Email Marketing as a Product / Lingualeo Blog

In LinguaLeo, email marketing is a product. This approach to this channel arose for a number of reasons. Firstly, it’s not so much the metric that matters to us, but the well-being and mood of the user. Secondly, email marketing affects a huge number of factors: sales, recognition, as well as user loyalty, which is very important for us as a customer-oriented company.

What does product email marketing mean by itself? Let's walk together on all aspects without going into the standard details. We will share our best practices and real tasty cases about the most interesting. So let's go!

Our approach

Usually the email newsletter is perceived by the user as something intrusive and annoying. This happens because letters are often informational in nature - product news, promotion dates, hot offers. However, we managed to add value to the letters. We understood what problems the user had and solved them, as a result of which there was a demand for our newsletter. Let's look at the three main problems that our users experience.

The global challenge of motivation

Leo knows that the most difficult part in learning a language is finding motivation. This is very similar to buying a card at a fitness club. You spend a large amount of money, plan to work hard six, or maybe eight times a week, to master all the simulators and attend all group classes. But at the end of the year it turns out that a couple of visits for the whole time is already the result. What happens with the initial installation? Why is motivation lost? Let's figure it out.

The whole team is engaged in solving the problem of motivation. At the same time, we use available resources and, of course, e-mail marketing as one of the most effective channels of communication with the user. In order to remind you of incomplete activities, we do trigger mailings and unique thematic special projects that arouse the user's interest and desire to visit, save or help Leo again. For example, a call to undergo word training in order to return Leo to his meatballs, or a game - flying over lunar craters in an attempt to save Leo from aliens.

In addition, we noticed that users themselves can support each other's motivation by communicating in the savannah. Clients receive notifications of new messages by mail and, thus, do part of e-mail marketing for us: we are good, but people are pleased to talk and help each other.

Difficulties in working with the site

A new visitor feels somewhat insecure when he first gets to know the service. At the same time, an experienced user may experience slight discomfort from studying pages with unusual promotions. In such cases, LinguaLeo customers can rely on standard technical support and Leo’s assistant, as well as e-mail marketing.



The latter actively helps beginners: as part of a welcome letter, they receive a “young fighter course”, and subsequently, reminders and thematic newsletters about the release of products.



For customers who have purchased a gold status, we have a couple of autoresponders that remind you of the end of the validity period of the subscription for 5 and 1 day. This, of course, simplifies the purchase path, and disabling paid functionality does not come as a surprise to the user.

The problem of time and isolating the necessary information

LinguaLeo service is aimed at active people who know how to save their time. Our task is to present in a very comprehensive manner the most important information and provide quick access to it. How do we do this? We give an example. For a long time, we had a weekly newsletter, "Lessons from Leo," containing various grammar rules and links to thematic content. Having saved all the letters from LinguaLeo with the lessons in one folder in the mail, users could start learning one of the courses at any time. This accelerated the process of finding the right data by the client and maintained interest in the resource. As a result, we got a good response: some users wrote very warm reviews with gratitude. Despite the fact that the newsletter was only supposed to return the user to the site and was not thought of as a seller, it steadily increased daily revenue.

Beautiful packaging

A product aimed at the mass market receives more attention from consumers if it looks beautiful and concise. When creating a new product or developing an old one, it is always important to remember the interface. You conduct tests, introduce new features, and all this with only one goal - to get into the user's heart. Given the specifics of e-mail marketing, the steps should be as follows: interest, make the client comfortable, make yourself remember. Newsletter is a marketing channel, and its task is to lure, offer something “catchy”. And you need to do this with a certain share of UX-comfort, that is, using mechanics such as user experience, ease of navigation and an obvious message (appeal).

The writing interface is a “packaging” that directly affects sales, and this applies not only to design. Marketers, and not only them, know that most subscribers will not read the large text with the rules of English. Therefore, when creating an e-mail layout and filling it in, remember that “brevity is the sister of talent”. Do not forget about the main goal - to arouse the interest of the user, so that he later reads your newsletter. A good solution would be to show a small piece of useful information in the letter. In particular, we write about the use of words with several meanings in various situations. The subscriber becomes curious, and with such examples he begins to understand why grammar is needed. Two problems are thus solved: returning the user to classes and explaining to him the value of learning courses.



Nota Bene Before you think about the contents of our “packaging”, you need to remember an important detail: writing and landing should be connected. The idea is not new, but building a user’s path and exploring a funnel is really very important. A segment can be selected not for reasons of activity on the site, but by age, gender. The active user will understand the mechanism of the action, but the newcomer is likely to think about the action. At the same time, you do not need to expect that an experienced user will look for the meaning of your proposal. Make the chain simple and understandable to everyone.

Correct format

We remember that the main purpose of product e-mail marketing is to solve the user's problem. At the same time, this must be done imperceptibly, so as not to scare him away. Hence the question: in what format should I submit information? You can make different assumptions on this subject, but we decided to put an experiment.

Consider the real situation. We called this case “ Best Selling Email ”.

April at Lingualeo was rich in various promotions. Each of them was unique, because it used different mechanics and differently motivated the audience to act or buy. As mentioned earlier, all promos for subscribed customers started with an intriguing email. A story appeared in it, the end of which the user found on the landing page. Therefore, we value a pair of "letter and promo" inextricably, as a whole.

Let us analyze two mailings, which were carried out on the eve of the shares on April 12 and 23.



Leo participated in the letter on April 12th. There was an intrigue: the person who opened the letter did not know what awaited him when he clicked on the link. At the same time, experienced users of the service understood that at LinguaLeo they were waiting for either a discounted offer or a game.



On April 23, the mailing list recipients were offered a simple test. At the same time, the recipients felt involvement in the mass action, which was limited in time.

The results of the mailings were as follows. The first letter worked several times worse than the second. It turned out that a much easier number of people like the easy and user-friendly mechanics of involvement, together with the ability to take the test.

So, the format of your product is determined only by you, but you should pre-test it on several clients and leave only those characteristics to which they respond best.

A small summary

Let's summarize the conclusions that have been taking so long:

• Treat the e-mail newsletter as a product, and it will open up new opportunities for you to promote your product.
• Solve the problems of your client even before he contacts your product or service.
• Make a convenient and intriguing writing interface.
• Link letters to the landing page.
• Analyze the results of the newsletter, compare them with each other to find the best solutions.

Thank you for reading us. We welcome your comments!

PS. Next time we’ll talk about how to deal with spam filters so that useful emails reach all your customers. Follow our news on Facebook , vk.com/lingualeo , Twitter and Instagram , share your impressions and have fun!