Are you looking for more sign-ups for your B2B email newsletter? Do you wish that you have more subscribers following what you’re doing online? Did your social media campaigns this 2017 made a buzz for your business? We have a solution for you! Email marketing is a powerful tool that B2B businesses use to increase the size of their potential customer list. But it’s not just any type of list. It should be a list of engaged subscribers who are excited and responsive about your message, whether it refers to your products or services. And if they’re not, their names are just occupying space in your database, serving no purpose. They’re probably not your target audience.
But how do you engage your list so they keep on opening every email you send them? And they look forward to your weekly e-newsletter? It’s really not difficult, if you know what ticks them on. If you give them something that they like, your list will be responsive to whatever you ask them to do in your emails. That’s what you’re going to learn in this article. We’re going to teach you how to increase the size of your email list by engaging them with a weekly giveaway.
Email Offer Sign-Up With A Twist
This method of referral marketing is very effective because most of your email subscribers will be motivated to share since they won’t ask their friends to do any heavy lifting, like buying a product. Your subscribers will only have to request their circle of influence to join an email list so that they can stay abreast of industry news. This marketing strategy of email offer sign-up with a twist of weekly giveaway works so well because of the viral aspect of the sharing. More visitors become interested to sign-up for your e-newsletter, expecting that they might win a prize. For this reason also, they would want to stay on your list and will unlikely unsubscribe.
The Big Picture
Let’s take you to the process of how you can turn your customers into great brand advocates once they sign-up for your e-newsletter.
After a valid purchase, you can offer to your buyers to sign-up for your B2B emails or e-newsletter so that they could be entered into a weekly sweepstakes. After signing-up, they will be presented with a Thank You page that provides them with a unique link that they can share with others. You can encourage them to share with relatives, colleagues and friends, and if they do, they can receive 10 additional bonus entries in the weekly draws for every person who also signs up for the emails.
The more people they refer who successfully signs up, the more bonus entries they can receive to win in the weekly draw. Thinking of their increasing chances to win would push your customers to keep on sharing. To manage the referrals and tracking, you need to use a software that performs all these. It should also be able to select a winner randomly and automatically. Your subscribers will follow and open your emails because they are curious who wins the prizes. That’s why you need to post the name of the winner at the bottom of each of your e-newsletters.
Now that you have an idea how this email offer sign-up with a twist works, let’s dive into the details of how you can implement a referral program like this. It only takes five simple steps. Here they are.
5 Steps to Implement:
Step 1. Determine the appropriate prize for your subscriber.
You need to determine the right prizes that your subscribers will appreciate enough to move them to action. First, consider offers that are effective at bringing in new subscribers. If the offers you’re giving away don’t spur interest to your audience, your subscribers may get demotivated to share. We suggest that you use your best first-time offer for this. If you’ve ran previous email and social campaigns in the past, you may have data that you can look back through to find out which one worked well in attracting new subscribers.
You can also test different prizes to find out which ones get more referrals. To help you get started, we suggest that you reward them with any of these three about your B2B business: free upgrade or add-on service, free month of service or gift card to a popular store.
Whatever it is that you’ve decided to giveaway, remember to be generous. The benefits of your subscribers’ referrals extend more than their friends’ shares. Since it is your customers who will share the promotion with their friends, their friends are more likely to subscribe as well, same as their friends’ friends. You get a free brand exposure with a high level of trust, because the recommendation come from someone they know. And so, rewarding them with a generous prize or gift will have great returns on your side.
Step 2. Write up your program rules.
Create your own rules for the email offers and the sweepstakes your subscribers enter into. As for the sweepstakes, you need to come up with rules that will be reviewed by business lawyers. One economical way of doing it is, by finding similar programs promoted by larger companies and using them as a guideline to write your own rules. You can find minimal payments for business lawyers by signing up for a prepaid legal service, which typically charges at around $25 a month. They review up to 10 pages of document and it’s more than what you need.
Step 3. Create the program microsite.
To be able to ask your customers to sign-up for emails and e-newsletters and later on, join the sweepstakes program, you need to have a dedicated webpage for all of that. That’s why you have to create a program microsite where you can send your customers and subscribers to sign-up, agree to the rules, get their unique referral links and other things you may ask them to do. Don’t worry, it’s not complicated.
You have access to many software providers that offer turn-key systems that will help you build your microsite in a few clicks and create a design that complements your brand. They also take charge of setting up all the tracking of your program referrals. Not only that, a software provider like Sociamonials, can automatically issue prizes and it has security mechanism that blocks fraudulent activity. Your B2B business is rest assured that only valid entries are considered.
Step 4. Launch your program.
When you’re done with steps 1 to 3, your email sign-ups and weekly giveaways are ready to be announced to your customers and subscribers. Tell them the details of what prizes you’re giving away and how easy it is to join. Mention this in your social media campaigns, email messages and in every media opportunity available for your B2B business. Once it’s launched, still continue on spreading the word to invite all potential participants to join.
Step 5. Make your program visible in strategic locations of your marketing campaigns.
Here are 3 strategic places where you can add a link of your email sign-up program:
1) Every page of your website
Make it your mission to capture your customers’ and website visitors’ contact information, in every page of your website. Don’t let them leave your virtual office without asking for their email address. Remember, they might not be ready yet to participate when you present your program for the first time, so make sure to have a means of getting back to them. Your software provider will provide a copy-and-paste code for the following, any of which will work well:
1.1) Button:
You can place a button on the header of every page of your website.
Depending on their search criteria, Google might send them to a deep link within your website. Never make the mistake of asking for opt-ins only on your homepage, it will usually be ignored by first time visitors. A click on that button triggers a popup window where they can complete the signup and sharing process without leaving the page.
2.2) on-exit intent popup:
If the visitor attempts to leave any page of your website by moving their cursor near the browser’s Back or Home button, there’s a popup that will appear to prompt them to sign-up before. Be sure to ask your software provider to set this up to only trigger once per visitor, so you won’t annoy them with a repetitive pop up offer.
2) Facebook page tab
Almost everyone is on Facebook. It’s only wise that you make a special tab with the email sign-up link on your Facebook page so your friends can complete the process of signing-up and sharing, without leaving Facebook. Convert your social fans into email subscribers. Facebook users are so used to sharing of links of events and promos. Might as well, give them your unique referral link, so that they can share it with their Facebook friends.
3) Social media news feeds
Give your social followers the opportunity to join your email list. You can do this by posting your microsite link on all of your social media feeds routinely. This way, they can just click on any social media channels, find your link and join.
Doing all these is actually simple and takes only a few minutes of your time. You already know what exactly you need to do. Now you only need to determine what software tools you can use to execute each tasks with precision and without complexities. There are different softwares that can help you perform these tasks separately. But there’s also one software that can do all these things in one platform using a simplified, user-friendly interface.
Start Your Email Sign-Up Offer Today
Whether you’re looking for more B2B website subscribers, starting an email newsletter from scratch or developing a weekly giveaway for your list, you can have all these things done quickly, if you use the right social media management platform like Sociamonials. It’s like a one-stop-shop where you can perform marketing tasks like creating, designing and publishing social media posts for your social media campaigns, creating, designing and scheduling your emails and e-newsletter, setting-up and scheduling your giveaway prizes, and more. Test our software technology. Take advantage of the help and automation available to you to grow your B2B business. Sign-up at no cost at https://www.sociamonials.com/index.php#sm_start_free_trial_form.
