An awesome email marketing program is focused on building a loving relationship with your subscriber base. Batch and blasts? Please — that’s so tacky. Every program should be at a point where if you invited your subscribers over for bagels, you’d need to go buy more bagels.
So how do you get there? It’s called lifecycle marketing, and there are five stages of it. Your email program will support each leg of the lifecycle, with different campaigns aimed at moving a subscriber from one stage to the next. And, hey, if you’d rather just skip the whole reading thing and talk to someone about it, just click below …
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5. Acquire
When it comes to gaining subscribers, it’s always best practice to take some time to get to know your audience. But what’s the best practice for this best practice? Looking at your pre-existing data. Having a CRM and email preference center are huge in gaining this information. Social media is also a great avenue to peruse, if you don’t mind swiping through pictures of babies, cats, and pools.
Once you’ve nailed down your target audience, it’s time to grab their attention. Do you have something a prospective customer needs? Do they have an issue you can help resolve? Are they looking for a killer babaganoush recipe? Heck, do they even know they have an issue, or need something, or are craving delicious mashed eggplant? Part of your job as a marketer is to identify these things and bring them to the forefront.
Beefing up your SEO, making email sign-up completely not annoying, being personal in your social media game, refer-a-friend campaigns — all these avenues can combine together in a Voltron-esque form of awesome marketing that increases the size of your target audience.
4. Convert
OK — so you’ve captured your audience’s attention. Now what? It’s time to make them into customers. And that doesn’t mean to show them some good-looking pants and call it a day. You need to be active in pushing people to that next level. In your email marketing program, subscribers don’t want to be A) lied to and B) let down. Don’t give them babaganoush without the tahini, man.
So you can nip this in the bud by immediately telling people what they’re getting once they’ve subscribed to your emails. Welcome emails are great for this, and we definitely recommend that they be included in your marketing bag o’ tricks. Once a subscriber is happily receiving your emails and becoming familiar with your brand, you can start targeting them with campaigns to turn them into paying customers.
Send customers first-purchase emails will killer deals in them. If they’ve left stuff in their cart, let them know how lonely those items are. You can track their activity on your site to send relevant emails to them. Not too relevant though, they shouldn’t feel like you’re inside their house, breathing heavily and watching them.
3. Grow
We’re getting after it now. Once you’ve turned a subscriber into a customer in comfortable and super non-stalker-y manner, you don’t just up and peace out on them. You need to nurture them, give them cuddles. Email cuddles.
A fully-qualified customer will be cool in these four areas: budget, timeframe, need, and authority. Fortunately for you, the majority of individuals don’t fit this profile. Most people lack one or a few of those things. It’s your job to understand that and make good use of it in your email campaigns. You should already have the need part covered by this point — it is how you roped them in. But what about the other three?
If someone is faced with budget constraints, just keep them informed until those go away. A strong email program will keep piquing their interests until they’re finally available to make a purchase. Strong emails are good for people lacking authority in some manner or the other — these individuals can pass them on to those who do have authority. Now you’ve grabbed the attention of some who can make a purchase and, hey, maybe a new subscriber. Awesome!
Timeframe is a little trickier. This will rely on the strength of the content you send at subscribers who have a timeframe for making a purchase or that all important platform demo. Stay present in their minds, keep them informed and educated through blogs and ebooks, and when it comes time for them to seal the deal — you’ll be at the front of their mind.
2. Retain
Now we’re cooking: We’ve increased our subscribers and turned them into buyers. Game over, right? Wrong, buddy.
This isn’t the time to pass the buck your customer service folks or sales team. In marketing, you have an obligation to do what you can to increase your retention rate. Your engagement shouldn’t falter, and your subscribers shouldn’t relegated to some sort of batch and blast scheme. Retention should be just as engaging as your recruiting efforts.
And there’s a number of ways to use the data you’ve compiled to keep customers coming back. Wish them a happy birthday because everybody enjoys a little love on their birthday. Did you screw up and send a recipe for bacon-sausage-pepperoni pizza to a list of vegans? Take this opportunity to apologize to them. It doesn’t feel great, but this just adds another layer to the relationship. Also, hey, preference centers are great. While you don’t want to get too creepy with your questions, you can build out a preference center that will help you nail down the best emails to send to folks and keep them coming back for more.
1. Win Back
Are subscribers and customers unegaged and making your email list sad? Time to cut them, right? Well, not quite yet.
Yes, this behavior will hurt your deliverability rating, but that shouldn’t keep you from standing outside their house blasting Peter Gabriel out of a boombox. Put together a re-engagement campaign: A series of emails you send out specifically designed to get some action out of these subscribers. If by the end of that series, there are people who didn’t engage at all. It’s time to give them a boot.
Well, almost. Before you do that, you might want to segment out people who have utilize your services previously and combine them with apparent one-time users or other people who benefited from what you’re offering. Use what you know about them and send some specific emails to them. People who return to you and likely to spend seven times more than the typical online shopper.
So, you know, it’s absolutely worth it to send what counts to these individuals. No one ever bought a gold toilet by leaving money on the table.
Also check out How To Increase Subscriber Lifetime Value and Your Most Valuable Marketing Asset.
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