Email subscription services are a great form of marketing and it is one of the most effective. In 2015 the email marketing industry census findings showed that email marketing has the highest return on investment when compared to all other forms of digital marketing (Econsultancy, 2016). However, there are some common problems that are faced, mainly being, getting people to subscribe and keeping the customer engaged and looking at each email that is sent to them. This blog will be highlighting simple but effective ways to hopefully help overcome these problems.
- How to get people to subscribe
Although email subscription may be one of the leading channels in marketing, some companies struggle to get those all-important subscriptions, and without sufficient amount of subscribers it would be pretty useless.
- Do automatic signups – most retailers have loyalty clubs, so on the signup form ensure to ask for the customers email. This email can then automatically be put into the email subscriptions. This stops retailers even having to pester the customer by constantly asking them to subscribe.
- Cleverly word questions to trick customers – when a customer is purchasing a product online, there is often a tick box saying ‘tick box if you would like to receive emails’, change the sentence to make the customer have to tick the box to not receive emails, for example ‘tick box to not receive emails’. Customers normally forget to tick boxes because they’re rushing or they might have just not noticed them. So by making the customer having to select a box to not sign up, there is a high chance they will miss this therefore automatically be opted in.
- Make opt in box visible – it is very unusual for customers to actively look to find email opt in boxes. Therefore they should be situated several places throughout the website to promote customers to sign up. Holdsworth (2016) claim that there should be three opt in boxes on every page of the website, the top, side, and bottom. Customers will never have to look far to sign up. However, the subscription boxes should be subtle and it is strongly advised to steer clear from using annoying pop-ups to encourage customers, as it’s more likely to do the opposite and annoy them.
Don’t use pop-ups. (Salcido, 2014).
- Make an incentive to subscribe – everyone loves a freebie or even just a discount voucher, there are many bargain hunters out there that would happily subscribe knowing that they are going to get something in return. Once someone has subscribed it’s very unlikely that they are going to unsubscribe, so it’s well worth the initial freebie giveaway.
- Keeping the customer retention
Okay, customers are now signed up, but the next problem being faced is keeping the customer engaged and making sure that the email being sent to them is being opened, not just put straight in the junk folder
Up to 70% of people that receive emails from a brand or company, mainly open the email to search for any vouchers or discounts (Campaignmonitor.com, 2016), so why disappoint? This creates an incentive for the customer to open the email every time they receive one, because they know they are going to be discounts and deals. Companies that have loyalty cards can make it even better for those who subscribe by linking their loyalty card to know what discounts to provide. This prevents the customer getting unwonted vouchers because using the loyalty card; vouchers can be tailored to the persons purchasing habits. Geert Hofstede culture model was created to determine whether a culture is individualism or collectivism. Each year a score is given to every country to identify what category they fit into. The idea of this model is to give insight into consumer behaviour in that specific country. If a country is categorized as individualism, it means that individuals in that culture purchase products depending on their own preferences, needs and wants. Where as those that are classed as collectives, put their preferences aside and purchase products that everyone else have, to ensure they are similar. The UK scored 89, classing us as individualism (Geert-hofstede.com, 2016). This highlights how important it is for retailers to tailor deals around individual’s preferences, otherwise if an individual notices that they never see a discount that they will actually use, it could cause disengagement, resulting in them no longer opening their emails.
Hopefully this blog has given an insight on some ways a retail company can get people to subscribe to emails whilst also keeping them engaged and continuously view their emails. Below are some useful links:
https://blog.kissmetrics.com/get-more-email-subscribers/
http://www.wearemediaheadz.co.uk/4-ways-to-dramatically-increase-email-subscriptions/
http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/254225
References:
Campaignmonitor.com, (2016). 20 email marketing statistics to help you prove how awesome email is – Campaign Monitor. [online] Available at: https://www.campaignmonitor.com/blog/email-marketing/2014/09/email-marketing-statistics/ [Accessed 31 Jan. 2016].
Econsultancy, (2016). Email Marketing Industry Census 2015. [online] Available at: https://econsultancy.com/reports/email-census [Accessed 31 Jan. 2016].
Geert-hofstede.com, (2016). United Kingdom – Geert Hofstede. [online] Available at: http://geert-hofstede.com/united-kingdom.html [Accessed 1 Feb. 2016].
Holdsworth, B. (2016). 4 Ways to Dramatically Increase Email Subscriptions – Media Headz Design. [online] Media Headz Design. Available at: http://www.wearemediaheadz.co.uk/4-ways-to-dramatically-increase-email-subscriptions/ [Accessed 30 Jan. 2016].
Salcido, M. (2014). Social Media Strategies Your Business Should Adopt This Year. [online] AllBusiness.com. Available at: http://www.allbusiness.com/social-media-strategies-business-adopt-year-13898-1.html [Accessed 30 Jan. 2016].