Send goodbye emails to your listeners when their membership ends

Introduction

Your relationship with your audience extends beyond when they pay you. You want to reach them throughout their billing relationship with you, including when their subscription ends. In this guide, we explain how to email them to say thank you and goodbye after their subscription is complete. In this case, you’ll be using a combination of Zapier and an email tool, like Gmail. 

This guide is about how to send a goodbye email after your members' final billing cycle has ended and their subscription is officially over. It is not a guide about how to send them an email once they've pushed the "cancel" button, but their subscription still has a few days to go before ending.

Why send goodbye emails when your members unsubscribe?

You might want to thank your audience for their support, or ask them to come back and continue their membership by offering a special perk or discount. Goodbye emails help strengthen your relationship with your most valuable customers and may help you extend your members’ lifetime value. 

Which apps does this work with?

You can either send goodbye emails from an email automation tool like Mailchimp, or directly from your email sending tool. We’ve tested with the following apps but feel free to set it up slightly differently with your preferred set of tools.

• Gmail
• Mailchimp
• ActiveCampaign

If your desired tools aren’t listed above, it may still work. Search the Zapier directory or reach out to us at hello[at]glow.fm. If you get it working with a different set of apps, we’d love to hear about it - let us know!

How it works

There are three accounts you’ll need:

• A published Glow account: We also recommend creating a test member that you can use to test your set-up. If you've signed up for your own Glow page using your email, that will work. If you haven't, register on your Glow page in a private browser using your own email address. This will serve as a member that you can test with in Zapier.
• Gmail: This is where the goodbye email will come from. You could also choose your preferred email client, as long as it has a Zapier integration.  
• Zapier: The tool that will power these integrations

Once you have these accounts set up, create a Zap that sends an email to listeners after they’ve unsubscribed. There are two steps to create your Zap. 

Step 1: Create a zap

To create a Zap, click “Make a Zap” in Zapier. 

Step 2: Connect Glow

First, choose “Glow” for your App and “Listener Removed” for your Trigger Event

Next, Zapier will prompt you to sign into your Glow account. 

Click “Test and Review.” You should see sample listeners. Find your “test member:” the member you created using your own email. 

Step 3: Connect to email

First, choose “+” to add an action. Choose “Gmail” for your App and “Send Email” as your Event. 

Continue, and then fill in the details under “Customize.”

Send the email to the listener who was removed. Some podcasters also want to bcc themselves. 

Draft the email that you’d like to send. You might use an HTML formatter to make the email look more personal and eliminate funky formatting. 

You also might want to offer a free month, or another incentive to come back. You can do this by creating a new podcast page for your show in your Glow admin dashboard and setting a free trial. If you have questions on how to do so, shoot us a note at hello@glow.fm . Here’s what your email might look like:

Click “Continue” and then “Test & Review.” When you see the green checkmark, you’re all set! You should also receive a goodbye email in your test account.

And, that’s it!