How I Re-Engage a Low Engagement List
So… I recently got asked a question from a Mailer Skills student about effective strategies to monetize large (and less-engaged) lists.
Well, this got me thinking about what’s important in content marketing… the three main audiences.
Knowing your three main audiences and what makes them unique will help you develop tailored marketing strategies for each of them.
The three main customer audiences are as follows…
1. The Oblivious or Uninformed (the less they know, the more broad you go!)
This is the unenlightened audience… they have no clue as to what you’re marketing.
If you were selling, say, Yoga lessons to this audience it’s crucial to avoid using esoteric language like the word “yoga.”
Instead, you would want to choose a descriptive phrase such as “unique stretching exercises that can help with back pain issues.”
These people are going about their daily lives unaware that a lot of the problems they face have solutions.
This is exactly the same situation with our e-commerce clients who don’t even know you can actually do something effective with cart abandonment – beyond reminding customers of their last order.
They’re going to try to find solutions to low conversion rates on their own by searching for (essentially) stupid phrases such as: “Increase my eCommerce conversion rate” or “how can I get more sales.”
2. The Afflicted
These individuals are acutely aware of the problems they have. However, at the moment they are completely unaware of solutions to them.
These clients fully understand their trials and tribulations, i.e. “Need to monetize partials” or “increase my LTV on one-time buyers.” but do not know how to solve them.
Again, using the Yoga classes analogy… you would need to use a subject line like, “Ancient yoga techniques that can relieve pinched nerves!”
Pinched nerves are the affliction so this audience needs to know that Yoga is the solution!
This brings us to…
3. The Informed
This group is aware of both their problems AND (most likely) the variety of solutions available to them.
This segment is especially knowledgeable and well-informed.
This is the audience that a headline such as “Vinyasa Yoga vs Iyengar Yoga Poses” would appeal to… they are just THAT knowledgeable.
They are familiar with the fine details and variety of what’s out there.
As marketers it is a critical part of our job to profile individuals and determine which audience they belong to: Uninformed, Informed, or Afflicted.
How do we accomplish this?
By using gathered metrics and statistics; profiling and segmenting customers into each audience category.
For example:
What subject lines are they opening?
Which of these do they open most? A highly informed person might open all three types.
However, uninformed or afflicted audience members would likely not be attracted to a subject line like: “Vinyasa vs Iyengar Yoga Poses,” for example.
What survey responses do they typically give?
What products have they purchased?
If they haven’t purchased anything, it is usually safe to mail out material intended for the uninformed audience.
On the other hand, if a list member has, say, opted into a technical report or a content upgrade which requires product knowledge, we need to market at the higher “Informed” level.
