E-mail marketing has become a mature channel, whose formulae for the valorisation of an e-mail address and performance indicators are well known. Like in the case of any traditional channel, innovation is more and more difficult, especially that it implies risks that few brands are willing to undertake. Nevertheless, innovation is essential in order to stay updated and compatible with the customers’ needs. So, which are the areas still allowing for innovations? The answer may come from the very requirement faced by e-mail marketers: to increase the subscribers’ database.
Social networks that Internauts are so familiar with have handed in to consumers the control over the brand perception within these media. Access to information and information itself is currently under the consumers’ control.
Similarly, e-mail marketing programmes should begin from the existing subscribers’ community, in order to identify and attract potential customers.
Build on the power of groups
People depend on groups, because they cannot live outside communities. Even teenagers contouring their eyes with black, in Gothic style, who want to be different from the others, end up spending their time with other teenagers making up their eyes in dark colours.
People get married, make up families and join sport teams. When we think about e-mail subscribers, we must remember these things.
The first thing a person visiting your site thinks about before giving you his/her e-mail address is whether he/she is the only one doing this. Do they subscribe for a site with outdated offers or not adjusted to the latest trends? The phenomenon is called the need for social evidence. The visitors of your site need to know that other subscribers having similar interests have decided to subscribe for the newsletter. If you don’t have a large number of subscribers to present, you should try one of the following strategies:
- Use testimonials in the sign up area. Why not show them what other people say about the opportunity to subscribe? If the testimonial comes from a respected person from the industry, it is even more valuable. Do not post testimonials on the page dedicated to testimonials, post them wherever they are necessary.
- If you have an attractive number, post it. If you have an impressive number of visits, you should emphasize this. If you have a large number of followers on Twitter, show that. Large numbers help new subscribers feel that they belong to a community.
- Use exclusivity. In your call-to-action, you may argue why, by subscribing, subscribers may become the members of an exclusivist community. If being part of a group is a good thing, being part of a group that other people don’t know about is even better.
Potential subscribers identification
Most brands facilitate for the subscribers the possibility to recruit or register friends for a certain programme. For many years, marketers are striving to increase the FTAF (forward to a friend)rate, with low impact upon the subscriptions number. Similar results are recorded in the case of SWYN (share with your network) which, despite the fact that it is recognized as the best practice, does not generate significant increases.
However, certain brands have made one step forward. For example, sites like HauteLook, Rue La La, and Gilt Groupe. They have increase their customer base using two methods: a) creating an excellent subscription experience for the user; b) rewarding recommendations to friends.
The HauteLook subscription page, under “Invite a friend”, contains a motivation incentive. Besides its good position at the top, in a visible place, the programme for attracting friends is rewarded by stimulating the subscribers to become advocates of the brand. Award suggestions: free e-books, free download reports, pop-up forms.
Eventually, the brand has managed to make the subscribers responsible for the acquisition, paying them for that (instead of paying the same money to publishers).
Subscribers create content
Another example of attracting new subscribers is to allow them to contribute to content creation and to become publishers with the brand. Communities are created, within which participants may answer questions and address other people’s needs, instead of talking with a brand expert. In many cases, article writing was entrusted to the consumers’ database. This should also be considered in the case of the e-mail. The content created by a subscriber for another subscriber has the potential to increase the value of communication by the level of advocacy (a consumer’s availability to become the advocate of a brand) within the subscribers’ community.
Innovation means a lot of things and it is not always related to technological progress. Analysing several e-mail marketing strategies, we notice that novelty emerges especially from the assimilation of the idea that the paradigm of communication has changed, the control being handed over from the marketer to the subscriber.
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