Have People Opt-In To Specific Promotions

Recently, I did something new with a company I work for.

They have a big email list and lots of different products that they sell. And they wanted to sell a specific product to some of their prospects.

However, their tagging and segmentation is a little dated, so I was limited in my options for what I could do. If I did things exactly as the company had always done it. I would have sent out a blast to over two hundred thousand people offering them this deal.

When maybe less than 5000 people really wanted it.

This would mean I would be bombarding 195,000 people with messaging that did not interest them, apply to them, and probably would annoy them. My deliverability rates would plummet. Engagement would drop. And branding would take a nosedive.

So I tried something different.

I asked people to raise their hand if they wanted to hear about this promotion. All they had to do was click a link inside the first email, and I would only send the promotion details to them.

This was a fantastic thing to do for two reasons.

One: Better engagement. I could specifically talk to the people in my emails that wanted the product I was delivering. And they wanted to her about it. Because they raised their hands. It was them making a commitment.

Of the 200k who received the first email about 550 people responded. Not huge numbers. And I probably could have done more to get better response. But that wasn’t a huge problem.

Because that 550 people were hyper-responders. My open and click rates for that campaign easily doubled and tripled (and in some places quadrupled) what I was getting on a list wide email blast.

This is great for email servers to see, and allowed me to build up some good numbers with them. It also meant I was talking to people who were really interested in the product I was selling.

And I made good sales with that promotion. (Not as many as I’d like, but no one gets 100% sales.) But there is a silver lining to that as well. Which brings us to number two.

Two: This allowed me to start segmenting the list into more responsive buckets of people. People who wanted specific products, rather than email blasts about whatever the president of the company or marketing in general decided to throw out there.

Of the people who did not buy during the original promotion. I can target them specifically for offers on the same product, whenever I want. (I don’t want to burn them out, but pretty often.) Because I know they want the product. And they are probably going to be willing to buy at some point. If I keep reminding them.

You never know exactly when someone is going to buy. But if you know they are interested in a product of yours. And you keep making offers to them on that product. Eventually, you’ll probably get half of them to actually buy. (It just might not be as soon as you want it. There is no such thing as a sure and quick thing.)

In conclusion, although the promotion did not make the company the trillions my childish ego hopes for on every promotion I send out. It made a fair amount of sales. And it better positioned me and the company for the future. So that I can make the sales I need to over time.

So if you have a lot of different products, without good segmentation or tagging. You should try some promotions where people opt-in to hear about specific deals.

You’re going to be impressed by the response. I almost always am.