How to Build Long-term Customer Relationships with Newsletters

Let your customers keep you in inboxes and they are likely to keep you in their minds.

Email marketing is the cheapest and the most effective marketing tool you can go for. According to Campaign Monitor,

Email marketing provides an average a ROI of $38 for every $1 spent.

This post shares golden nuggets that will help you build long-term customers relationships with newsletters. You will see how easy it is to build long-term customer relationships with newsletters.

1. Build Your Network

Share valuable content on a regular basis Start a content curation platform

Content creation pays off.

Why?

93% of online experiences begin with a search engine.

What does it mean in numbers?

There are over 100 billion global searches being conducted each month.

That is a major opportunity. Especially that

70-80% of users ignore the paid ads, focusing on the organic results.

Moreover,

Companies that blog have 434% more indexed pages. And companies with more indexed pages get far more leads.

I hope that now you’re hooked to create platform where you will share content. By platform I mean a blog, podcast or YouTube channel.

You might wonder:

But I want to manage customer relationships with newsletters… What does a blog have to do with newsletters?

First of all, a content curating platform is a great tool to fuel your email marketing list.

Secondly, once you establish yourself as an expert in your field, people are more likely to buy your products.

Thirdly, you will save money. You can allocate a smaller budget on paid ads as you already have people on your email list and its far easier to convince someone than likes you than a total stranger.

Moreover, you will find out that selling is easy.

Think about it: your audience trusts you.

Most of the time you produce free value-packed content your subscribers benefit from. Only from time to time you happen to offer paid solutions that are guaranteed to help your audience even further.

How come? It’s because you need to…

Share valuable content on a regular basis

Before you start a content curation platform, develop a content plan and produce content for a few weeks ahead.
In that way, you will be sure you have enough content to share before you learn more about your audience preferences.

Here are some content ideas to get you going:

• Tips and Tricks: It’s one of the best and easiest ways to provide value.
• Case studies: Very convincing and highly readable. It usually fills in readers on a challenge they can relate to.
• How-to articles: It’s a great way to indirectly sell your product by listing all of its benefits.
• News Roundup: The more personal you keep it, the higher chances that subscribers will engage back.
• Success Stories: Share subscriber success stories to increase engagement.
• Interviews: A question and answer format is very interactive and the format incentivizes your readers to ask questions

Add a Subscription Box

Now it’s time to expand your email list. Here you can plaster your newsletter signup form:

a) On the content curation platform

Your podcast/YouTube channel/blog website is a great place to expand your email list.

Most people aren’t incentivized aren’t incentivized by subscription boxes.

That being said, the first two points are must-haves. However, don’t expect too many subscribers.

Here’s what you need to do to up your email list building game:

a) Prepare a value-packed resource
b) Post on your platform in a visible place
c) Once people click on it, the box asks people to opt-in

2. Build an Email List

Growing an email list is easy.

It’s the basic tool that will help you build customer loyalty with email marketing

Here’s what you need to know:

a)Ask subscribers to opt-in

It’s a legal requirement in most of European countries.

b)Don’t send out emails without the unsubscribe link

Again, it’s a legal requirement in most of European countries.

c)Don’t buy email lists

You might get punished for emailing people without their consent.

d) Get as much information as possible

The more you know about your subscribers, the easier it is to personalize your messages.

Asking for the name is a must. Just like addressing your subscribers by their first name in every single newsletter.

However, you can learn more than that. If fact, the sky is the limit.

It’s up to you what do you ask your subscribers for – profession, company profile, hobbies…

You can set up your subscription page with Newsletter2Go.

e) Go for contact segmentation

With this feature in place, you can create lists based on shared identifying traits, including gender, location, and purchase history.

Contact segmentation is a time saver. This feature comes in handy once you go for marketing automation. With this tool, you will see how easy it is manage customer relationships with newsletters

If you’d like to learn how to build an email list in no time, click the image below and read a comprehensive blog post on email list building.

3. Sign Up Page

Put yourself in your potential customer’s shoes.

The sign up page must stand out and be enticing.

Add graphics, reiterate the benefits of joining the list (exclusive tips, weekly case studies, promo codes, you name it) and then ask your subscribers to click the link in the confirmation email immediately.

When do you it, please don’t use the same boring message everyone does.

“In order to complete the subscription process, simply check your inbox and click on the link in the email we have just sent you”

Start to build customer loyalty with email marketing the right way.

4. Share Relevant Content

Sharing relevant content via newsletter is a breeze.

Remember contact segmentation?

You segment your audience in different groups. Some are interested in marketing advice only; some would like to get special offers. And a significant percentage loves all things puppy.

Thanks to contact segmentation, you won’t be sharing random content and hope that people will open your emails & won’t get annoyed by updates they are not interested in.

Personalized email messages improve click-through rates by an average of 14% and conversions by 10%.

You can clearly see that sharing relevant content is easy and guarantees that you will build long-term customer relationships with newsletters.

5. Share Content on a Regular Basis

However, if you are looking for a pay off in the long run… in great dividends, you need to up your content game.

Choose a regular cadence that you can commit to and have your subscribers get accustomed to a weekly/biweekly newsletter.
These questions will help you with content creation:

• What sublists do I have?
• What does each subscriber group want to know about most?
• How can I provide value?
• Which content medium will be the easiest to consume?

You might also want to never set up your email address a no-response email. Major companies go for this option, but they already invested a lot in relationship building.
Getting back to subscribers who wanted to thank you for valuable tips will help you build customer loyalty with email marketing.

If regular content creation terrifies you, check out the next point.

6. Email Marketing Automation

Marketing automation if a professional tool… that is easy to use.
You set up email sequences. You activate them once. And voila! Email sequences will function automatically and independently.

For example, you can set up welcome, birthday, reward and we want you email.

Isn’t it crystal clear?

Now you’re probably wondering… what exactly can marketing automation do to you?

You’ll always send out newsletters geared towards the current behavior, interests, and actions of your customers. Therefore, your emails are always relevant and over a few week’s span, you will earn your subscribers trust. That tool sets you up for success. Read more about marketing automation.

Marketing automation guarantees that you will build long-term customer relationships with newsletters.

Autoresponders

Personalized autoresponders are… personalized (you guessed it). It’s a go-to tool for one-on-one relationship building.

What are they?

Think of them as customizable email messages following a preset deliverability sequence.
Autoresponders result in stronger connections, user engagement, and, consequently, higher conversion rates.

How to make the most of autoresponders?

First of all, they are customized based on the signup page subscriber data.

• Address subscribers by name
• Encourage engagement
• Set expectation for future newsletters
• Educate about your brand

According to global management consulting firm Bain and Co.,

A 5 percent increase in retention yields profit increases of 25 to 100 percent. On average, repeat customers spend 67 percent more than new customers.

Repeat customers are revenue-drivers. They should land on a special email list and you would want to pamper them with exclusive offers, event notice, sales sneak peek. What a better way to get in touch then with trigger emails?

7. Personalized Marketing

Can you personalize your emails even further?

Yes, you can.

Can you save more time?

Hell yes.

Marketers see an average increase of 20% in sales when using personalized web experiences.

Without personalized design blocks, you’d need to send out different newsletter versions to your target groups. Or send one and have a lower open rate.

This feature allows you to create one email… however, each target group will receive another newsletter version. Increase click rates in no time with personalized design blocks.

8. Storytelling in Email Marketing

Storytelling is powerful. It also happens to be a great engagement and sales driver.

How do you become a storyteller?

You probably remember bedtime stories. There were all about (tough) experiences and a hero’s journey filled with obstacles that left you with a moral. Business storytelling isn’t that different.

Here are three useful questions to get you started:

• Which experiences could benefit your subscribers and can be translated into a meaningful advice?
• What story format would you like to use? (Entertaining/Inspirational/Motivational/Who Am I/Rapport Building Story)
• Which of my experiences can relate back to the core offerings of my business?

Storytelling can span to your customers, too.

Include your customers’ stories in your newsletters and you will win people over. It guarantees that you will build long-term customer relationships with newsletters.