Being on social channels has become necessary for companies. They can build an active dialogue with customers and followers, building brand loyalty by offering exciting and valuable content and proposals. Creating a mailing list is, therefore, essential today.
No, this is not one of those many articles that teach you how to increase the number of fans on Facebook, Twitter, or Google plus.
These lines refer to all those companies that have already spent energy and resources to obtain an essential social base on the web and need to understand how to transform it into effective sales. Social networks do not allow us to sell a product or service online, yet they remain a fundamental part of corporate communication.
A key question therefore arises:
How to turn our followers into regular customers?
What you need to do is create an effective sales channel by transforming fans into registered contacts to whom you can offer valuable and extraordinary services and products. In short, we need to create a mailing list starting from the crowd of followers we are surrounded by.
So here are the five steps to follow to create an effective mailing list :
- To make a simple follower become my subscriber, you need to offer him something exciting for him, something for which he is willing to leave me his name and email address. It seems easy, but it isn’t straightforward since advertising invades all kinds of mailboxes daily.
- What could you offer in exchange for the email address? It could be a downloadable PDF file that offers a practical guide for a product/service you sell or the possibility of participating in a free webinar, a prize competition, or even a super good coupon reserved for a select few. You could make a short video with some valuable tips.
- Make sure your content is free but great value for the userbecause it can solve a concrete problem. It must also indicate a tangible and immediate benefit (for example, how to prepare a delicious cake in less than 5 minutes). It must be perceived as something urgent to be done immediately.
- Insert the link for the registration on the main social networks. On Facebook, you could create a particular tab or insert it as a message in the cover photo. On Twitter, you could insert it in the short description of the activity in Google, plus take advantage of communities and circles. Consider making a short videofor your YouTube channel. So make sure to take advantage of creativity!
- Don’t limit yourself to social networks. Also, insert the registration form on your site through an appropriate landing page: take advantage of all the channels at your disposal.
By following these steps and trying to be creative and original, you will soon be able to turn many of your fans into a complete mailing list. Building a mailing list with the right content and strategies is relatively simple. The fact that someone spontaneously decides to leave you a name and an email address is synonymous with a good job, as it indicates that the user trusts you and what you intend to offer them in the future.
Also, take advantage of this list not to send spam and constant and insistent emails but rather to offer great advice, products, and services intended only for him, a privileged member of the list. In short, make the customer feel like the most important person who exists to grow your business.
Another piece of advice I give is to send emails from time to time asking the user directly what improvements and changes they would make to the service or product offered to make it even more unique and exciting for them.
But what if, despite your efforts and goodwill.
Are you unable to get any mailing list subscription?
Well, this could be a problem. But I’ll tell you a little secret: it’s not the lousy follower but your fault. Reasons why the strategy you have in place won’t work, could include the following:
- The perceived value of the service you offer is high for you but not so for the fans, so you will not be able to get them to be willing to leave their email address.
- You have a vast audience, but in reality, only a tiny part of it actively interacts with your content, so you cannot communicate the message effectively to obtain concrete results.
- Suppose you have clarity problems in the communicationof your offer or in the way of subscribing to your mailing list. In that case, the user will find it difficult to understand what he must do, so his effective registration will be more difficult.
- If there are problems deriving from the website, which cannot effectively communicate trust or credibility, the user will be more reluctant to leave their data.
These are undoubtedly some reasons why your communication strategy might not work. Therefore, it is better to try to remedy these problems before starting to despair for the lack of good results.
Create a mailing list: let’s try to make a small summary.
If you have a large number of fans, or at least active and energetic, who interact a lot with the content you publish; if you have a clear and straightforward website, clean and able to communicate trust and credibility of your brand or product; if you want to transform this potential audience into paying customers concerning what you offer, you must prove yourself authoritative, worthy of consideration, able to communicate positive values and security in others by offering something free and of value in exchange for their direct contact.
By creating a mailing list of this type, the potential for sales but, above all, for loyalty is enormous. It means that you have obtained direct and concrete action from the user, who does not simply consider you a company that sells a product, but an entity to be trusted.
And it’s one of the most complicated marketing strategies!
And what do you think? How are you trying to turn your followers into loyal customers of your brand? Have you ever tried to create a mailing list to tie your customers even more to your brand?
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