Last week, we received a marketing question from Meny Hoffman about how to boost engagement and reaction to his emails. He asked a great question that many marketers want to know about and I’m happy to answer it and provide an example, too.
Question:
I have a question for you, we have a nice size list for our e-newsletter and we see that people open them as well, I was wondering if you have any advice on how to get people engaged about what they read, either by hitting reply, or commenting, this would give me a better understanding, on what they like to read in the future, what they agree or disagree etc. I could imagine a lot of [Infusionsoft] clients have this challenge.
Answer:
The key to this problem is using Automation Links. You can use automation links to gauge interest and elicit response from your subscribers.
For example, if I wanted to know if my audience liked an email I sent, I’d included two links at the bottom: “Like” and “Dislike”. Actually, I’d probably link two images: a thumbs up and a thumbs down. I’d also put a caption under each one: “Send me more of this kind of info” or “Send me less of this kind of info”. By using automation links this way, you can quickly “poll” your audience to see which topics interest them.
Pro-tip: If you use automation links for simple polling, I’d suggest writing some conditions/rules into the actions. People will usually choose their answer and click it first. But they might go back and click the other one just to see what it does. In this case, you’d have one person showing up as a “Like” and a “Dislike” – skewing your results. So, create a rule that only allows a tag to be applied if other one hasn’t already been applied.
Another way to increase engagement is to combine your email communications with your blog. Write a blog post that’s controversial or sparks interest. At the bottom, include a call to action for people to comment and get involved in the discussion. Then, send an email to your list that summarizes the blog post and points them to the post in order to join the discussion.
Lastly, I’d suggest using automation to be really personalized. For example, let’s go back to the first scenario – the “Like” or “Dislike” button. In addition to tagging people when they click, I’d send a very personalized email that said something like:
Hey John,
I noticed you didn’t like the topic of the last email you sent. I’d really appreciate it if you’d take 2 minutes to reply to this email and let me know of the 5 topics that would interest you the most. My goal is to provide valuable content for you. Obviously, I missed on the last one – so please help me make my newsletter better for you.
Thanks.
My guess is you’ll receive quite a few replies from those types of emails.
The key, of course, to all of this is that you’re sending engaging, relevant content. If your list has become bored with your communications, none of this will work … you’ll be ignored. Therefore, it’s important to begin establishing a valuable relationship right from the get-go.
If you’d like me to answer your question for next week’s Marketing Monday, just post it to the comments below or ask us on Facebook.
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