5 Tips to Drive Renewals with Email Campaigns

Email campaigns are one of the most powerful tools available to Membership Managers to drive renewals.

We’ve written about how to get the most out of your email content. Learn to get the most out of your email?campaigns, and enjoy an even greater impact on your renewal rate!

Below are 5 tips you can try today to get more value from your email campaigns this renewal season:

1. Segment your lists

Its not uncommon for membership managers to send one renewal reminder email campaign to their full list of members. This technique keeps things simple, but sacrifices email opens and renewals!

To drive the impact of your email campaigns during renewal season, segment your lists into small, focused groups based on shared characteristics. Sending unique emails tailored to each segment takes a little more time, but offers the benefit of better renewals because your emails better speak to their specific needs.

2. Personalize your messaging

Once you’ve segmented your lists, it’s time to personalize the messages you’ll be sending to each.

How you approach this depends on each of your audiences. Here are some questions you’ll want to keep in mind when writing emails:

What tone does my reader appreciate?

Individual members, and organizational members (for example), are likely to have different expectations regarding the tone of your renewal emails. Perhaps one of your segments is likely to respond to emoji’s, whereas another expects formality. Think about the expectations of your audience regarding tone, and write your emails accordingly!

Should I be using personalization tags?

Personalization tags allow you to automatically include information like a recipients first and last names into your email content. This helps drive the success of your campaigns by adding a personal touch to each email, but only if your campaign manager knows their name!

Your email campaign manager should use default messaging when tag information isn’t available, but many don’t! Sending tags in emails without the information to fill them can cripple the success of your campaigns, so if your campaign manager doesn’t offer default messaging when tag info isn’t available, don’t use personalization tags!

3. Use multiple reminders

Sending one renewal reminder is good, but sending many is better! Your email campaigns should trigger follow-up renewal reminders in the event that a member doesn’t renew from the first one, and should cancel further reminders in the event that they do.

When your email campaigns send multiple emails, you can try:

(60 days before renewal) A discount for early renewals:

Every member that renews before their renewal date is a member you don’t have to worry about come renewal season. Consider sending a renewal reminder offering a discount for early renewal 60 days before your renewal date.

(30 days before renewal) A discount, with FOMO:

FOMO means Fear Of Missing Out, and it’s a tried-and-true strategy for driving renewals. With your renewal discount in place, remind your members that their time to enjoy the discount is running out, and further drive early renewals.

(7 Days after renewal date) Waive the late fee.

If a member has missed their renewal date, consider automating an email offering to waive their late fees for renewal within 24 hours.

4. Track results

There’s no sense to building strategic, segmented, personalized email campaigns if you can’t tell whether your efforts are impacting your success!

Tracking email engagement not only gives you this insight, but also helps you improve your campaigns year over year. See what worked, what didn’t, and make data-based decisions to make your campaigns more successful every renewal season!