Now that you’ve thought really hard about your campaign audience, it’s time to think a bit harder about what you want to say to all those different types of customers. Great speech writers follow three principles: “Tell them what you are going to tell them, tell them, then tell them what you told them”. The most successful collection email campaigns we see follow those same principles. ‍

Tell them what you are going to tell them: Give your customer the bottom line up front. Your subject line should indicate why you are reaching out. Drive the urgency in your message. Creating collection email templates with different messages helps to ensure your message gets the right attention. ‍

Tell them: Here is where you want to take the opportunity to say hello and let the customer know the details of the reason you’re reaching out. Are you sending a friendly reminder just to check-in? Are you following up because there is a balance that is past due? Are you letting them know that their account is about to be suspended. Create a personalized message like Box. The variables in our Template Settings are a great way to create personalization without having to hand-type every email or worry that you’ve made a copy-paste error. ‍

Tell them what you told them: In your closing, remind the customer why you are reaching out and remind them of the next action they need to take. Do they need to reply to provide a promise to pay date? Do they need to be given the date of account suspension? Do they need to send a tax document? If you could say anything twice in the email, what would you say?

When drafting your message, keep your company’s culture in mind. If your company prides itself on informality, you may not want to send your customers a form letter, it’s just not you. If you belong to a formal organization, a message that starts with “Hey, what’s up?” probably isn’t the best approach either. Put yourself in the place of your customer. How would you respond to the email if someone else sent it to you?

For more on customizing dunning campaigns, have a look at our other blogs: Step 1: Categorize Your Audience and Step 3: Analyze and Drive Results