A lot has changed in email marketing in the past 10 years, but one constant has remained: Subscribers rule. Or at least they should rule. If they don’t drive your email marketing campaigns and strategy, you might need to re-evaluate how you view them.
Why so much emphasis on subscribers? Because email marketing should be a long-term tactic. It should be viewed a marathon and not a sprint because mail is not a tool we use for acquisition. It is a tool that rocks at retention. SEO, PPC and social media can all get people to your site to start your relationship with a prospect. But email is how you continue the relationship and eventually convert that prospect into a paying customer. Even in an age dominated by social media, it is a relationship medium.
To really make use of email marketing in that way, however, you must give your subscribers control. Hence the title of this post. Subscribers rule because we’d be nowhere without them, and they rule because we have to listen to them to succeed.
To help you keep subscribers top of mind, use these tips:
- Offer options and then honor your subscribers’ unique preferences for types of content and frequency of communication
- Send timely, relevant content that improves their lives
- Think of them as individual subscribers and not as a list
- Use your email analytics to let your subscribers tell you what works and what doesn’t work
- Manage your email marketing campaigns for the long-term, and always be thinking of them that way
- Strive to engage your subscribers and talk to them, not at them
- Establish email marketing policies to make sure you’re always putting the subscriber’s best interests first
Respect the medium of email marketing, and respect the subscribers as a result. Email touches your best customers, the people who said “Yes, I want to hear from you” vs. searchers who want to hear from you once–maybe. Make sure your subscribers want to keep hearing from you by treating them well…and letting them rule.
About the Author: Sharon
