Are Email Growth Tactics Still Worth Doing?
It’s undeniable that our content consumption habits have changed since the introduction of social media. With the ever-increasing popularity of various social messaging platforms, many businesses are abandoning the inbox as a way of engaging and communicating with customers in favor of the newer digital marketing strategies, with the belief that email marketing and the growth tactics around them are ineffective, outdated, dying, or even already dead...
They couldn’t be more wrong. Here are some facts:
- For the “Big 3” of social media (Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter), the engagement rate isn’t even 0.6%, compared to email’s average open rate of 22.86% and click-through rate of 3.71%
- According to a McKinsey & Co study, email marketing is still 40 times more effective at reaching your target consumers than Twitter or Facebook. The rate at which emails prompt purchases is not only estimated to be at least three times that of social media, but the average order value is also 17 percent higher
- An analysis published by Marshall Manson, Social@Ogilvy found that the organic reach of the content brands get on Facebook is destined to hit zero in the foreseeable future
Email marketing is certainly the oldest digital marketing tactic, however, it’s by no means an old hat. It consistently is the backbone of digital marketing success:
- An email list can be segmented to help you develop a focused marketing strategy and deliver targeted messages.
- You own your email list fully without being at the mercy of any social media platforms’ decisions.
- You don’t have to compete with algorithms to get your brand in front of your target audience.
- Email lists give you higher ROI. On average, every company that spends $1 on email marketing can expect to earn $36 of revenue in return!
What if there was a way to amplify your current efforts and grow your list, without changing your content strategy? There is and it works very well.
How To Grow An Email List Fast
There are very few marketing channels as well-rounded as email newsletters. A healthy, engaged and growing list is one of a business’ greatest marketing assets. As a creator, writer or marketer, it’s your job to make sure you are constantly adding fresh contacts to your email lists so that you can continue generating growth. While comprehensive email lists can’t be built overnight, there is an equally fast and effective way to boost your subscriber base that goes beyond the traditional newsletter signup CTAs such as static embedded opt-in forms on the homepage, dynamic pop-ups, etc.
We are talking about building an email newsletter referral program by turning the subscribers you already have into an extension of your marketing team. The goal is to multiply the impact of your marketing efforts to build your brand and ultimately get more subscribers and gain more conversions.
Turn your subscribers into an extension of your marketing team.
An email newsletter referral program is a system that mobilizes your existing subscribers to share your newsletter with people they know. It takes a little time to plan and implement, but the potential for viral growth is endless. More and more businesses nowadays are leveraging referral software to scale this subscriber acquisition channel. They often find automating the subscriber referral process using specialized referral software, such as ReferralHero, rewarding because it makes the overall managing and tracking extremely effortless.
A referral program platform drives newsletter growth by
- Boosting your brand awareness: bigger exposure helps you find more subscribers in your niche, thereby increasing your overall subscriber count
- Increasing traffic and engagement: showcase your content by driving more traffic to your website, the result is improved engagement
- Lowering your acquisition costs: newsletter referral programs generally cost much less than other acquisition channels
- Creating a viral loop: have in place a mechanism for “send, spread, click and convert” that drives non-stop referrals for non-stop email list growth
Read on if you would like to learn how you can double your Mailchimp email newsletter list in less than 4 weeks!
Examples Successful of Mailchimp Referral Programs
SIDE is a Seoul-based newsletter, community, and media for multipotentialities who interview people who design their own lives and create content for those who have more than one interest or passion.
SIDE uses the ReferralHero Widget as the primary signup method for their Mailchimp newsletter and places it on multiple pages on their website. Here you can see it placed on the homepage.
As soon as someone signs up to the widget, they are shown the sharing screen as a popup:
After the person confirms their email, they are automatically added to ReferralHero and the user data (name, email, form fields, unique referral link, # of referrals, position #, etc) is passed over to Mailchimp via the ReferralHero native integration.
Each time a newsletter is sent out, information about the referral program, what they can win and their unique referral link is added to the bottom:
SIDE personalizes the reminder about the referral program and then adds the person’s unique referral link and referral score in an effort to motivate them to refer more people!
People share their stories and referral links on social media, inviting their friends to the community.
A dedicated landing page was set up for inbound friends who have been referred. They are immediately prompted to sign up for the newsletter and they can also see all of the previous newsletter SIDE has published.
As friends sign up for their newsletter, they are also immediately shown their unique referral link and prompted to invite more friends.. and the whole cycle is repeated.
It took about two weeks for SIDE to plan and execute their Mailchimp newsletter referral program. They promote and drive traffic to their referral program through social media, blogs, and subscribers’ word of mouth. That said since the referral program is integrated directly with all of their newsletter signup forms, anytime the newsletter is promoted, the referral program is also promoted.
This setup has worked so well for SIDE that they doubled their list within the first 4 weeks of launching the referral program and continue to see game-changing exponential list growth!
How To Setup a Newsletter Referral Program With Mailchimp
ReferralHero for Mailchimp allows you to reap the rewards of growing subscribers, analytics-based content optimization, improved on-site newsletter conversion, and enhanced subscriber engagement. You can easily incorporate ReferralHero referral elements into your newsletter to create and deliver a seamless brand experience for your subscribers.
ReferralHero’s native integration with Mailchimp allows you to auto sync your ReferralHero subscribers with a Mailchimp list of your choice which makes dynamically adding personalized data points to emails you send to your subscribers easily achievable.
1. Select Mailchimp as the newsletter provider you would like your referral program to integrate with. Then connect your Mailchimp account.
2. You’ll be redirected to Mailchimp where you’ll be prompted to sign in to your Mailchimp account. On the next page, click “Allow” to authorize ReferralHero to access your Mailchimp account.
3. Once connected, select the list you would like to connect to from the drop-down menu. Syncing will be automatic once changes are saved. If you create or remove lists in your Mailchimp account and need to update the lists in ReferralHero, just click on the “Update lists” link.
4. Custom merge fields with your subscribers’ data will now be automatically created in your Mailchimp list, e.g. referral code, referral link, referrer’s code if referred, total referrals, etc. Here is an example of a personalized email you send to your subscriber with custom merge fields incorporated:
When the email is sent, the custom merge fields will be replaced with the correct value.
5. You can also get your existing Mailchimp subscribers assigned a unique referral link with just one easy step. In the “Import from CRM” tab of your ReferralHero referral program, select a Mailchimp list from which you would like to import subscribers, specify a URL for the referral link then click the button “Import”. Optionally, you may also enable the “Send Welcome Email” at the time of import.
ReferralHero’s native Mailchimp integration is very convenient and powerful in terms of how you can seamlessly pass ReferralHero data to Mailchimp and include it within your emails.
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