See great returns with permission based marketing
Of all marketing, permission based email marketing generates the highest ROI. It is relatively cheap to implement and run and highly testable. As an ecommerce owner, email marketing should be one of your top marketing priorities so if you're not doing it, start today; no matter how small your current list is.
The main problem most ecommerce sites have is that it takes time to build their email list. But if you implement some or all of the tips below you will quickly grow your list.
13 ways to grow your mailing list
In no particular order:
- Delete the words subscription and subscribe from anywhere you ask your visitors to sign-up. Most people associate the words subscription and subscribe with some kind of ongoing monetary exchange.
- Test the location of your main newsletter sign-up panel. For some reason it seems to be a trend for ecommerce sites to add their mailing list signup box in the footer. Why? The footer is probably the worst place for it. It needs to be placed in front of your visitor's eyeballs. If you run ClickTale, you will quickly see that a massive percentage of your visitors never make it to the footer. Use a a testing tool like Google Website Optimiser to test different locations and track where they signed up from.
- Stop calling it a newsletter, it isn't! When it comes to ecommerce mailings, I can't remember the last time someone emailed out news. You don't even need to give it a name, just ask them if they want you to keep in touch with them with your latest hot offers, new products and access to the sale items first.
- Give your visitors a clear reason to sign-up. Why should they sign-up? What are they going to receive if they give you their email address? Think about your audience; ask your customers what they want to hear about and what offers they would like to receive.
- How frequently do you send out emails? If you don't tell your customers, you should...and stick to it.
- Add a link to your mailing list subscription page to all your email communication. Repeat what you offer, how frequently you send and how they will benefit by signing up. To ensure you don't offend anyone that has already signed up you should start it with "If you haven't already signed up to our newsletter..."
- Most ecommerce software will have this already built in but if yours doesn't, add a sign-up option to your checkout process.
- One more chance. If the customer didn't sign up when checking out, add another sign-up box on your order success page. We've seen this work very well.
- Whenever you ask visitors to sign-up you should always link to your privacy policy. I would suggest using a popup so they don't wander away.
- Give your visitors access to previous emails, this allows them to see what to expect if they sign up.
- Add the functionality for them to forward the email to friends. Some of your subscribers will do this already but normally, their email software will corrupt your lovely email. Also, adding this option will make those that don't normally forward the email on think about whether their friends might benefit from your email.
- Offering incentives can increase your subscription list e.g. monthly giveaway or 5% off their next order.
- Language is important. Make it sound like you're doing them a favour, rather than the other way round. For example, "Would you like us to send you monthly offers and tips" works much better than "Can we send you monthly offers and tips".
Bonus Tips - 2 ways to increase open rates with white lists.
- Whenever someone sign-ups to your mailing list, send them to a thank you page and ask them to add your mailing list email address to their email white list.
- The next is a bit sneaky. On your order success page ask them to add your email address to their white list so they receive all your order confirmation emails e.g. item dispatched.
As you can imagine getting them to add your email address to their mail software's white list will increase open rates and hopefully if you offers are right, sales!
If you have any other tips please leave them in the comments below.