Second sends are an Extu and vendor perk offered to partners to improve their marketing outcomes during key sales periods. But not everyone is privy to the benefits and best practices of these campaigns.  

Are you taking full advantage of second sends?  

In this article, we discuss all things second sends, from how they can accelerate your marketing results to campaign pro tips you can use in all future sends.  

Second Sends: The Basics

What are second sends? 

Second sends, bonus campaigns, or micro campaigns are extra email campaigns Extu and vendors offer to partners intermittently. In addition to your monthly campaign, these emails are built to help boost your connection with your clients and create more sales opportunities.  

Why send more than one campaign per month?

Extu partners on more than one program already know that sharing multiple campaigns per month has clear benefits. But for newer partners, especially those on just one program or with limited external marketing experiences, the benefits of second sends may be unclear.  

 Here’s the key benefits of second sends:  

#1. Mind share  – improve your visibility in clients’ inboxes and stay top of mind  

The inbox is a competitive arena; the more space you occupy, the greater your chances of engagement and the greater impact your brand will have on your target audience. And beneath this fact lies one of the tenets of marketing: repetition. 

Repetition is an indispensable device in marketing. The more you hear, read, or are exposed to something, the more you remember it. In digital advertising, this is called ‘frequency.’ Second sends are a low-commitment way to test the power of this device. 

A common worry with extra campaigns is that you start annoying a client or prospective lead, and eventually lose their interest. But that’s not as common as you may think. More than 90% of users want to receive promotional emails from people they do business with. And over 60% of users are happy with receiving at least 4 emails from businesses per month. (source).  

What does this mean? That, when it’s relevant, your clients and prospects WANT to hear from you.  

#2. Improve ROI – More emails = more opportunities 

 As expressed above, email marketing is a numbers game. The more emails you send per month, the more likely it is that your content will be meaningfully engaged with by a customer. Which also means you are creating more opportunities to sell.  

 Increased touchpoints improve ROI by activating readers’ interest in trusted vendor products and associating your brand with purchase choice.  

For example, you share an additional campaign with a panel of highly marketed products. There already is an interest amongst consumers for these products due to external marketing, so by sharing this panel you are (1) reinforcing their interest in these products and (2) reminding your contacts that they can purchase from you. Moments like this push prospects closer and closer to purchasing.  

Second sends necessarily produce more of these marketing and sales opportunities, thereby increasing your ROI in your Extu marketing program.  

Seconds Sends: Best Practices

#1. Timing – This one is a no-brainer: you don’t want sends to go out too close together but staggered throughout the month. Sometimes this doesn’t work in practice, but it is ideal.  

For second sends, you want to send at least 1 week before or after your regular campaign. This will minimize potential redundancy and opt-outs, and make sure each send gets the attention it deserves.  

#2. List segmentation – Are you worried about sending an irrelevant campaign or an increase in unsubs? You know your clients’ preferences, so you can segment your contacts accordingly. This is a fool-proof way to target your content and ensure you’re not sending content to someone who doesn’t want it.  

Examples of list segmentation include: vendor preferences, hardware needs, software needs, or vertical.  

Learn more about list segmentation here.  

#3. List scrub – If you haven’t done a list scrub yet this year, now is a good time to remove abandoned addresses or contacts that are disengaged. They will tank your open and engagement rates, as well as calculable ROI. Improve the effectiveness of second sends AND your key metrics, including bounce rates, by keeping your list clean.  

Learn more about clean data and maintaining your database here.  

 #4. Following up – Chase the engagement. Using the Insights Hub, track which contacts are engaging with your content and send them a follow-up email. These touch points establish purposeful lines of communication with prospects who have already demonstrated interest in your offers. Ideally, you should touch base with prospects around 24 hours after engagement – while their interest is still fresh.  

Extu prioritizes partner success

Extu marketing programs are nothing without the partners who engage with them. That’s why we emphasize creating more opportunities for our partners to grow their business and elevate their marketing presence. Second sends represent a small part of those efforts.