Out of all the marketing strategies, building a responsive and engaged mailing list can be one of the biggest challenges any business can face.
That’s because most companies make the same mistakes or don’t go out of their way to do things differently.
After researching what the experts say, here’s what we think is the most helpful advice into 10 simple tips.
These top 10 tips will help make your mailing list stand out from the rest:
1. Make your sign-up process easy
It’s amazing how convoluted some sign up processes can be. The fact is; if a customer needs to ‘work’ to sign up to something, then they’re going to get bored and not bother.
This needs to be simple and quick. Don’t make the recipient work any harder than they need to. If you can make it exciting, give them a reason to sign up and look forward to being on your mailing list.
2. Encourage social connection
Your emails need to be interactive. They need to achieve something and lead somewhere. Offer links to rewarding places and connect to your social media channels.
Use your emails to tell customers about certain insights you’ve posted and let the email guide them.
Most customers won’t realistically see every social media post you make, but they are likely to see your email. Even if it’s only the subject line, make sure your message is clear and encourages some form of positive action from them.
3. Base you campaign on things your audience want
If you already have an established following, try to work out what they are clamouring for, then deliver it.
There may be trends and commonalities to your customers’ requests. It’s tough to set up a mailing list, so try to make it coincide with something popular you’re doing.
Lead with the good news to maximise subscribers, if you can try to connect the two things. This is when engagement and sign-ups will be at their highest.
4. Use your other platforms to tell your audience about the benefits of being on your mailing list
It’s tough to establish a loyal and responsive mailing list without help from elsewhere. So put your other platforms to use in building it.
You may have a captive audience elsewhere, such as social media. So, use these to tell your customers about your mailing list and why being on it is a good idea.
Give them a tangible reason why they need to sign up and receive your emails. What can they get there that they can’t get here? Your website should also follow this strategy.
Don’t beg for their data, tell them, truthfully, why it makes sense for them to give it to you.
5. Take advantage of your expertise
Remind customers of why you do what you do.
If a customer is considering giving you their details or is to continue to allow you to have them, then they occasionally need to be reminded why they can trust you with them. Or indeed why they should trust you enough to buy from you.
Put the features and benefits of using your company front and centre of your email campaigns. Customers want to know what’s in it for them. So tell them, without waffle.
6. Offer something exclusive to those on your mailing list
We talked above about giving customers a tangible reason why they should join your mailing list.
Think about what exclusive content or special offers you can provide to customers. Restaurants for example often use emails to offer discount codes.
Other businesses may offer exclusive insights that don’t appear on their social media channels. It depends on what your business is, but if your mailing list is going to grow it will need a reason to exist and stand on its own merits.
7. Plan your email campaign from beginning to end
It’s not enough to just plan your email and send it, you need to plan a series of connected but unique emails.
Don’t just send the same email over and over again, that will soon have customers unsubscribing. Your initial email needs to deliver on what was promised.
For example, the customer may have provided their details to take advantage of a special offer.
But what then? Plan every email beforehand and end each with a call to action.
8. Be prepared to change your approach
If a mailing campaign isn’t working, then don’t be afraid to change tactics. Stop the bleeding before you lose more subscribers.
What sweeteners can you offer to keep existing subscribers and encourage new ones?
You may have planned out an entire campaign, but if it’s not resonating with your audience then cut it loose. But don’t give up too quickly, always be sure.
9. Piggyback on your former success
Are you still making money from old rope? Is your business known for a certain product or service that was very popular and successful? It could even be an advertising campaign.
Even if you’ve moved on as a company, don’t be afraid to mine this deep vein some more. Lots of customers will still identify with it, so if it’s likely to boost your brand recognition and encourage subscribers – then take advantage!
Remind an audience why they love you, then give them more reasons to keep loving you. Nostalgia is an effective sales tool and can be used to good effect in an email campaign.
10. Invite feedback
Customers like to make their feelings heard. Appealing to their vanity with “your opinion counts” will be enough to encourage some people to sign up. People like to be heard, so give them an opportunity to be.
Some will have excellent and creative ideas that can benefit a business. Customer feedback is essential for a business to learn how to improve and a mailing list is a great way to facilitate this dialog.
From polls to open questions about what they think you should do in the future; this is a golden opportunity to test customer appetites to your products/service.