Building an engaged audience is one of the most important aspects of a femtech startup’s growth strategy. Email marketing is key to nurturing your audience, developing trust, and retaining customers. And when it’s done right, email can skyrocket your marketing and sales returns, so your business can make its mark in the future of reproductive health and sexual wellness. Here’s how to create a successful email marketing strategy for your femtech startup.
Your email list (or subscriber list) is the roster of email addresses you collect through your marketing channels. They represent the people who have chosen to get emails from your femtech startup—and they want and expect you to show up for them in their inbox. Get this: 44% of users check their email from a brand they know compared to the 4% who go to Facebook.
First things first, you need a plan to get your target customers on your email list. There are various strategies for inviting your audience to sign up for your emails. Here are a few ideas to get you started.
One of the simplest ways to add subscribers to your femtech startup’s email list is by adding a simple opt-in form to your website. As visitors browse your site, an embedded opt-in form gives them a no-pressure way to engage further with your business. Many website platforms have integrations with email marketing providers that let visitors sign up for your emails easily while on your site.
Creating a plan to build and segment your email list should be the first step in an email marketing strategy.. It’s essential to remember that, unlike your social media connections and followers, you own your email subscriber list. Regardless of pesky algorithm changes or unpredictable censorship, you control how and when you communicate with your subscribers.
That said, you have to pay close attention to developing and organizing your list. A quality list will help you get the most out of your email marketing activities and build strong and genuine connections with your subscribers. And as you know, a solid customer base is a must if you want to take your startup to the next level.
Build & Segment Your Email List
Building Your List
Add an Opt-In Form to Your Website
Who doesn’t like free stuff? Lead magnets, or resources you give your audience in exchange for their email addresses, help you build your list and cultivate an audience of engaged contacts. Lead magnets share free content, advice, or information with your audience, ideally helping them do something they want to do or solving a problem for them.
Make sure you’re creating lead magnets of substance as well as ones that are targeted to your different audiences or customer personas. That way, your potential customers will see that your femtech startup is trustworthy and they’ll want to open up every email from you to see what else you can provide…
Popular lead magnet formats include:
Make sure you’re creating lead magnets of substance as well as ones that are targeted to your different audiences or customer personas. That way, your potential customers will see that your femtech startup is trustworthy and they’ll want to open up every email from you to see what else you can provide…
Popular lead magnet formats include:
- Guides & workbooks
- Webinars
- E-books
- Checklists
- Quizzes
- Reports
Create Valuable Lead Magnets
You may read “pop-up” and think of annoying and distracting windows interrupting your web browsing. They certainly can be that. But, if you create them carefully and with purpose, pop-ups can boost your email list growth. With relevant and well-timed pop-up email forms, you can get your website visitors’ attention while they’re reading something on your site that is related to the emails they can get from you.
Try Pop-Ups
You probably already have a network of individuals who are interested in or support your business (like your contacts, peers, etc.) There are at least a few who would be interested in getting on your email list! Send them an email announcing your femtech startup’s budding email list and explain what’s in it for them if they sign up. Better yet, encourage them to share your list sign-up with their contacts.
Go Offline
Chatbots offer a wonderful way to not only provide great service for your customer, but to get to know them better too! Even if your business is just starting, you can build your chatbot over time, learning what your customers need and what interests them that might allow you to collect their email addresses.
Chatbots
Each email you send to your list should target specific people. Instead of sending mass emails to your entire audience (You know, the “spray and pray” approach), target your unique subscriber categories with content that’s relevant to them and their interest in your business.
Perhaps you’re emailing people who recently visited your site to try and catch them while their interest is still piqued… Maybe you’re emailing customers who purchased in the past, investors, or shareholders. Whether you start with just a couple of categories or develop more detailed segments, organizing your list will help you put the right messages in front of the right people.
Perhaps you’re emailing people who recently visited your site to try and catch them while their interest is still piqued… Maybe you’re emailing customers who purchased in the past, investors, or shareholders. Whether you start with just a couple of categories or develop more detailed segments, organizing your list will help you put the right messages in front of the right people.
Segmenting Your List
Design a Strategic Funnel
An email marketing strategy for your femtech startup should have a thoughtful and purposeful funnel. It’s the framework that takes subscribers from signing up on your list to becoming customers.
Ideally, the emails your subscribers receive from your femtech startup will be sent in these stages:
Ideally, the emails your subscribers receive from your femtech startup will be sent in these stages:
- Awareness: Sharing what your business does and plans to do in the future.
- Interest: Informing your email list why your business should matter to them - What’s in it for them?
- Consideration: Why should your subscribers trust you? How are you doing what you say you do?
- Conversion: How can subscribers become customers?
With the segments you’re using to organize your email list, you can build customized funnels that appeal to each subscriber’s interests or needs. That way, they receive email content tailored to their interests in your business and they’ll see that your business gets them.
For example, when a prospective customer signs up for your email list, their funnel emails might look something like this:
For example, when a prospective customer signs up for your email list, their funnel emails might look something like this:
- Welcome and thanks for signing up
- What your business stands for (your mission, values, intentions)
- Educate and inform about your services or products
- Announce a special discount or premium available to them
- Share a message about the impact your femtech startup is making in your industry
Personalize Your Funnel
Create Compelling Email Content
Your email list and strategic funnel won’t be successful if the content you send out isn’t compelling. Quality content should be a focus of any email marketing strategy for your femtech startup.
Your subscribers joined your list because they want value from your business. Sharing helpful content gives them that value and ensures they’ll want to keep getting your emails.
Consistently sending out click-worthy emails that positively impact your subscribers helps you connect with your list, nurture your relationship with them, and convert them from leads into paying customers.
Quality email content starts with what your readers see from you in their inbox. Your subject lines, preview text, and intros should be exciting and attention-grabbing enough that recipients are compelled to click and read your emails. Everything subscribers get from your business should make them feel seen, heard, and understood.
Keep reader experience in mind when you create your emails. Do they want to sift through novels of text in their email app? Or dig to find out what your point is? No.
Instead, keep your emails concise and conversational, and plug in action-based language. Tell them what you’re sharing and what you want them to do with it. That way, they immediately get the value you’re giving them in that email and know what their next step should be.
Check out my Stay Outta Spam Checklist for Femtech and Sextech Brands for more email content tips.
Your subscribers joined your list because they want value from your business. Sharing helpful content gives them that value and ensures they’ll want to keep getting your emails.
Consistently sending out click-worthy emails that positively impact your subscribers helps you connect with your list, nurture your relationship with them, and convert them from leads into paying customers.
Quality email content starts with what your readers see from you in their inbox. Your subject lines, preview text, and intros should be exciting and attention-grabbing enough that recipients are compelled to click and read your emails. Everything subscribers get from your business should make them feel seen, heard, and understood.
Keep reader experience in mind when you create your emails. Do they want to sift through novels of text in their email app? Or dig to find out what your point is? No.
Instead, keep your emails concise and conversational, and plug in action-based language. Tell them what you’re sharing and what you want them to do with it. That way, they immediately get the value you’re giving them in that email and know what their next step should be.
Check out my Stay Outta Spam Checklist for Femtech and Sextech Brands for more email content tips.
Revisit Your Email Marketing Strategy as You Collect Data
Every time your femtech startup sends an email, you can review and analyze which subscribers clicked links, opened your emails, and more. Your email marketing platform’s data will give you valuable insights into your audience’s behavior. This lets you see what content is working, what’s not, where their interests lie, and whether your emails are accomplishing the goals you've set for them.
Assembling your email marketing data with other vital data, such as your CRM and website analytics, will allow you to build robust customer and audience data that you can use to refine and strategize your marketing efforts.
Assembling your email marketing data with other vital data, such as your CRM and website analytics, will allow you to build robust customer and audience data that you can use to refine and strategize your marketing efforts.
SaaS
Best Email Marketing Strategy Practices for Your Business
While these primary email marketing strategy tips are impactful across all femtech startups, different types of businesses can modify them to align with best practices for your unique space. Here are some business-specific tips to consider.
For Software as a Service (SaaS) femtech startups, email marketing gives you golden opportunities to transition your audience of trial software users to paying customers. Strategic emails sent to your trial users let you:
Once you’ve converted subscribers to customers, email will support your efforts to retain their business with your SAAS femtech startup. Email is 56% more effective than any other retention method, so you don’t want to sleep on this. Sending regular newsletters, customer loyalty emails, and re-engagement emails will help you keep your customer subscribers interested and involved with your business.
- Gather user reviews, testimonials, and case study information
- Provide discounts to trial users to encourage them to purchase
- Address any trial questions or concerns with personalized messaging
Once you’ve converted subscribers to customers, email will support your efforts to retain their business with your SAAS femtech startup. Email is 56% more effective than any other retention method, so you don’t want to sleep on this. Sending regular newsletters, customer loyalty emails, and re-engagement emails will help you keep your customer subscribers interested and involved with your business.
eComm
Email marketing is insanely powerful for eCommerce businesses. Not only does a good strategy help you to build relationships with your audience members and promote your products, but the right emails can immediately increase sales.
For starters, you can use emails to send targeted promotion and discount-related emails to specific segments of your audience. Sending news of a product flash sale, for example, to subscribers who have shown interest in that product category previously, can ramp up sales. You can also offer exclusive incentives to repeat customers or those who previously purchased certain items.
Abandoned Cart emails are also extremely valuable for eCommerce femtech startups. More than 69% of shoppers abandon their carts online—Meaning they find something they want enough to click “Add to Cart,” but never make the purchase. Abandoned Cart emails remind your audience about that product they were considering, and can prompt them to go back and complete their purchase.
For starters, you can use emails to send targeted promotion and discount-related emails to specific segments of your audience. Sending news of a product flash sale, for example, to subscribers who have shown interest in that product category previously, can ramp up sales. You can also offer exclusive incentives to repeat customers or those who previously purchased certain items.
Abandoned Cart emails are also extremely valuable for eCommerce femtech startups. More than 69% of shoppers abandon their carts online—Meaning they find something they want enough to click “Add to Cart,” but never make the purchase. Abandoned Cart emails remind your audience about that product they were considering, and can prompt them to go back and complete their purchase.
Service
For service-based businesses, email is fantastic for introducing what customers can expect when they work with you, and helping them understand what you bring to the table.
Social proof (think testimonials, reviews, case studies, etc.) is essential to building your service-based business and demonstrating client success. Email gives you the perfect outlet to do that. Sharing stories about the tangible impacts and benefits your femtech startup’s customers have seen using your services shows subscribers your value.
Word-of-mouth and referrals significantly affect how service-based businesses build their customer base. Offering referral or incentive programs to satisfied customers in your emails can encourage subscribers to spread the word about your business: incentivizing them to build awareness about your business, and getting your business in front of new audiences.
Social proof (think testimonials, reviews, case studies, etc.) is essential to building your service-based business and demonstrating client success. Email gives you the perfect outlet to do that. Sharing stories about the tangible impacts and benefits your femtech startup’s customers have seen using your services shows subscribers your value.
Word-of-mouth and referrals significantly affect how service-based businesses build their customer base. Offering referral or incentive programs to satisfied customers in your emails can encourage subscribers to spread the word about your business: incentivizing them to build awareness about your business, and getting your business in front of new audiences.
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