E-commerce success goes hand in hand with growing your email list.
New subscribers bring in new business and new business eventually turns into repeat business. The reality is that if you are not growing your list, you are not growing your store.
Nowadays most ecommerce stores are actively building their email lists. So how can you get ahead?
Below are 5 little known ways that will help you build a solid email list faster than your competition.
1. Offer an educational opt-in incentive
Opt-in incentive is a “bribe” that you offer your customers in exchange for their email address. Most ecommerce stores offer a commercial incentive, usually a discount –– but not every store has the margins to do so. If you’re in this boat, you can stand out by offering an educational incentive that helps your subscribers learn something.
Think about your customers. Who are they? What do they want? What kind of problems they face in life? Then create an opt-in incentive that would help them in some way.
For example, if you run an online fitness store, it’s likely that your customers are interested in losing weight. Why not offer an opt-in incentive that would help them do that?
It could be:
- An ebook on losing weight.
- A text-based course on losing weight delivered via email.
- A video-based course on losing weight delivered via email.
Take a look at what The Man Shake, a company that sells weight-loss shakes for men, did:
Having an enticing opt-in freebie will help you attract more subscribers and establish yourself as an authority in your niche.
Just remember that the important thing here is to provide genuine value. Would you feel that whatever it is that you are offering is worth your time? Make sure to create something that is truly valuable to your customers.
2. Create a landing page and use Facebook ads
Most people simply create a few opt-in boxes and pop-ups that feature their opt-in incentive. That’s a good start. But as ecommerce expert Leighton Taylor noted, the fastest way to start building your email list is to send quality traffic to a landing page.
Leighton himself used Facebook ads to get his first 1000 subscribers in 4 weeks:
“My online shop sells survival knives, so I set up a Facebook ad targeting men ages 18-50 located in the United States who have expressed interest in survivalism and bushcraft. I was able to send traffic to a landing page for about $0.08 per click. The landing page offered a weekly newsletter containing survival articles and gear reviews, and about 15% of the visitors signed up for my newsletter. Within 4 weeks I went from less than 50 to over 1,000 email subscribers”
You can use same approach: create a landing page and then drive traffic to it using paid advertising.
Sure, it might feel weird to pay to promote a free opt-in incentive, but give it a try. ROI works out in the end because an email list is one of the most valuable online assets that you can have.
Note: Setup your facebook campaign to optimize for new leads (subscribers) and ensure that your cost per lead can generate a positive ROI.
3. Organize a giveaway
Giveaways are an effective way to grow your email list because everyone loves free stuff. Just keep in mind that it should be relevant to your store and products. Otherwise, if you give away something generic, like an iPhone, everyone will sign up, but that won’t help you much because they won’t be interested in your particular products. So always make sure that your giveaway is relevant to your target audience.
Giveaways are an effective way to grow your email list because everyone loves free stuff. Just keep in mind that it should be relevant to your store and products. Otherwise, if you give away something generic, like an iPhone, everyone will sign up, but that won’t help you much because they won’t be interested in your particular products. So always make sure that your giveaway is relevant to your target audience.
For example, ProClip USA, a company that sells smartphone mounts, frequently holds giveaways of their products on Facebook.
These are great giveaways because the prize is the product that the company is selling, so only people who want to win a smartphone mount participate in it.
Here’s how you can organize your own giveaway:
- Pick a few products from your store to give away. It’s best to choose the most popular ones because that way it will be easier to attract attention. And yes, these have to be your products, so that you’d attract people who are interested in whatever it is that you are selling.
- Create a landing page. Make sure that you really “sell” the items you are giving away.
- Use Facebook and Reddit ads to promote your giveaway and drive traffic to your landing page.
It’s all pretty straightforward, but it’s important to understand that if you want to get great results, you have to take your contest seriously. Put in the effort and you’ll get a bunch of new subscribers!
4. Offer back in stock notifications
Were you ever in a situation where you like a product, you want to buy it, but it’s out of stock? I have – yesterday. I was really annoyed that the store didn’t offer back in stock notifications. Am I supposed to just keep checking the product page everyday?
I can assure you that your customers are also getting annoyed in situations like this – which is why you need to offer back in stock notifications.
It’s very simple to set up and it will help you grow your email list – install Back in Stock app, and watch those email addresses roll in.
According to Back in Stock, their emails have an average of 5% conversion rate, so don’t miss out on those sales!
5. Organize a webinar
A webinars (online seminars) are a great way to attract new subscribers – webinar landing pages have an incredible 51% conversion rate.
The process for coming up with an idea for a webinar is the same as the process for coming up with an idea for an opt-in freebie.
Think about your audience. What problems are they facing right now? Organize a webinar on solving those problems. It can be anything from weight loss to autumn fashion advice, depending on your niche. You can also take it to the next level by inviting an industry expert to your webinar.
Also, don’t miss the chance to demonstrate your inventory. For example, if you are a makeup company, why not organize a lesson on how to use your products? You can find all kinds of creative ways to incorporate your products into the webinar.
Once you have an idea for a webinar, put a banner (that leads to a landing page) on your homepage, and watch your subscriber count grow.
Doing webinars will help you strengthen your brand and stand out among competition.
Just make sure to deliver what you promised!
Conclusion
Want to have a solid email list? Slapping a few opt-in boxes here and there isn’t enough, then. You have to be proactive.
Use the 5 tips in this article and you’ll see your email list grow faster than ever.
Now, onto you: What is your favorite little known way to grow an email list? Share in the comments!
