How to increase newsletter engagement
Email marketing remains one of the best ways to get in front of your audience. Since these are people who at least once tried one of your experiences they are much more likely to engage with what you have to say to them. But it will only do that if what you have to say is relevant to them.
A one size fits all approach rarely works in marketing and for a good reason. So you should segment your audience as much as possible to increase newsletter engagement. Selling to people is all about getting in front of them at the right time with the right message and audience segmentation is the way to go to do just that.
What you already know
Even if you don’t collect additional data on the people in your newsletter list - which you should absolutely do - you should still have a few pieces of intel on them:
The product they made the booking for, will help you to get in front of them the one they haven’t tried yet.
The time of the booking will inform you on when they prefer to do such activities, so you can promote time specific offer to them.
Newsletter providers such as Mailchimp can tell you the IP address based location. So if you have a location based experience you should only send an email about off location experiences to those who are not in the area.
The group size will help you to decide on the right promotional deals. Like a buy 3 get 4 ticket deal if you know that the average group size is 4.
How to write engaging newsletters
What you should know
Start collecting these data points if you aren’t doing so already as this will immensely increase the engagement with your newsletters:
Group type. Someone booking for their work team needs completely different copy and images than someone who is organising a family outing with young kids. Your newsletters should always sound like you are directly addressing the recipient.
Loyal customers. You should separate the customers within the list who are loyal and already returned several times. They are your advocates and you should show them some extra love for that. You can also hit a friendlier tone with them, they know and love you.
Birthdays. It’s a nice gesture to wish them happy birthday but more importantly they are a hot lead during the lead up time to their birthday to book something with their friends and family for a celebratory outing.
Product type. If you have onsite and offsite experiences, you can combine this knowledge with the type of product they buy to get the right offer in their inbox.
Need help with any of this?
3 best practices
There are plenty of advice out there about how to write the perfect newsletter so I’m just going to name my top 3 advice for high engagement beyond segmentation.
Keep it short and sweet. Everyone’s time is finite and there are plenty of businesses competing for the same attention so don’t burry your message in fluff. Just get to the point and support your copy with images that delivers additional info to their subconscious.
Have a clear call to action. Always make it clear how take can take action if they decide to do so. Whether you want them to book or read a blog, make sure it’s always crystal clear how they can do that.
Mix up sales emails with content emails. Don’t bombard your audience with sales emails. Always mix in some emails with a content focus. It can still mention a sales message, but that will feel much more natural too.
Anatomy of a newsletter
Keep experimenting
There are numerous ways you can segment your audience and you should keep experimenting to find the right marketing messages for the right segments. Keep track of opening rates and click through rates, this will help you to finetune the tone you are using with each segment.
Don’t get disheartened if something doesn’t work. Marketing is all about experimenting and growing with your audience. The more you understand them the more effective you will be talking to them, ultimately upping the engagement with your brand as a result.
