Earning new customers is a cause for celebration. But if you think the job of winning over their business is done once they make a purchase, subscribe to your services, or sign up for your memberships, guess again. While a new customer might give you their business now, it takes a little more work to secure their commitment to your business. The best way to ensure that your new customer converts into a loyal returning customer is by making them feel confident that they are a valuable member of your community. One of the most effective ways to achieve this is by improving your email marketing strategies to engage with your new customers.
Customers want to be won over not sold
Consumers have seen it all and are not new to email marketing. Their inboxes are already filled with hundreds of email newsletters from a number of businesses focused solely on getting them to “buy, buy, buy!” without really making an effort to get to know their customers as individual people. Not only does this push a consumer away and prevent them from ever wanting to purchase from that business again, but it also makes them less likely to even give a new business a chance if they fear they’ll fall into this same sales trap again. If this has been your strategy and you’re wondering why new customers are slipping away before you even had a chance to shoot another newsletter their way, it’s time to switch things up.
When email marketing works, it really works
What it comes down to is really simple. New customers of a business want to feel valued. Whether that’s value in the purchase they make, value in feeling like a member of your community, or value in the services they experience being your customer. With the right email marketing strategies in place not only can you help each customer feel that they are experiencing a personalized approach, but that you also care about their business and how it helps your business in return. When a customer signs up to your newsletter or e-blast list, what they’re looking for is:
- An opportunity to be surprised and delighted. Show them something new they can’t get anywhere else, and why your business can give that to them
- Being treated like a person, not just an email address that contributes to your subscriber list count. Virtually wine and dine your customers. Make them feel special.
- Benefits to being your customer and subscriber. Tell them the perks and what they get out of you by taking the time to subscribe and engage with your content. Prove why they should be there.
- Deals, deals, deals. According to Oberlo, one of the main reasons consumers sign up to email newsletters is because they want to know about promotions from their favorite brands. If you tell your customers that’s where they’ll get them, make good on that promise.
It’s not a science, but there is strategy involved, and if you want your new customers to feel valued, convert into your most loyal customer, and come back to your business you need to begin implementing email marketing strategies that engage and connect with your customers, not talk at them.
Simply starting an email with “Hey there, Tim” isn’t enough for customers to feel compelled to keep up with your content. This is why if you want to retain the valuable customers you earn, you need to implement these five creative email marketing engagement strategies.
#Welcome new customers in your newsletters and e-blasts
Yes, while a friendly hello and welcome to the team shouldn’t be your only strategy, it is indeed effective at making a new customer feel welcome and acknowledged by your business, especially in the early days. No matter what your business type is, if you run a subscription model or recurring service, or sell individual consumer products, customers like to be remembered and acknowledged. Encouraging customers to sign up to your newsletter and then calling them out by name to recognize that you know they are there helps customers feel like not only are they part of your content, but that they are valuable to your business. It’s an introduction to the community they now want to be a part of.
#Share promotions and discounts in your email marketing
One thing every customer loves is the opportunity to save a little extra on your products and services. Giving new customers and subscribers exclusive discounts and opportunities to participate in promotions that they can only do if signed up to your newsletter or e-blast is both an effective way to encourage them to sign up and pay attention to your content as well as stick around in the hopes of earning more discount opportunities in the future. You can even include challenges and giveaways and request a certain level of engagement in order to earn these opportunities, thus getting your new customers to become even more involved with your business.
#Encourage customers to open your emails with enticing subject lines
If there is one thing customers really dislike, is getting boring emails that fail to connect with them, and ultimately end up right in their bin. Failure to attract new customers’ attention in your newsletter will lead them to unsubscribe which will lead them to forget about your business.
Using attractive and enticing subject lines that motivate customers to open your emails, check out your content, and want to see more will prevent new customers from giving your newsletters the boot. Tell them what to expect in the newsletter, use a quote to draw attention to something they must see, add emojis for an extra pop of attention, and even use new customers’ names in the subject line to make them feel that you are talking directly to them. Getting your customer to open your email is the hard part, but once they see that your content is engaging and interesting they will want to keep receiving them and check out the next one.
#Ask new customers what they want to see in your emails
We’ve all been there and received dozens of email newsletters from brands and businesses talking at us, not to us. An effective email marketing strategy doesn’t just communicate the information you want to be known but includes the information your customers want to know. The best way to figure that out is by asking. Sending new customers surveys as a first touchpoint, asking what they’d like to see in your content, what will engage them the most, and what they would like to hear about can help you implement a few valuable strategies within this one strategy:
- You can segment your email newsletters targeting certain groups with specific content they have requested to see
- You can receive detailed first-hand information about which of your content can be expected to perform the best and what customers will engage with
- Customers who tell you what they want to see will expect you to listen and stick around to see if you followed through and valued their insight as you said you would.
This type of strategy serves to benefit both you and your customer in a way that gives you the information you can’t get anywhere else, and your new customer a feeling that you are invested in what they have to say about your content and product.
#Invest in email marketing platforms to automate your delivery and production
Email marketing platforms are built and designed to make it easy for business owners to automate their communication, add customization so that each email is sent and tailored to segmented groups and specific audiences within their customer base, and provide them with templates and structures that they can use to save time creating their content.
Outsourcing to email marketing agencies will help you not only engage with your customers but also save you time doing so. With automated newsletters in place and triggers set to take action when say, for example, a new customer signs up to your newsletter, or signs up for a new subscription, you can easily engage with new customers without having to do it manually each and every time. New customers appreciate the professionalism and don’t need you to invade their inboxes with constant updates and messages to get their attention. Having a platform where you can build a smooth and intentional flow designed to connect and engage with customers without bombarded them and pushing them away is a successful strategy that you can maintain easily.
How you’ll know if your new email marketing strategies are working
The short, technical answer? When your open and click rates improve. The longer, more personal answer? When your subscribers continue to receive your emails, make purchases from your business, and share the value they experience by being your customer with their peers, on review websites, and with you. Loyalty goes a long way and when you implement strategies and efforts to show your customers how much their business means to you. By improving your email marketing efforts with the strategies above, you’ll be well on your way to welcoming new customers who won’t want to leave.