Reader loyalty: it’s the magic ingredient that ultimately makes or breaks the success of your email list. If you have loyal readers who trust you, then you’ll have higher conversion rates. Plus, loyal readers will help you in other ways, such as referring their friends to help your list grow even more.
Question is, how do you get people loving you and your business simply by sending them emails? That’s what you’ll discover how to do in this guide.
1. Share Personal Stories
You’ve probably heard that you need to create content that’s focused on your reader, their problems, and how to solve them.
That’s true. But you also need to let people get to know you a little bit by sharing personal stories.
The key is that you don’t want to go on and on about yourself. Instead, share snippets of your life here and there. For example, if you have an event going on in your life that most people can relate to (such as getting married, having a baby, getting a new dog, going on vacation, etc.), feel free to share it. You don’t need to tell a long story about it – just let people know what’s going on.
E.G., “You may have noticed I haven’t been as active on social media lately. The reason is because we just had a baby! Here’s a pic of our new little girl…”
Secondly, you’ll also want to share personal stories that are directly relevant to the niche. For example, if you’re helping people lose weight, then share stories of your own struggles with being overweight, and how you eventually lost the weight. Not only does this sort of personal story pull people closer to you, it also gives you an opportunity to be unique, as no one else has the exact same story as you.
2. Give Generously
A second key to creating reader loyalty is to give generously when you share content. This means giving some of your very best content to your subscribers. Indeed, you can share (for free) the type of content that a lot of other people in your niche are charging for. Your subscribers will quickly realize that you offer high-quality content, which is a good step towards building loyalty.
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3. Interact With Subscribers
Generally, your mailing list is a one-way street: you create content to send to your subscribers, and your subscribers read it.
The problem with this model is that it’s difficult to build a relationship when one person is doing all the talking. Plus, people who get this sort of content may even forget that there IS a real person on the other side of those emails.
Here’s the solution: you need to make a point of interacting with your subscribers on a regular basis. Here are three ways to do it:
Ask for feedback via email. When subscribers provide it, write a personal note back to each person who gave you feedback. (Obviously, this works best when you still have a small list, as otherwise you may get overwhelmed with responses.)
Assign a special section of your blog for newsletter content. You may even start a password protected section of your blog for subscribers only. Then encourage your subscribers to comment on your articles. It helps to ask questions such as, “What do you think?”
Advertise your social media platforms. There you can personally interact with subscribers in a variety of ways, including liking their comments, replying to them, and sharing their content on Facebook and other platforms.
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4. Put Subscribers First
As you decide what to promote inside your newsletter, there should be one question at the forefront of your mind. Specifically: “What are the BEST solutions for my subscribers?”
If you’re promoting affiliate products, don’t look at pricing, commissions, or anything of that nature at first. Your first priority is to make sure you’re promoting the very best solutions for your audience. Because if you do that, then you’re going to develop a great reputation that will bring you a lot of income in the long term.
Here’s a quick litmus test: would you proudly promote a particular product to your best friend or your mom (assuming they were part of the target market)? If not, don’t promote it to your list either.
5. Offer Something Unique
Look around your niche, and you’ll see that there are plenty of people who are publishing newsletters on the same topic as yours. The question you need to answer is WHY should someone subscribe to YOUR list? What makes your list different and better than the similar publications in your market?
For example:
- Does your newsletter provide tips or information not found anywhere else?
- Do you share case studies or other special features that others aren’t sharing?
- Do you offer special features such as video tutorials?
Your unique insights will help set your newsletter apart from the others in your niche. To that end, see if you can develop new ways of presenting information, such as creating your own formulas, which will help you stand out from others in your niche.
I like to create formulas around relevant, memorable acronyms. For example, my “Freelance Force” course is based on my F.O.R.C.E. formula, where each letter corresponds to a step in the formula (Focus, Organize, Rank, Create, Education).
6. Surprise Subscribers
The idea here is to reward your loyal subscribers with high-quality freebies from time to time. For example, you might send out a free report, a video, or even invite them to attend a webinar that’s not open to the public. This helps build reader loyalty, and it also helps train subscribers to open their emails from you.
7. Set Up Targeted Drip Campaigns
This strategy is all about segmenting your list, and then setting up targeted drip campaigns for these different segments.
NOTE: By “drip campaign,” I’m referring to loading a sequence of emails to your autoresponder, and sending these emails out at pre-determined intervals. For example, for new customers and prospects you might send an email every day or every other day for a week, just to build name recognition. For people who’ve been on your list for some time, you can send out a sequence with emails spaced out once or twice per week.
Here are examples of drip campaigns at different points in your sales funnel:
- People who request your free lead magnet get a sequence of emails encouraging them to buy the tripwire offer.
- People who purchase the tripwire offer get a sequence encouraging them to buy the core offer.
- People who purchase the backend offer get a sequence encouraging them to buy your backend offers.
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8. Engage Your Audience
We’ve talked about creating quality content to engage your audience. Here are three other ways to do it:
Solicit responses by asking questions. E.G., “What is your favorite dieting tip to staving off cravings and hunger?”
Share a story to build rapport. E.G., “I’ve never been so embarrassed as I was during my first day on the job as a teacher…”
Serve content using a light, conversational tone. Imagine you’re writing to a friend and adopt a similar tone. Avoid stuffy “textbook-style” language.
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9. Create Challenges for Subscribers
The idea here is to create niche-specific challenges for your subscribers to help them achieve their goals. For example, if your list is full of writers, then send out a message challenging them to a 30-minute writing sprint (i.e., seeing how many words they can write during the sprint). You can link this challenge to a private group, so that those participating can share their results.
10. Become the “Go To” Person
You need to set yourself apart from other newsletter publishers in your niche. One way to do this is by becoming the “go to” guy or gal for a specific sub-topic in your niche. In other words, you specialize in one important part of your niche, and then share breaking news, tips, and insights on this topic.
For example, if you serve a dog care niche, then you might specialize in a specific disease, such as diabetes.
11. Give Subscribers Special Perks
Another way to build reader loyalty is to give valuable perks to subscribers, such as exclusive discounts and bonuses not offered anywhere else. Indeed, if you promote other peoples’ products, you may wish to secure exclusive offers from these vendors, which will boost loyalty among your list.
12. Create a Quick-Start Guide
When you send out a welcome series to new subscribers, part of this series may include a “quick-start guide” for your niche. For example, if you’re teaching people how to set up a business, you might offer a free report or video that outlines in simple terms what steps users need to take to get started. Once people take the first few steps and get good results, they’re going to come back to you for help with the other steps.
13. Ask for Feedback
From time to time, you should ask for feedback from your newsletter subscribers about how to improve your newsletter. The key here is to then incorporate the good suggestions, which builds loyalty. You may even publicly praise the person who offered a specific suggestion. E.G., “Thank you to Mike from New York for suggesting a weekly Q&A session…”
14. Showcase Your Subscribers
This strategy is all about creating a “Subscriber of the Week” (or month) feature in your newsletter, where you interview a subscriber and showcase their success. For example, if you’re in a weight loss niche, then you can show how a subscriber has lost 25 pounds since joining your list (in this case, be sure to include “before” and “after” pics). This not only motivates current subscribers, it also builds loyalty among those who are showcased.
15. Find Out Why People Unsubscribe
Whenever possible, ask people who unsubscribe why they’re doing so. (Many autoresponders have this sort of “exit survey” built in.) If you find a pattern of responses, take the feedback to heart and see if you can lower your unsubscribe rate.
For example, if people unsubscribe early on, does your onboarding process or welcome series need work? Or perhaps the expectations you set on the lead page don’t match the messages you’re sending?
TIP: As always, keep in mind that the goal isn’t to keep every single person on your list. You want to keep the TARGETED audience on your list, while letting those who aren’t really part of your audience unsubscribe. In other words, let people who aren’t targeted weed themselves out, which will boost your reader loyalty and conversions overall because you’ll be left with a very targeted, qualified list.
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16. Re-engage Cold Prospects/Customers
One feature of many top email service providers is that you can see which subscribers haven’t been opening your emails lately. If someone hasn’t opened a single email or taken some other action for weeks or months, then these subscribers are growing cold.
The solution is to send out a re-engagement series of emails that’s designed to “warm up your list” and bring these cold prospects or customers back into the fold. Your goal is to get them to open your emails again and start clicking on your links.
For example, you might send out a three-to-five part series of emails to people who haven’t clicked on any of your emails for at least a month.
So, what happens if someone doesn’t re-engage during this series? Then you can remove them from your list. This will boost your overall conversion rate. Plus, as an added benefit, you’re not paying to send emails to people who are never going to open and read them anyway.
17. Provide Tools for Your Audience
Many publishers in your audience will provide information. If you provide information AND the tools needed to complete a process, then you’ll stand out and build reader loyalty. Examples of tools include:
- Checklists
- Worksheets
- Templates
- Planners
- Swipes
- Mind maps
- Process maps
And similar.
For example, if you’re teaching your list about copywriting, you can offer them sales letter templates to make it easier for them to create a sales letter.
Conclusion
Building reader loyalty is one of the big keys to creating a responsive list, so be sure to put these 17 tips and ideas to work for you!
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