The main purpose of email marketing is to bring revenue by acquiring subscribers and turning them into customers. For quite some time, email marketing has been a channel that delivers the highest ROI. Of course, if you create workflows that address subscribers’ needs and provide excellent customer experience. In this article I wanted to show you how you can optimize the subscription process in order to turn your subscribers into loyal customers.
Focus on the subscriber
Focus on the customer has been a marketing mantra for a long time now. Successful businesses engage with their customers and make sure that the voice of the customer is being heard and embraced.
Use this approach in you marketing efforts (not only email). Be close to your target audience and make sure you know their exact needs and expectations regarding your product, services, and marketing communication.
By understanding your target audience, you’ll be able to create an email marketing program that will become a very powerful lead magnet – that will attract the kind of audience that’s most likely to convert into customers.
Address customer needs in a welcome cycle
Create a short series of welcome emails explaining the main reasons behind your email marketing program and informing new subscribers what’s in it for them at the very beginning.
A fragment of a welcome email from Barnes & Noble explaining what to expect
If you target several subscriber personas, make sure they land in the correct workflows. You can ask your audience to choose the preferred workflow (e.g. by asking them to subscribe by clicking the right CTA button) or ask them about their preferences and move them to the right workflow based on the data you collected.
This will have a positive impact on your business. Placing the right person in the right workflow improves the quality of your email list and allows you to send the right emails to the right people.
Segment your email list
If you want to help subscribers’ become customers, you need to target them with the right content. That’s why segmentation is so important. Collect demographic and behavioral data in order to create segments – groups of subscribers with similar needs, preferences, or expectations.
Marketing automation makes tracking behavior and recognizing different subscriber profiles so much easier. You can use scoring, tagging, and automation segmentation to name just a few.
Properly organized segments help you develop high-quality content that’s designed to satisfy critical subscriber needs along the subscription journey.
Create a pipeline
Design marketing automation workflows so that they represent stages of a sales pipeline. Such representation will help you focus on different needs according to the stage in a pipeline, but at the same time it will help you focus on the ultimate email marketing goal – revenue and ROI.
Depending on the type of business this will look differently, but it usually comes down to something like this:
- start your email marketing communication by building awareness;
- satisfy subscribers’ interest in your products or services;
- help them make an informed decision about purchase;
- urge them to take action.
A pipeline is also a great concept and background for testing. Which emails are the most popular before purchase? Which ones lead to purchase directly? Which CTA has converted the most? Use the pipeline as a canvas for making assumptions and setting goals, then test and optimize your actions.
Provide exclusive offers for subscribers.
If you want people to subscribe and engage in your email marketing, you need to offer them something unique. Why should anyone subscribe to your email list if they already follow your brand on Facebook? Why should they purchase with a CTA in an email and not the Facebook Buy button?
Make sure that your email marketing program has something special to offer and that there are obvious reasons to subscribe.
A fragment of a welcome email from Barnes & Noble with a time-limited discount code
A fragment of an email from NPR with a special offer for subscribers only
Think of the big picture. What’s the role of email marketing among the other digital marketing channels that you use? What’s the role of email marketing in the overall customer experience? Answering such questions will help you design a customer-centric ecosystem.
Provide alternative for purchase.
No matter how well you optimize your email marketing program, there will always be people who go all the way through the pipeline but don’t become customers. Don’t worry. Keep on nurturing these relationships. Provide an alternative to purchase and make use of every seasoned and engaged subscriber on your list.
If they are not yet ready to purchase, allow experienced subscribers to promote your brand and bring in new subscribers. Ask them to share emails with their friends or promote content through their social media channels.
A fragment of a newsletter from Blue Bottle Coffee with a referral program
Create unique subscriber experiences.
Treat the tips from this article as a source of inspiration for your own unique email marketing program. Engage with your audience and develop a unique subscriber experience that will quickly convert people on your list into loyal customers.
What are your tried and tested techniques to turn subscribers into customers? Share your experiences in the comments below.
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The post Take These Tips and Turn Your Subscribers Into Customers appeared first on GetResponse Blog - Online Marketing Tips.
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