The last thing startups think about is a marketing plan to promote the finished product. Development and upgrades, search for investments, and first customers take 24 hours daily. When it comes to developing an idea for the masses, all marketing comes down to SEO promotion, paid advertising in search engines, and SMM. Email campaigns are remembered when the first client base appears. Although this tool is the only one that helps build a free database, make a sale, and find investors. Don’t believe us? – we will show you some examples!
Why do startups need email marketing?
Email marketing has the broadest coverage by the target audience. Three times more than popular social networks. New opportunities for a startup: both in search of new clients and investors.
4 Essential Email Marketing Tips for Startups
1- Email marketing creates a customer base.
There are many ways to collect your customer base: at IT meetings, through a partner, or a subscription form on your website. The latter, by the way, not only generates clients but also segments them. Therefore, it is enough to add gender, place of residence, or other criteria to the primary fields of the subscription form:
What does email marketing have to do with it? After all, all the work is done on the site’s landing page!
Well, it’s not 🙂 The Landing page plays the role of a title that invites the visitor to enter the restaurant. And email marketing is the chef. The taste of his dish depends on whether the customer will stay here or not.
In the classic model, the visitor’s data goes to the CRM system after a subscription. Then, with the correct email marketing strategy, the subscriber immediately gets a welcome letter when the CRM and mail service work together. For example, such as the online store FreePeople (the company – not a startup, but makes cool mail):
What’s the secret: In a well-thought-out structure of a Welcome – letter. A Welcome Letter is the first hook that intrigues subscribers and, at the same time, gives them an idea of what the project is about. Therefore, it is necessary to include in it:
- Thank you for the subscription. It can be just a verbal thanks or a small gift: a benefit for a subscription—for example, free test access to an application.
- Brief information on the startup and its target. This text mustn’t be a dry summary of the news. Instead, add value to it for the reader. For example:
“Our application will normalize your water balance. If you haven’t entered your water balance for a long time, it reminds you that it’s time to drink some water :)”.
- Links to mobile applications and social networks. More than 80% of people check their mail via mobile phone or tablet. That means that it is also more convenient to follow your project through these devices. So pay it forward and make communication easier. Just remember that many links in a message with a fresh IP are the road to spam-list.
It’s important! Forget about sales the Welcome letter. A startup’s peculiarity is that it has no right to make a mistake in communicating with customers. The startup is initially unknown if well-known companies previously had leeway for social responsibility or services. Every communication mistake can become fatal. Therefore, it is better to leave information about crowdfunding in the third or fourth letter. Exception: if your startup is a charity.
2- Email marketing creates a loyal audience.
Startup Coursmos showed a vivid example of how the mailing list “warms up” customers.
Using the database of inactive users from their project, the guys used the rule “easier means better” – and sent a short announcement letter:
Seems like an ordinary letter, with no unique design and no-frills in the text. But this mailing has brought surprising, as for “dead base” conversion – Open Rate -10%, CTR – 1%.
What’s the secret: the informative nature of the letter. The text has no emotions; it carries a beneficial message for subscribers: join the service, and you can develop your business or get new knowledge.
3- Email marketing for crowdfunding
Of course, email marketing is unlikely to solve all the difficulties of crowdfunding, but it can tell about the project and raise a small capital. For this, I will have to do some trying.
- Warm up your subscriber base.
Attempted sale in the first letter equals the end of the customer relationship and a high unsubscribe rate. To get a high response and CTR, we recommend preparing readers to make newsletters about the project and its advantages.
- Work on the message design.
A fundraising letter is a commercial offer. Therefore, it should be understandable, simple, and, most importantly, visual. You can make such a message yourself or contact the designer if you have one in your team.
- Think of a call-to-action (CTA).
It’s a crucial part of crowdfunding writing. It is important not only where the CTA button is located but also what it says. Its text is a logical continuation of the message, so its filling should be thought over after the underlying meaning has been created.
The standard phrases – “Join us,” “Visit our site,” or “Become a part of the project” is too hackneyed and do not appeal to readers. Instead, try to add benefits to the button. For example: “Click to get a gift from our developer.”
- Create a referral program
In the subscribers’ database, there are not only clients but also potential partners. People want to be involved in good projects. You can help them with email marketing. Think of a referral program where each participant will get an additional discount. For example, he can send your message to several friends or acquaintances (set the number in advance) – and get a bun for this. Or invite friends to the project and also get a profile:
Important! The details of the referral program should be clearly stated at the end of the message.
4- Email marketing to find investors
Probably the most sensitive issue in startups’ lives. Words and essence are essential here, not design, button layout, or selected images. A letter to an investor is a commercial letter to a large client. Therefore, it must be perfectly aligned, for example, on this list:
- It’s written without errors. Before sending it, check it via spellchecker and editor to ensure readability.
- It’s structured. It contains a presentation, brief information about the project, its benefits (preferably a list), a proposal for cooperation, and benefits. And all this in different paragraphs. Remember: one paragraph = one thought.
- Personalized. We hope you don’t write to everyone to learn the investor’s full profile. So make sure that the letter contains a personal reference by name. This is important: both in terms of politeness and terms of the psychology of perception.
- Has social proof: feedback on the project or confirmation of its need from the target audience—for example, print screens from social networks or correspondence with clients.
- Has links to the project site, as well as social networks and contact information of the sender.
These are not all email marketing opportunities for startups.
