The Essential Guide To Email Marketing For Membership Sites & Online Courses

Discover everything you need to know about email marketing for membership sites and set up a solid strategy today!

You probably collect your members' emails on registration. But are you using it for more than just login credentials?

Email marketing is still a great way to grow your membership site and keep members engaged and using your site to the max.

You don't need a massive email list to get started, work with what you've got and watch your sales snowball.

In this guide, we’ll break down how to use email marketing to attract new leads, convert them into paying members, and keep them engaged for the long haul.

Por qué debe utilizar el marketing por correo electrónico

Social media may get all the buzz, but email is still the most reliable way to turn casual visitors into paying members and keep them engaged long-term.

Here are some reasons to focus on your email marketing strategy and the numbers to back them up:

• Incredible ROI – Email marketing returns an average of $42 for every dollar spent.
• More impactful that social - 80% of online marketers would rather give up social media than email marketing
• Tried and tested - 80% of small and medium businesses say email marketing is their most successful channel for acquisition and retention.
• Consumers like it - 50.7% of people buy something from a marketing email at least once a month.

Email marketing works! And if you’re not using it strategically, you’re frankly leaving money on the table.

But blasting out random emails won’t cut it. To make email marketing work for your membership site, you need a clear strategy – one that builds brand awareness, nurtures leads, and drives conversions.

Later, we’ll break down exactly how to do that.

Membership Plugin Email Automations

Most great membership plugins come with some email functionality that will allow you to automatically send out the following emails based on member behavior:

• A email de bienvenida when someone joins a membership.
• Billing reminder notifications to help prevent missed payments and retain members.
• Overdue payment notifications for lapsed members.
• Forgotten password emails to automate the process of creating a new password.

These cover all the basics you need to effectively manage your membership site and handle account information internally without a third party platform getting involved.

However, I highly recommend getting an Email Service Provider (ESP) for email marketing.

Choosing an Email Service Provider

ESPs allow you to easily capture and nurture leads, whereas membership plugins are focussed on handling existing members.

With an ESP you also open up a ton of possibilities to create drip campaigns (which we'll discuss in the next section).

They allow you to segment more precisely so you can send targeted emails that are relevant and resonate with the receiver.

Just make sure that you choose an ESP that integrates with your membership plugin so you can segment by membership.

MemberMouse integrates with the following ESPs:

• Goteo
• ActiveCampaign
• MailChimp
• GetResponse
• Aweber
• iContact
• ConvertKit

When choosing an Email Service Provider (ESP) for your membership site, look for features that help you capture, nurture, and convert leads effectively. We've already covered these three points:

• List management & segmentation
• Automation & drip campaigns
• Integrations with membership plugin

Here are some other important ones to factor into your decision-making:

• Lead capture tools such as built-in forms, landing pages, and pop-ups for collecting leads.
• A/B testing for subject lines, CTA buttons, and email layouts to improve performance.
• Mobile-responsive templates for a professional look across devices.
• Personalization and dynamic content such as merge tags y conditional content blocks

Campañas de goteo de correo electrónico para sitios de afiliación

Once you've chosen your ESP you'll be able to make the most of email drip campaigns!

An email drip campaign is a series of automated emails triggered by a subscriber’s actions.

Instead of sending random emails, drip campaigns guide potential and existing members through a process such as signing up for your site, engaging with your content, or making a purchase.

Por ejemplo:

• A new subscriber might receive a welcome series that introduces your membership and encourages them to explore.
• A disengaged subscriber who hasn’t opened an email in a month might get a re-engagement campaign to bring them back.

For a membership site, you’ll want to set up two key types of drip campaigns:

1. Drip campaigns for potential members – These nurture people who visit your site or sign up for your email list but haven’t joined yet.
2. Drip campaigns for existing members – These help keep paying members engaged, ensuring they stay active and get the most out of their subscription.

Setting up these campaigns takes some upfront effort, but once they’re running, they tick away happily in the background without constant added manual effort from you!

In the next section, I'll provide a brief overview of the type of email sequences you'll need to set up for your membership site.

3 campañas de goteo de correo electrónico esenciales que necesitará para su sitio web

Mencioné que podría configurar numerosas campañas de goteo de correo electrónico para sus suscriptores. Para los suscriptores de correo electrónico en general, crear las siguientes tres campañas de goteo de correo electrónico como mínimo:

• Campaña de bienvenida por correo electrónico
• Campaña de reenganche por correo electrónico
• Campaña de promoción por correo electrónico

La mayoría de las campañas de correo electrónico por goteo tienen entre 3 y 8 mensajes. El número de correos que envíes dependerá de lo que quieras conseguir.

1. Secuencia de correos electrónicos de bienvenida

Una secuencia de correo electrónico de bienvenida suele tener este aspecto:

En el primer correo electrónico, facilite la actualización del contenido o algo similar y, a continuación, presente el curso o la empresa y establezca las expectativas. Por ejemplo, "Te enviaré un correo electrónico dos veces al mes. Uno de estos correos electrónicos será puro valor (grandes cosas gratis)."

The emails following on from this are where you offer value to your subscriber. In these emails, you provide your best free content. What you’re trying to do is establish a reason for your subscribers to open your emails.

In the last welcome email to your subscribers, you should make an offer. Often, the product you are offering is not your main course, but a tripwire product.

The idea of a tripwire product is that for a low cost (usually under $50), a subscriber can sample the kind of products you produce. The benefit of a tripwire campaign is that once a person makes a low risk purchase, they are more likely to purchase higher value products or upsells later.

2. Secuencia de correos electrónicos de reenganche

Por desgracia, algunas personas dejarán de abrir tus correos electrónicos. Suele ocurrir. También es un problema.

If a large percentage of your email list stops opening your emails, it negatively impacts your spam score. This means your email is more likely to appear in the spam folder – an email marketers worst nightmare!

Re-engagement email sequencesare a way to help mitigate this sticky problem.

He aquí cómo podría ser una secuencia de reenganche:

Puede ver que es una secuencia sencilla. Primero asignas una etiqueta a las personas que no han abierto tus correos electrónicos durante un periodo específico. Puede ser un mes o dos meses, depende de la frecuencia con la que envíes correos electrónicos.

A continuación, utilice un servicio de verificación de correo electrónico para limpiar tu lista.

Finally, send a sequence of emails to these subscribers. You’ll generally be sending a value offer. So, you might offer a free eBook, PDF, etc. The idea is to provide as much value as possible to try and re-engage these subscribers.

Inactive subscribers should be removed from your list. You can delete their details. People who open your emails can be added back onto your main email list. These are potential customers.

3. Fórmula de lanzamiento de productos

When it’s time to promote your product, you can't just send one email and hope for the best. A well-structured email promotion sequence warms up your audience, builds excitement, and makes more likely they'll say “yes” when you make your offer.

There are a lot of email promotion sequences you can use. My favorite is the Product Launch Formula, created by Jeff Walker.

With the Product Launch Formula, you send a series of educational emails to your subscribers before hitting them with your sales pitch.

Así es como funciona:

1. Establishes credibility: Show why they should listen to you, discuss the problem they have and touch on the solution (your course)
2. Discusses the impact: Explain how you found the solution, the trouble you went through to learn these lessons, and the impact that this had on your life
3. Demonstrates Your framework: Provide an overview of the framework for success.
4. Sells the Solution: Now you make your sales pitch

Each email in the series has a link to a landing page. On the landing page is a video where you discuss each of those points listed above.

The Product Launch Formula helps to establish a desire for your solution before you sell. By generating desire, you maximize conversions. It’s an effective email marketing campaign, and I strongly suggest you use this campaign, or a variation of it, to sell your membership or course to email subscribers.

Campañas de participación por correo electrónico

The final type of emails you’ll need for your membership site are what I call “email engagement campaigns.” These are the regular emails that you send to subscribers.

Unlike drip email campaigns or promotion email campaigns, the aim isn’t to generate sales. Instead, they’re designed to engage the member and prevent fatiga del abonado.

La mayoría de los correos electrónicos de compromiso son informativos, educativos y atractivos. Su objetivo es transmitir conocimientos al lector y hacerle sentir parte de una familia aportándole valor, aunque aún no haya realizado ninguna compra. He aquí tres formas de hacer campañas de compromiso por correo electrónico:

Enviar un correo electrónico con consejos útiles

Cuando lleve a cabo una campaña de captación de clientes por correo electrónico, uno de sus objetivos debe ser educar a sus lectores. Sus correos electrónicos pueden incluir consejos que sus lectores pueden utilizar incluso antes de cerrar el mensaje. También puedes incluir enlaces a contenidos más detallados relacionados con la información que envías por correo electrónico.

OptiMonk es un generador de leads y constructor de popups de salida para sitios web de comercio electrónico, por lo que es de esperar que sus correos electrónicos de compromiso busquen educar a sus suscriptores sobre la generación de leads:

El correo electrónico anterior, por ejemplo, da consejos útiles para la generación de leads e incluso incluye un enlace a un artículo sobre gamificación. Si lees hasta el final, verás que está firmado por "Nicole, CEO, OptiMonk", lo que te hace sentir importante.

Promocione el contenido de su sitio

Otra cosa que puedes hacer con los correos electrónicos de compromiso es dirigir el tráfico a tu sitio web. Por ejemplo, puede dar a conocer a sus lectores información que haya descubierto recientemente y, a continuación, adjuntar un enlace a su propio sitio web, donde podrán obtener más información.

En el ejemplo siguiente, The HOTH es una agencia de SEO que opera en Florida. Ofrecen muchas herramientas útiles, como un creador de logotipos en línea y una herramienta de palabras clave. Naturalmente, sus campañas de correo electrónico de compromiso promueven contenidos sobre sus competencias clave. En este caso, se trata de SEO para empresas con múltiples ubicaciones.

Observará que hay dos botones CTA en el mismo correo electrónico. Ambos llevan al mismo enlace. Eso es lo mucho que The HOTH quiere que leas su contenido: necesitas saber más sobre su área de especialización para que te des cuenta de que podrías necesitar sus servicios pronto. Genial, ¿verdad?

Ofrezca regalos gratuitos

Es posible que también haya elaborado un estudio de caso en profundidad o un libro blanco sobre un tema de su nicho. El email marketing de compromiso es una forma excelente de promocionar su estudio al tiempo que gana suscriptores para su sitio web.

Por ejemplo, el operador de divisas OFX publica periódicamente su boletín Currency Outlook. La última edición analiza en profundidad las intervenciones de crisis y el efecto de las próximas elecciones en el dólar estadounidense, y el correo electrónico de compromiso que promociona el Currency Outlook enumera lo que los lectores pueden esperar encontrar:

Dado que este tipo de contenido se elabora tras meses de intensa investigación y análisis y es útil para tomar decisiones empresariales de alto nivel, normalmente puede esperar desembolsar una cantidad considerable por él. Sin embargo, OFX lo ofrece de forma gratuita a sus suscriptores de correo electrónico para establecer su reputación como un operador de cambio de divisas de buena reputación que también se preocupa por sus clientes.

Utilizar métodos de marketing por correo electrónico para promover y mantener la participación en los sitios de afiliación

Email marketing is one of the most commonly used and effective promotional methods for both B2B and B2C businesses. It offers the highest ROI and amongst the best conversion rates for any marking channel.

You cannot afford to ignore email marketing when promoting your membership or online learning website.

Create effective email drip campaigns for new prospects, promotional campaigns to nudge people into signing up, and engagement campaigns to keep your members and participants engaged and paying month after month.

Seek to add value at every stage and to focus on solving customer problems instead of hard-selling.

You might not get your email marketing campaign right the first time. There’s an art to this type of marketing, and it takes practice.

The best marketers are always learning, tweaking, and improving. Monitor important metrics such as your open rate, click-through rate, conversions, and membership retention. These figures will give you an insight into how you’re doing and what you could be doing better.

Por un mayor número de inscripciones en su sitio de afiliación, más participantes comprometidos y un mayor éxito.

Got questions or want to share your email marketing tips with us? Let us know in the comments below.

¿Quieres consejos, ideas y perspectivas que te ayuden a crear y ampliar tu negocio en Internet? Síganos en Facebook, Twitter, Pinteresty LinkedIn.

---

• Compartir