Communication between businesses and consumers is known as customer engagement. Keeping customers engaged in your company is the key to growing and retaining customers over time. Typically, engagement encompasses several different communication lines, including social media, on-site chat, and email.
Today we are going to focus on the last section, email. Email marketing is one of the best ways to keep in touch with consumers and build rapport with new subscribers and repeat customers alike. There are plenty of different email marketing services available, but some rules apply to almost every industry and provider.
Let’s look at several ways to keep your subscribers interested in your emails and brand.
Segment Your Email List
Once your business starts growing, you’ll discover that there are multiple customer personas you need to keep track of when you’re creating marketing material. Segmenting your lead lists allow you to experiment with unique types of content that fit the personalities and interests of the subscribers you would like to target.
Tracking engagement on-site can help you learn what percentage of your viewers are interested in certain kinds of content. For example, if you run an online gardening store, you would want to create various segmented lists for the consumers that frequent your website. In this scenario, it’s wise to create an email list that appeals to people growing flowers and another list for consumers interested in learning more about vegetable and herb gardening.
Segmenting your leads into these various categories improves engagement because subscribers are getting content that they find interesting. If you went to a gardening site to learn how to grow cucumbers, you wouldn’t engage with emails that talk about trimming roses, right? As your subscriber base grows, so does the diversity and usefulness of your lead list.
Gamify the Experience
Gamification is extremely popular with businesses across all niches. In essence, gamification is taking a seemingly hands-off experience and turning it into something that subscribers will enjoy. There are various ways to add games to your email marketing campaigns for increased engagement.
Contests are all the craze and have serious benefits outside of social media. Many marketers are creating segmented campaigns — similar to the segmented lists we mentioned earlier — and creating contests and raffles to engage their audience.
In many cases, you can use contests to promote engagement across various platforms at the same time. We mentioned social media earlier, and that’s because many business owners who create competitions encourage their subscribers to share and follow their company on social media. As a result, consumers are engaging with your brand through email and social media.
Ask for Feedback
Customer feedback is an excellent way to determine your strengths and weaknesses within your company. When you ask subscribers what they think, most will happily tell you their thoughts. Try to think through your sales funnel and determine when you can ask customers for their feedback.
For example, you may want to contact subscribers after each purchase and ask them to rate their experience on your site. This tactic can help you identify areas of opportunity in your sales flow and create a stronger UX.
It’s possible to bring back old customers by sending emails to inactive subscribers and asking why they haven’t interacted with your business. More importantly, use this as an opportunity to ask them what you can do to enhance their experience and help make engaging with your brand entertaining and valuable.
Conclusion
Engagement is one of the cornerstones of successful business growth. When consumers visit your website and hopefully subscribe, you want to find ways to make sure they are frequently coming back to your site.
Segmenting your lead lists, creating gamified content, and listening to customer feedback are some of the best ways to skyrocket your customer engagement percentage through email. Every business is different, so you’ll have to take some time to think about the products you’re selling and your customer base. Before long, you’ll have multiple thriving email marketing campaigns where consumers are genuinely interested in your company and products.
