You’ve made it through the holiday/end of year season. You used your mobile lists in the best way possible by promoting holiday sales, end of year fundraising, and more. Now, It’s the new year and you know you’ve already asked so much of your audience. What’s the best way to re-engage them to keep your organization top of mind?
There are 3 key steps to curing that holiday slump and revitalizing your audience, while also driving results for your mobile strategy.
Getting to Know Your List (even better)
So you might have burned out your list a bit with monetary needs for your organization. Now is the time to lean on engaging and asking questions of your audience that will have return down the road. The data you gather from these questions will provide you with more segmentation and targeting options for future campaigns. This will also lead to your audience feeling valued and their opinions validated. Try focusing on some of these tactics to help you get to know your audiences better:
Re-Evaluate Your Tone
Review the tone of your messages. Are you speaking your audience’s ‘language’ and meeting them where they are? Different generations have different popular phrases so consider targeting the right tone for your key demographic. You can also play with what other message characteristics resound with your audience, like using emojis vs. no emojis.
Think About Personas
Personas can help you create consistency with your tone. They also help to build trust with your audience over time, and your audience will be more likely to engage with your messages.
Make it FUN
- Ask light questions that will allow you to send fun content or collect needed first party data.
- Use quizzes to drive engagement. They will help build your brand while also allowing you to collect more data about your audience. Try starting with a trivia quiz that has 3+ questions to help educate your audience about a certain issue. You can also end the quiz with a discount or access to some swag!
- Celebrate birthdays. Collecting birthdates will allow you to segment your lists by age or generation while also sending engaging content. You can send your audience a coupon on their birthday or a link to collect donations in lieu of presents
- Celebrate holidays. This will let you engage with your audience without necessarily asking them to do anything. It fosters ‘feel-good’ content and allows you to have fun with your messaging.
Thank Your Supporters
- Give thanks. Target those on your list who have helped or donated towards the end of the year and send a thank you message showing your appreciation.
- Make them feel special. Create exclusivity for your mobile list by promoting that list as the ‘first to know’. You can send special discount codes, match previews, early access to swag, or even fun phone wallpapers!
- Relive your achievements. Summarize all of the good your audience helped your organization accomplish. This gives you the chance to engage while also showing your appreciation and the impact your community had on the goal of your organization.
- Build your community. Facilitate the creation of something great with your audience. Create a photo gallery and ask your audience to submit a photo or ask them to submit a song so you can create a playlist compiled of your audience’s favorite hits. Then send out what your audience has created!
Re-Engage the Unengaged
Make Sure You Have a Plan
The beginning of the year is also a great time for re-engaging those who may not have engaged with you in a while, and the first step to re-engaging is making sure you have a long-term plan. Don’t just stop at sending a welcome message and sporadic messages after that. If you haven’t sent to your audience once a month, that list has already gone stale. Make sure to line out a plan for the year so you can focus on results.
If you’re having trouble coming up with a plan, remember you can always take note from your email program. All of the content used in your email strategy can be repurposed for your mobile strategy. You don’t need to reinvent the wheel!
Use Link Tracking
Consider targeting messages you sent towards the end of the year that included links. Were there people on your list who didn’t click? This could be an opportunity for you to send them something even more enticing like a better offer or more newly created engaging content.
Remember Where They Came From
Look back at where those unengaged members initially opted in. Is there messaging you can target to bring it back to their original interest?
Get Honest
Let them know you know. You know that they haven’t been engaging with you recently, and sometimes the best way to find out why is by addressing it head on. Be transparent – ask if they now have different preference or interests. Is there other messaging they’d find more engaging? Asking the hard questions will only bring you more valuable data that you can use elevate your strategy.
Test, Test, Test
We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again! Continuously test to make sure you are effectively communicating with your audience. Try out these testing ideas to re-engage your audience:
- Tone
- Incentives
- Message cadence
- Personalization
- Images