5 Really Simple Ways to Get to Know Your Subscribers

by Jerrik Neri  The key to having an engaged email list that hangs off your every word is knowing what your audience wants and needs ...

by Jerrik Neri 

The key to having an engaged email list that hangs off your every word is knowing what your audience wants and needs and giving them exactly that.

Subscribers relate to senders who “get” them, and who can provide a solution to their main pain points and problems.

So how can you get to know your subscribers in order to build a loyal and engaged list? We’ve got 5 simple tips for you!

Ask them questions

This seems like such simple advice, but it really does make all the difference. Simply reaching out to your subscribers and asking them what matters to them is invaluable for learning who they are and what they need.

In your welcome email, you can ask your readers to hit reply and share something like:

• What they struggle the most with in your industry
• Why they signed up for your email list
• What they hope to achieve over the next month
• A bit about themselves and their business
  >

These questions encourage your subscribers to hit that reply button and open up a conversation with you. When you take an interest in your subscribers, you can bet that they’ll take an interest in you, too.

Segment them

With Sendlane, you can tag your subscribers and create automated campaigns based on their behavior.

For example, in your welcome email, you might have a few links to a few different blog posts, each one covering a different topic in your niche.

You can then find out more about your audience depending on which post is clicked on the most – is the post about paleo diets more popular, or the post about keeping fit with a tight schedule?

Little things like this can help you determine the kind of content and information your subscribers need, allowing you to provide more of the good stuff.

Offer an email course or challenge

With Sendlane’s automation feature, you can create email courses or challenges to drip out over a certain number of days. Within each email, you can offer a new tip or challenge that encourages your subscribers to act.

So how does this help you get to know them? If you run two or three challenges, you can determine which one is the most popular by the number of sign-ups, but even if you only have the capacity to create one course, you can learn more about your audience from their interaction with it.

For example, is there a lesson that’s more popular than others? Do they hit reply and ask questions during any specific challenge? Which lessons or challenges do they take action on the most?

Create a course that touches on something in your industry.

You can then take the results from these and create more in-depth courses or content that taps into these points.

Encourage them to take action

Getting to know your subscribers isn’t just about figuring out what they like and don’t like, what their pain points are, and what information they want to learn.

It’s also about getting to know their behavior and how they act. It’s about learning how they feel about you and discovering what kind of actions they like to take.

This email from Buffer asks subscribers to, first of all, sign up to a webinar and, secondly, shout out to them on Twitter and Facebook.

This is easy enough to determine by offering calls-to-action.

In one email you might ask them to share something specific, you might ask them to watch a video, or you might ask them to click through to link.

You can then collate the information to see who did the most of what in order to learn what actions your subscribers actively take.

Involve them in your emails

A lot of businesses make the mistake of talking at their subscribers.

In actual fact, you want to open a dialogue with them. This isn’t a one-sided conversation where you sell, sell, sell. It’s a chance to get to know your subscribers and show them why they’ve subscribed to you – because you’re knowledgeable in your niche, because you’re willing to help them, and because you have a solution to their major problems.

Involving your subscribers is simple. As well as asking them questions, make sure your copy is relatable and you offer an “us” narrative rather than “me and you”.

Use sentences like:

• Do you feel the same?
• Can you relate to this?
• If you’re anything like me…
  >
  

This kind of copy builds an instant rapport with your subscribers because they feel like you’re talking directly to them.

When this happens, they’re more likely to open up to you and share their biggest fears, worries, and successes.

This is the key to creating an engaged and loyal email list; one that can’t wait to hear from you and that laps up everything you offer them.

By encouraging them to hit reply, take action on what you’re sharing, and open up a conversation, you have the valuable chance to learn what your subscribers need and how you can provide that.

Wrapping It Up

Knowing what your subscribers want matters. When it comes to email marketing, one of the biggest benefits is that it gives you the ability to have a direct relationship with your subscribers. You can find out what kind of content they want to see and cant track how they’re interacting with each email that you send out.

Understanding what your subscribers want will help you determine how to write emails that get opened, read and clicked! Ready to get started? Sign up for your free trial of Sendlane today!

 


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