An association thrives off its members and membership growth. To increase membership sign-ups, it’s important to offer relevant content and strategize ways to connect with prospects. One way to do that is through email marketing; to have a strong email campaign, however, you must first establish a way to build your email list.
Picture this, a prospective member visits your site, engages with your content and contemplates joining. The next minute, they’re distracted by emails and other to-dos and the priority of joining your association quickly drops to the bottom of their list. This kind of cycle is natural but can be avoided. Below, we mapped out strategies to collect prospects contact information, what to do with it and how to create an email campaign that increases membership.
1.Subscription to a newsletter or updates
One way to collect a prospect’s email is by offering a subscription to your newsletter or important news. Prompt them to subscribe by highlighting an interesting story from your newsletter or feature some important industry news that they need to know about. This specificity peaks the interest of a prospect more than a bland “click to receive our 2017 newsletter” message. Give them a glimpse of what’s inside and they’re more likely to subscribe. Want more on newsletter best practices? See our recent post here.
Now that they’ve subscribed, make sure you are transparent in the type of content they will receive and how frequently you’ll be contacting them. The amount of emails circulating through the average person’s’ email inbox makes getting your message through even harder. Don’t decrease the likeliness of an email open by bombarding the member with messages. Be thoughtful about the message you want to send and how the timing / frequency can affect your success. Consider that some folks like frequent contact and others prefer a monthly email.
If your association / organization has multiple chapters within the industry, consider creating multiple newsletters that appeal to each audience. It’s more work but it could benefit you in the long run.
2. Optimize forms and personalize your email campaigns
To further connect with members, make sure to personalize your emails. When you collect a prospect’s email address, make sure to also ask for their first and last name. Besides that information, however, keep your form simple and short. The more information you require from a prospect, the less likely they are to fill it out. “We often see that if a landing page isn’t performing, it’s because we asked for too much information in the form,” says Chloe Mark, strategist at ArcStone, AMO’s sister company. Asking for too much can feel like a lot of work or an invasion of privacy for a prospect. If this individual is the right fit for your company, build trust, offer helpful resources and then ask for more.
3. CTAs in newsletters
Once a prospect subscribes, you can assume they are interested in receiving content and approve of a certain amount of contact. Use this opportunity to provoke further engagement with CTAs in your newsletter that links to landing pages including relevant blog posts or interesting articles. If you use a CRM system, check to see if prospects or members have opened your email or clicked on certain links – if you notice a particular amount of engagement from a certain member, enter them into a separate workflow that provides more of the specific content they are engaging with.
4. Use an app to increase email collection
Build out your email list using an app like Sumo. Sumo uses a timed automatic pop-up to collect contact information. You can choose the length of time a user will spend on your site before the pop-up appears and what messaging appears on the pop-up. They can choose to fill out the form or simply exit out. Sumo is a great way to automate the tedious task of list building.
Want to learn more about growing your email database? Check out this article on ArcStone’s blog – “Enjoy a Bigger Email Marketing List“.