We tend to give so much weight to building a website, blog, product or service. Over time, our efforts do bear fruit and soon you have people downloading freebies, buying your product, subscribing to your email list, using your service, and following you on social media. However, a part that you have probably overlooked in your marketing strategy is re-engaging your audience.
What is re-engagement?
It is a marketing technique used to reach out to people who had previously expressed interest in your brand, or even bought some products. These people then disengaged. It aims at encouraging them to be active again.Why re-engage?
You spent a great deal of time and effort to get the attention of these people. Why let it go down the drain? You need to ensure a return on investment.Re-engaging your audience should be easier than building your site, brand or audience. This is because you already have a group of people who have expressed interest in your brand. Here is how to re-engage your audience:
1. Email Remarketing
For email remarketing to be successful as part of your marketing strategy, you need to know why people subscribed to your emails in the first place. The basic reason is that you caught their interest. Did you create a course on how to use your product? Offer a promo code? A free eBook? Run a contest or webinar? Answering this question lays a foundation for how to re-engage your audience.- Targeted emails
A crucial aspect of email remarketing is sending targeted emails. Your emails need to be very relevant to your audience. If they are not, they will ignore them. Worse still, if they are many, they will unsubscribe. For instance, you may be offering a certain course. You may have different pages, one for beginners, and another for people with advanced skills. When sending emails, you need to have different emails for the different audiences.- Audience Demographics
You may not be able to narrow down to the reasons the different people on your mailing list subscribed. You could send an email to the subscribers who are least active, asking them the kind of content that they would like to see. MailChimp allows you to locate disengaged subscribers via a member rating. You can also include a survey with options that they can click on. You can ask questions like: Is there anything I can help you with when it comes to (your brand or niche). (238)2. Segmentation
It is impossible to have a brand that focuses on only one type of audience when it comes to demographics. There are still variations, even if they are minimal. For you to know how to re-engage your audience, you need to narrow down to the really specific demographics. Here are some basic things that can help you to segment your audience:- The offer type signed up for
- Demographics (gender, location, age, and income)
- User activity, for instance, the type of emails clicked on in the past
3. Running contests and giveaways
Contests need to be part of your online marketing strategy. People love freebies. Ensure that the barrier for entry is low. Choose a gift that is related to your brand, for instance a free download of your eBook. You need to choose a type of contest that will create maximal engagement.You could for instance run a contest like 'Send a picture of you using our product. The person with the most votes will win.’ This contest will make people think about how they can creatively use your product. They will also request other people to vote for them, further increasing engagement.
The prize should be worth the hassle. The prize should be more worthwhile if the contest is hard. The prize should also be something that is in limited quality. If given free, the audience will feel that it was worth the effort and time.
- Segmentation in contests
Do not invite everyone on your email list to the same contest. Loyal customers need to be rewarded with exclusive prizes, which show your appreciation of their loyalty. If you are targeting the part of your audience that has drifted away, you need to create a contest with an aim of retention. If they had signed up via a free email course, create a contest related to this. You then need to send an email that informs them of the contest. The prize could be a free premium course.4. Subject Line
Your subject line is a crucial aspect of your online marketing strategy. One effective one is 'miss you'. You could also mention a discount in your subject line. A subject line with a discount with an exact dollar amount will be more effective compared with one that has a discount that is in form of a percentage.5. Frequency
As you think about how to re-engage your audience, you need to frequently send emails. Send a short and engaging series of 'miss you’ emails over a period of time. The message should show that you miss and care about winning back the customer. You could also end the email with an incentive, for instance, a discount that you will have mentioned in the subject line.Another aspect of frequency is engaging your audience after 30 or 60 days after initial contact. Do not wait for too long (6 months or more) as the customer may feel that you do not really care about them.
6. Reminders
You need to remind the client about prior engagement or purchases. This will help them recall their interaction with your company, and portray you as a brand that cares about its customers.7. Mobile
Any online marketing campaign that doesn’t involve mobile marketing is undoubtedly losing out on a large percentage of their audience. Some of the options available are push notifications, in-app messages and email. You can remind users to log back into your app via push notifications.8. Email-display retargeting
This marketing technique targets people in your email list who are inactive. You place a line of code in your email signature or in the HTML. Anyone who opens but does not complete the required call to action will see display ads all around the web. This approach allows you to send fewer emails while increasing your brand presence.Conclusion
When you are thinking about how to re-engage your audience, you need to include the above techniques in your online marketing strategy. You had already put the initial investment. Follow the returns.
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