out immediately after signing up.

3. Share the landing page
With the automation in place, it’s time to share your landing page digitally. Your social media channels will be your first call but don’t forget your cross-marketing channels. Your B2B partners, influencers etc are a fantastic way to spread your message and generate new leads for your business. The link can also be used for online advertising such as google adwords and social media campaigns. And don’t forget to include links in your blog posts and related online banners that you might have.

Once your campaign is over and the landing page is no longer of any use, you can easily unpublish the landing page.

In the case of my client, EatDrinkSleep, the landing page was actively shared on social media and has generated a significant increase in new subscribers and more importantly additional bookings.

FouldsCRM Client Wins Best Dragonfish Site in 2019 BingoPort Player’s Award

Sat, 01 Jul 2023 13:28:58 GMT

This post was first published in 2019.

For the second year running, Chit Chat Bingo has won an award in the BingoPort Player’s Award. This year, the popular bingo site was nominated for two awards: Best Bingo Site and Best Dragonfish Bingo site. On top of that, the sister site Loadsa Bingo for which we also run the CRM work was nominated for Best New Bingo site.

Throughout January, we encouraged our players to vote for our bingo brands. The response was phenomenal but the competition was very strong. Even though we believe in our brands we thought our chances to win a second award in a row were quite slim. We were therefore quite gobsmacked when Andrew Housego announced Chit Chat Bingo as the winner of the Best Dragonfish site. It’s been a great achievement and proof that our CRM works and more importantly delivers results.

The award ceremony itself took place in the DoubleTree Hilton Hotel in London and representatives from the industry’s top sites all came along.

It was a fantastic evening and an incredible result - one the team and I can be proud of.

Watson Webinar: User Experience & Omnichannel Marketing

Sat, 01 Jul 2023 13:26:54 GMT

This post was first published in 2019.

Every day, I open my IBM Watson account ready to automate, schedule and send various email marketing campaigns. Most of the time, I’m greeted with some kind of sales message or seminar request to broaden my knowledge on the system that I’m using on a day to day basis. The majority of time, I ignore those messages but not on May 24 ^th when I was greeted by a Cornish success story; no other than Seasalt Cornwall .

The webinar which took place May 30 ^th was extremely insightful and really showcased why Seasalt Cornwall has grown from a small local retailer to a well-known brand across the United Kingdom, and as it was revealed during the broadcast, soon to be international.

The webinar was hosted by Aron Cody-Boutcher, Development and Insight Director focusing on how they’ve achieved an improvement in their user experience by utilising an omnichannel marketing approach.

Omnichannel marketing is a really big word which sounds a lot scarier than it actually is. It simply means that a business integrates all of their different communication channels to seamlessly communicate with their customers. In the case of Seasalt Cornwall, omnichannel marketing focuses on their shopping journey providing a seamless user experience for their customers.

The 30 min presentation started with a very interesting fact that everyone can easily relate to:

“37% of consumers quit a brand because the user experience wasn’t good enough”.

We all have experienced this and as a marketeer we all know that we need to ensure that every communication campaign created needs to enhance the customer’s user experience with the brand but that is easier said than done. Mr Cody-Boutcher referred to it as a “marketing unicorn” which is a great way of describing the challenge we face within marketing.

Seasalt started to tackle this by looking at how they can engage with their customers on a whole and not on a channel by channel basis.

Now that sounds a lot easier than it is as each business requires the business intelligence and technology to master this omnichannel marketing approach. This is the reason why Seasalt Cornwall decided to start using the IBM Watson software because it can do all of this and more.

The next part of the presentation focused on the user experience and what does it actually mean to provide a good user experience.

Now, we all know that a good user experience is based on making the journey from getting to the brand to buying from the brand as personalised as possible. Mr Cody-Boutcher highlighted this from the very beginning but here comes the BUT. We can’t build different version of the user experience but only provide the components that then create the personalised journey. This is were the omnimarketing channel comes into place has it allows the user to provide various building blocks within the omnichannel environment. Put together, they then create that personalised journey that every customer nowadays craves.

The challenge by providing the system with various different components to then create personalised customer journeys is the amount of data that the system collects for you to then make business decisions.

Seasalt has a very straight to the point approach when it comes to data:

Evaluation of data needs to be simple.
Data cannot be a witness but needs to be the engine.

The team then talked about the various system that they are using within IBM Watson.

The webinar was a glimpse into the future of marketing because let’s be honest even though we know that omnichannel marketing is the way forward only a few of us are already doing it. It was even more exciting to see how it’s done well by a company started and still operated from Cornwall, the most south-westerly county in the United Kingdom which tends to be only seen as a holiday destination and not as a region at the forefront of digitalisation and innovation.

Digital Mindset Event with Unlocking Potential

Sat, 01 Jul 2023 13:21:04 GMT

This post was first published in 2019.

It’s almost two weeks ago since I've attended the Digital Mindset event at the Eden Project. The original idea was that I get back home, look at my notes and put all of my thoughts in regard to technology and the changes in digital marketing on paper. But then one day past and then another…and now it’s been almost two weeks since I listened to some very inspiring speakers.

I’m sure I’m not alone in this. It’s a great example how important these events really are because they force you and me to take a step back, leave the desk and venture out. The last time I attended a similar event was back in October 2018 when I went to the Like Minds Festival . The presentations stayed with me for a long time and encouraged me to make a few changes in my day to day work.

It’s past 8pm and there are many other things I should be doing. However, I really feel writing down what the event brought to light and what keynote speakers addressed and sometimes more importantly didn’t mention is really important. It allows me to reflect on the work I’m doing and ask myself if I’m keeping up with the changes that are happening all around me.

So, what are the key things to take away?

1. Don’t use technology for its own sake!

Makes sense but it’s worth keeping in mind. If you think about all the different systems that you’re using ask yourself: Do you really use them to their full potential? Are they talking to each other? Are they really helping you to get rid of your pain points in your business?

I looked at all the various software programmes and systems that I’m using and found that my working life would be a lot more efficient if the technology I use would be better connected to each other. It’s something I need to look at so that I don’t use technology just for the sake of it.

2. Tech vs Humans are the drivers of change!

I really enjoyed listening to this topic as it’s an ethical but also commercial question on how to take our relationship with technology forward. Some are more enthusiastic about the changes technology brings with it than others.

If done right and the balance between tech vs humans is how you feel it should be, this relationship provides us with better relationships and better interactions with our customers as well as a better service for our customers.

3. Tech needs to inspire, respond and service!

I totally agree but I think the implementation is trickier than it appears to be. This is especially the case when you are a one-man / one-woman band who has to do it all. Technology can be the saviour allowing you to do respond and service very quickly and effectively. Personally, I think it’s much harder to inspire people through technology especially as a small business.

Courtesy of Unlocking Potential, below you can find a video introducing all of the keynote speakers.

FouldsCRM Becomes First Certified Mailchimp Partner in Cornwall

Sat, 01 Jul 2023 13:16:25 GMT

This post was first published in 2019.

I'm very happy to announce that FouldsCRM has become the first certified Mailchimp Partner in Cornwall and the South West. Thanks to Lisa from Content Marketing Cornwall, a press release has been circulated and already picked up by Business Cornwall. Here is what it said:

The internationally renowned email marketing platform Mailchimp has certified Penzance-based email marketing specialists - FouldsCRM, as part of their newly-launched Mailchimp Academy.

FouldsCRM has been a Mailchimp Partner since February 2019 . The first in Cornwall. They have used the programme to create hundreds of highly successful email marketing campaigns for clients in the tourism and leisure sectors, both in Cornwall and beyond.

The Mailchimp Academy was launched in March 2020 enabling their partners to receive certifications in specialised areas which focus on the various digital marketing features of the platform, as well as marketing strategies.

Certifications include a series of courses and short assessments that test the partner's knowledge of the course material. Once all the tests have been passed, partners will earn a certification badge—a symbol of their expertise and valued brand ambassador.

Managing Director at FouldsCRM, Christine Foulds says: "I've been meaning to complete the assessments since it first launched in March 2020. But, the need for our digital marketing expertise increased during lockdown, and I didn't have the time to complete it. I had a calmer week at the beginning of July so I took the tests for the Mailchimp Foundation Certificate."

“It's a great way to refresh my knowledge on all the features that Mailchimp is now offering as it has changed a lot. It’s no longer ‘just’ an email marketing platform. It's also an excellent way of reminding people that I have been using Mailchimp for over eight years and know how to use the system well. Email Marketing is still one of our key services allowing us to introduce our clients to the ethos of customer retention".

Under the Mailchimp Certified Partner programme, FouldsCRM receives exclusive co-marketing opportunities, access to Mailchimp customers, 24/7 priority support, unique resources, insights and a direct insider view of Mailchimp.

Christine adds: "Having priority access to the developments of Mailchimp means we can plan way ahead for our client's campaigns and hit the ground running with new tools as they become available.

“In the past 18 months, Mailchimp has drastically changed from an Email Service Provider to a Customer Relationship Management tool, which will be of great benefit to small businesses here in Cornwall and beyond."

Please get in touch if you need any help with your customer retention strategies or email marketing.

New Customer Journey Automation Tool & More Mailchimp News

Sat, 01 Jul 2023 13:14:08 GMT

This post was first published in 2020.

Back in August, Mailchimp announced a major improvement to its CRM platform: it’s new customer journey automation. This was then followed by the SMART Recommendation feature and the brand-new Creative Assistant which is currently live in BETA mode. So, what does it all mean?

Mailchimp Customer Journey

Mailchimp’s old automation system was not the best to put it bluntly. I’ve had many occasions when I had to tell clients that the system cannot do this or that just yet. Now, it seems with the launch of the Customer Journey things are finally looking up.

The old automation tool was based on a single initiated trigger and was lineal. The new customer journey tool is built in a way that encourages flexible and adaptable automated workflows.

It also uses the much liked drag and drop functionality. It’s easy to drag in triggers, delays, communication channels and other actions making it easy to follow the workflow you’ve created.

The new tool allows you to include multiple triggers that will initiate and automated workflow. These are known as starting points and include behaviours (not opened email), demographics (location), sign up form and much more.

Best of all, the new customer journey tool has branching capabilities. Best example would be: has contact opened email Yes/No for which you can then choose strategy A or B respectively to communicate to the right contact with the best messaging.

Also, these actions all work independently from each which gives you even more flexibility when creating workflows.

It’s worth keeping in mind that the customer journeys don’t need to evolve around email. These can be used for CRM purposes for example list cleaning or tag management.

My Verdict On Mailchimp’s Customer Journey

I think it’s a huge improvement and should especially be of interest to medium sized businesses who have more complex data on their customers. For them, the old automation tool could simply not cater for all the different automation needed to keep customers happy.

The tool itself is very similar to the Active Campaign setup. Personally, the reporting might still need a bit of work but at least the functionality has improved massively.

Please be aware though that not every user in Mailchimp has full access to the customer journey tool as it’s linked to the pricing scheme. I think that’s need re-evaluating.

Why Should You Start Using Automated Workflows

There are five simple reasons why everyone should embrace automation:

Easier personalisation
Manage data better
Nurture leads effectively
Save time
Improved timings (right content at the right time to the right person)

SMART Recommendation

SMART Recommendation has been around for a while but it might be good to outline the existing Mailchimp tool a bit.

It consists of three main components:

Know and grow your customers
Build smart content
Know how to optimise

Each component includes handy tools that can support you in getting better results out of your marketing campaigns.

For ‘Know and Grow’, the tools include lookalike audience, purchase likelihood and customer lifetime value. Based on the information provided, you can segment your data better and nurture your customers better as you provide the right messaging to them.

Point two doesn’t include too many tools but you might have noticed that Mailchimp provides you with a subject line helper. It flags up subject lines that are too long or use too many emojis. In this component, you can also find the product recommendation tool which is extremely useful.

Last but not least, we’ve got send time optimisation and next best actions which are part of the optimise component.

Creative Assistant

This is a brand new tool which just launched on Mailchimp. The main aim is to reduce time spent on creating on brand images. The new AI tool can create those for you. All you need to do is upload font, colour hex codes and logo and apparently the system will do the rest.

I haven’t used this tool yet so I can’t really say much about it. It would be interesting to know though what graphic designers make of it.

More Mailchimp Updates

Over the next coming weeks, Mailchimp will announce further updates so keep an eye out for more announcements.

The New(ish) Kid on The Block

Sat, 01 Jul 2023 13:05:18 GMT

Amazon Simple Email Service

Even though, you have an abundance of choice when it comes to your email marketing software, many of us have stuck with the industry leaders: Mailchimp , Campaign Monitor, Klaviyo, Aweber and MailerLite to only name a few.

To be fair, they have changed how and who uses email marketing making it accessible to the mass. It has come with a massive price tag though. If you look at Campaign Monitor for example, a list of around 50,000 subscribers and a maximum sender volume of 200,000 a month will cost you around £280. Scale this up even further and some companies are paying thousands of pounds for the pleasure of sending out an email.

As you might have guessed from the title, there is one company in the world that truly knows how to disrupt a market: Amazon.

A few years back, Amazon has created an email marketing software that they simply call SES – simple email service. And the name says it all: it is simple BUT also incredibly cheap and cost effective.

Let’s look at the numbers as it will show you the huge difference in pricing. We assume that we work with a list of 5,000 subscribers who are happy for us to send them emails.

Mailchimp will charge us £52.99 (essential package – email only) and stipulates that we can send a maximum of 50,000 emails in total throughout a given month.

Campaign Monitor is slightly cheaper with £49 a month but we can only send a maximum of 25,000 emails during the given month. We could upgrade to unlimited emails but that would increase our costs to £89 a month.

Now, Amazon SES charges us $0.10 for every 1,000 emails you send. This means in our example, our total cost for sending 5,000 emails is $0.50. If we say, we want to send a maximum of 50,000 emails to match Mailchimp's price cluster, SES would charge us $5.

Why is not everyone using Amazon SES yet?

I’ve been using Amazon SES for over 3 years. BUT and this is a big BUT, I couldn’t have implemented it into our CRM software without the help of our very knowledge developer. At the moment, the set-up and integration are not as streamlined as with the better-known email marketing providers.

Within Amazon SES, there is also not a template builder which might be the second reason why the majority of businesses have shied away from it. We’re solved this problem by using BeePro which is a fantastic email design tool. It’s very user-friendly and let’s you export the html mailer in various forms so that it’s easily integrated into your CRM. Or, some of the CRMs such as Mailchimp have an integration in place which automatically takes on templates designed in BeePro.

If you can, check out Amazon SES

Now is the time to take a look at Amazon SES or similar platforms that will disrupt the market in the years to come. Just make sure you have someone close by who understands SDK APIs and SMTPs.

Mailchimp vs Campaign Monitor

Thu, 01 Jun 2023 13:56:48 GMT

This post was first published in 2015.

For the last few months, I have been travelling up and down the county running one-to-one MailChimp workshops. MailChimp is one of the most popular email marketing platforms that's currently available. The platform is especially of interest to small and medium sized businesses.

Due to the fact that businesses don't have to pay for their campaigns until their reach 500 subscribers, marketeers like to use MailChimp as a way of introducing email marketing to their overall marketing mix.

I personally like MailChimp because of its intuitive user interface. Creating responsive email marketing templates is very straight forward.

Another big player in the email marketing sector is Campaign Monitor. It's an alternative to the overstylish MailChimp and provides more detailed statistics. Especially the interactive map which becomes active once a campaign has been sent is quite addictive. Campaign Monitor encourages the user to create mailers by using their templates. I personally find this a bit too restrictive but many users will disagree.

Both platforms offer the same functionalities when it comes to list management, segmentation and grouping. Campaign Monitor provides a more professional looking display of the campaign statistics. The main difference between the two is how they deal with unsubscribers. MailChimp takes an agency approach which means a reader unsubscribing from list A won't be unsubscribed from list B. Campaign Monitor takes a single user approach. Unsuscribing a reader from list A will also unsubscribe him/her from list B. This is worth keeping in mind when deciding what software to use.

I also need to mention that Campaign Monitor does not offer a free service. Prices start from 9GBP per month for a total list of 500 subscribers.

At the end of the day, it does not really matter what email marketing software you'll decide to use. The important thing is the message you are communicating to your customers and the design chosen for your mailer.

If you would like to take part in a MailChimp workshop or a Campaign Monitor workshop, feel free to contact me.

Why Customer Retention Management Matters

Thu, 01 Jun 2023 13:53:02 GMT

This post was first published in 2016.

The phrase Customer Retention Management can mean everything and nothing at all. It is therefore no surprise that I get often asked what does customer retention actually mean?

For me Customer Retention Management is a tool that helps any kind of business to retain their customer base by providing tailored incentives and rewards. These incentives should not only meet the need of the customer but also exceed his or her expectations. By offering a little extra, people tend to become more attached to a brand and are therefore more likely to return. Those incentives do not have to be only of monetary value but can also involve additional services such as

24/7 personal contact
Better table or seats
Longer reservation times
Favourite free newspaper
Advanced notice on new product releases
Anniversary reminder.

These small personalised extras can make a huge impact on the overall perception towards the business.

For me it still seems though that most businesses are focusing too much on acquiring new customers instead of keeping the existing ones happy. This is baffling as it is much more expensive to gain a new customer than to retain one.

I am sure every one of us will have experienced the feeling of being let down by a company with whom you have been dealing with for years. This could be your mobile phone provider who offers new customers additional free services such as hundreds of free texts which was never offered to you. Or it could be your local gym which provides new gym members with a two months free membership while you have been paying for years without any discount ever been offered to you.

Some could of course argue that if I asked for it I might actually get the same or similar offer as those newly acquired customers, but it leaves a bad taste in my mouth because I have to initiate contact.

By using well developed and managed retention campaigns, businesses avoid neglecting existing customers and making them feel valued and understood. As a consequence, your client base is more likely to stay loyal to you and will continue doing business with you. As far as I am concerned, this is what Customer Retention Management is all about.

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Closures, Launches And Everything In Between

Some brands were let go.

Some brands were migrated.

New brand was taken on.

What else?

What’s next?

ICE London 2024: The Importance of CRM in Online Gaming

Introducing ICE London 2024 ﻿

CRM in Online Gaming

The Importance of CRM in Online Gaming

1. Comprehensive, Unified View of Player Data

2. Financially Viable Advanced Segmentation

3. Ability to Automate and Tailor Experiences

Online Gaming Grows With Enhanced CRM Software

Google + Yahoo’s New Sender Requirements

What You Need To Know

Google + Yahoo’s New Sender Requirements: The Changes

What Does It Mean for the User?

Steps To Ensure Email Delivery

3 CRM Mistakes No One Should Make

This post was first published in 2015.

Has it really been three years?

FouldsCRM Client Wins Best Dragonfish Site in 2020 BingoPort Players' Award

This post was first published in 2020.

What are the BingoPort awards?

How did Chit Chat Bingo win the award?

What’s next?

Southern Enterprise Award for FouldsCRM

This post was first published in 2020!

Embrace your Unsubscribers

This post was first published in 2015.

Venus Awards Devon & Cornwall - A Night To Remember

This post was first published in 2018.

Email Marketing Lingo - A Quick Guide

This post was first published in 2016.

CRM for Ecommerce Businesses

This post was first published in 2017.

Customer Acquisition vs Customer Retention

This post was first published in 2017

Email Marketing vs Social Media

This post was first published in 2018.

Email Marketing

Social Media Marketing

So what next?

Email Marketing: Subject Line Tips

This post was first published in 2018

How To Combine Direct Mailing With Your Email Marketing

This post was first published in 2019.

Case Study - Mailchimp Automation with EatDrinkSleep

This post was first published in 2018

FouldsCRM Client Wins Best Dragonfish Site in 2019 BingoPort Player’s Award

This post was first published in 2019.

Watson Webinar: User Experience & Omnichannel Marketing

This post was first published in 2019.

Digital Mindset Event with Unlocking Potential

This post was first published in 2019.

1. Don’t use technology for its own sake!

2. Tech vs Humans are the drivers of change!

3. Tech needs to inspire, respond and service!

FouldsCRM Becomes First Certified Mailchimp Partner in Cornwall

This post was first published in 2019.

New Customer Journey Automation Tool & More Mailchimp News

This post was first published in 2020.

Mailchimp Customer Journey

My Verdict On Mailchimp’s Customer Journey

Why Should You Start Using Automated Workflows

SMART Recommendation

Creative Assistant

More Mailchimp Updates

The New(ish) Kid on The Block

Amazon Simple Email Service

Why is not everyone using Amazon SES yet?

If you can, check out Amazon SES

Mailchimp vs Campaign Monitor

This post was first published in 2015.

Why Customer Retention Management Matters

This post was first published in 2016.

Introducing ICE London 2024