The role of emails in your online program success

If you browse online forums and Facebook groups that serve course creators and membership website wannabees, you will soon realize the many discussions that are about the topic of technology platforms.

Questions like:

  • I am in the beginning stages of creating my membership site. What platform would you recommend?
  • What platform do people use for their membership?
  • I want to create a membership that allows access to a resource library. What is the best platform for this starting out?

And the answers are never late to come. People talk about pricing, ease of use, etc.  But rarely do they speak about email features and integration.

I have discussed a wide range of features you need to look for when choosing a platform for your online program in one of my previous blog posts.

Today I’d like to dig into the email-related features you will want to consider.

Types of Emails You Will Need to Send

Marketing and Promo Emails

Despite the uprising in social media marketing, email remains one of the most influential and prevalent methods of boosting ROI, generating leads, and expanding your outreach.

Simply sending emails is not enough. Instead, you need to develop a great email marketing campaign for your course to expedite brand awareness, keep prospects in your sales funnel, expand site membership, and generate more conversions. Here we take a closer look at the different types of email marketing you can leverage to achieve your business dreams:

Here we discuss the top marketing and promo emails you should use:

Special Promotions

At times your consumers may stop engaging with your emails, or a prospective may cancel their subscriptions too early. It can be due to several reasons for it, such as finding the website too technical and so on.

With the help of a re-engagement campaign and special promotions emails, you can regain these lost customers. From discounts to showing customers how they can benefit from your course, your email may vary based on consumer’s behaviour.

If you’re sending promotions for a specific course, make sure the customer hasn’t already bought it.

New Launches

An excellent way to promote customers for renewing their subscriptions is by fostering a deep relationship with them. In addition, engaging with your customers helps increase brand loyalty and trust.

Simultaneously, if you constantly upgrade your services, you must keep your members up-to-date with new additions.

You can achieve it by sending weekly newsletters to your members talking about your latest, most relevant updates and upcoming launches.

Cart Abandonment

According to in-depth research, 3 out of every four potential buyers fail to complete the checkout process. For membership site owners, taking no action to avoid losing these three buyers can impact your business negatively.

The fact is that viewers who reach the checkout page are already interested in your service. It’s likely that the customer either forgot to complete the checkout process or found it too challenging.

Regardless, if you can pinpoint leads who reach the checkout page, you have a better chance at getting customers to complete their membership. You can monitor and send emails to viewers through email automation tools.

Course-Related Emails

The top course-related emails you need to be using are:

Onboarding Emails

The fact is that first impressions matter. Thus, it’s integral that you make the best impression on newcomers.

Curate a smart member onboarding strategy including on-site elements that help beginners start. Use your first email to welcome the consumer to your course and introduce them to its basics

Module Release Notifications Email

If you’re working on a vast project, it’s always a good idea to test out beta versions with customers. Keep engaging with your customers by sending them module release notification emails.

Winning-Back Lost Customers

It’s more than likely that some members will leave your site for various reasons. Mostly, it is related to short-term circumstances.

Thus, instead of assuming that outgoing customers are gone for good, you should consider using automation to try and win them back.

Course-Related Emails

The best payment and money related emails for course creators are as follows:

Invoice Emails

Keep your customers up-to-date with their dues with the help of intricately structured invoice emails. You can send these annually or monthly, depending on how you’ve structured your courses.

Renewal Emails

If you’re a membership website, you must monitor your churn rate closely as it helps you analyze subscription loss in a specific timeframe. Thus, when subscribers cancel their subscriptions and fail to renew their subscriptions, your churn rate spikes.

In addition, if your churn rate exceeds your membership growth, you’ll end up losing money. Thus, it’s always a good idea to encourage your consumers to renew their subscriptions via a well-structured renewal email.

Credit Cards Relevant Issues

Consider adding a failed billing automation in your list of emails. These will handle recovering charges in case a payment between you and a customer is declined.

What to look for

The emails you will send are ideally related to people’s actions and behaviour.  This is why communication between the technology platform you chose and your email system is important.

You should ask yourself  – What activities in the online program side will need to trigger or stop an email sequence.

Here are two examples:

If you have a four-email sequence to promote a course, you will want to stop sending the emails the minute someone actually purchases the course.  It is important that the platform you choose has the ability to inform your email system that the purchase occurred.

Sending emails to people who have purchased a course but didn’t log in for a while, You want to make sure the platform you choose has the ability to inform your email system that no activity happened for a while.

To Sum it Up

Take some time to choose the right membership platform.  And make sure to consider the role of email in the mix.  Remember emails play an important role in your online program success.

If you want to discuss your options, or need help making a decision, feel free to book a Membership Website Consultation today >>

About the author 

Michelle Castillo

Michelle is an online marketing expert , passionate about helping business owners to benefit from today’s online technology. I provide my clients with hype-free concise advice and services about the reality of what online success requires.

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