Why Preppers are Engaged Online
Doomsday preppers use online engagement to build trust in their community and reach out to new audiences and customers through new online channels. Online engagement is an effective marketing strategy because of its trust-building and results-oriented benefits. Products prized by preppers—survival gear, solar power generators, how-to books, shelters—also appeal to a wider range of customers. Preppers use various strategies to increase conversions and sales by building trust through online engagement.
Newsletters Provide Recent and Relevant Information
According to Upstream, 66% of the adult population feel like they are bombarded with too many advertisements in a day. Preppers use newsletters to lower the advertisement for their customers. This method of engagement provides the most recent and relevant information to their subscribers, and run equally relevant ads.
Preppers and interested audiences alike benefit from this kind of engagement. Newsletters such as The Prepper Journal and the Secret Garden of Survival constantly update subscribers on the most recent survival facts and gear, promote upcoming conferences and promos, and run relevant ads.
Newsletters are effective means of building trust in a community because they provide recent and relevant information, encourage conversation, and are usually delivered straight to the reader’s inbox. This personal method of marketing encourages conversions because a relationship is built between the supplier and the customer. In time, the customer begins to build affinity with the author or brand and the products offered exclusively from that source.
This kind of marketing encourages conversions or sales as a result of high response rates and has a personal touch–very important for building trust.
Email Marketing Builds Trust Through Personalization
Email marketing has proven itself the most effective in terms of ROI (Returns on Investment), earning $40 on every $1 spent. Compared to that, the runners-up, SEO and Internet Display, earn $22.24 and $19.72 for every $1 spent. Why? For one thing, consumers are 91% likely to check their emails at least once in the day. Of the general consumer base, 74% much prefer commercial communications via email. Of course these stats can vary based on circumstance and the subject matter. However both SEO and internet display can vary the most depending on the luck of working with internet search providers such as Google or Yahoo. Email marketing does not have to worry with such variables and is a much more dependable option.
On the sales side, 18-23% of recipients open emails if they are from companies. In addition, 44% of email recipients have made at least 1 purchase because of a promotional email, while 66% of the consumer base have made at least 1 purchase online for the same reason.
What gives email marketing to a targeted audience its strength, for preppers, is trust. Survival is an idea with mass appeal, and even non-prepper families think through how to keep themselves safe in worst-case scenarios. Because of this, email marketing builds trust among online communities because email lists already include those who are interested in the product or service that is being included.
One of the most common forms of email marketing comes from website invitations to visitors to subscribe for email alerts. Such is the tactic of Self Reliance Strategies, a company that sells prepackaged seeds against a future which needs homegrown food. This targets interested subscribers, and if they are using email marketing lists, their customer range would be even larger.
Building trust is crucial for digital marketers because of all the spam in the market. Email marketing is safe and clean because most email service providers weed out spam. Consumers consider every email in their primary inboxes safe, and trust is built best through this personal form of marketing.
Online Forums Are Used for Open Discussions
Online forums are the idea-generation arenas for Doomsday preppers. However, anyone with a curious ear or spare time on his or her hands can join these conversations. Before the ideas take the neat form of a newsletter or blog article, preppers and their guests usually talk out survival tactics and strategies in different forums. These forums build overall trust in the online community by providing the preppers with a place to interact and discuss thoughts and ideas, and a way to engage customers in open and personal conversation.
Preppers Build Trust In Marketing Through Engagement Online
As the prepper marketers demonstrate, online engagement is effective in building trust in their community and with other families and individuals interested in raising their overall chances of survival. Newsletters, open forums, and especially email marketing personalize the interactions, build trust through an ongoing relationship, and effectively result in more sales and conversions for these preppers.