How do you collect email addresses of people interested in your services or products on your website? It takes a lot of research, thought, and creativity to create a quality email list. By quality, I mean the name and email address of a person who shows interest in your service or product. In this blog post, I’ll provide you with some email marketing strategies that have worked well for my small business customers.
Find An Offer They Can’t Refuse
Entice your audience with a tremendous offer. Remember Jason Robbard’s famous line in The Godfather movie, “I’m gonna make him an offer he can’t refuse.” Pretend your Jason and think of an offer so good, it would be hard for people to pass up. For example, if you own a restaurant offer a two for one meal or 2nd meal for $5 offer this week only – now who wouldn’t be hungry enough to give up their email address for that deal? Compelling offers work because people fear missing out on a good deal. If you can create a limited time offer with an emotional hook, then you’ll hit a home run every time somebody lands on your website page.
Don’t Annoy Me
How many times do you land on a website and become frustrated with all the pop-up boxes? You just want to view the content, but all these annoying ads keep popping up. Your either going to close the pop-up boxes or go back to your search results.
It is correct pop-up boxes can increase your conversion rate (the percentage of people who join your email list), but is that person likey to buy your services or products? Would you rather have 100 people sign up and only 10% open the emails, or would you prefer 50 people sign up and 50% of them open them?
Small business owners have a limited email marketing budget. You’re smarter to build a quality email list where people read your emails and engage with your calls to action (a statement designed to get an immediate response from the person reading like “buy now” or “learn more’) rather than only have a handful of people engaged – quality over quantity is best.
Why not try a pop-up when they exit your page? People leave your website because either they found the information they wanted, your information doesn’t match their expectations, or it could be due to an outdated website (that’s a discussion for another time) If you hit them with an”offer they can’t refuse,” you have nothing to lose because they’re leaving your website anyhow.
Don’t Be Like Wally
The illustrated book Where’s Wally (It’s called Where’s Waldo in the USA and Canada) is about a guy who travels to everyday places, where he sends postcards to the reader (which are the pictures in the book), and the reader must locate Wally in the postcard. It is difficult to find him because he hides in the crowds. Place your email sign up form in a prominent spot on your website page where it is easy for your audience to find.
Where is a good place for your email sign up form? Start with your home page because the majority of your visitors go there first. You can place your form just below your big, bold statement (words used to describe your business) or below your services or products. Like this example from Michael Hyatt.
Another accessible location is the very top of your website, using a hello bar (a form that appears as a thin graphic across the top of any page). You can easily set up the Hello Bar WordPress plugin on your website. Best of all, it is free (as of this writing) if you have less than 5,000 website views per month.
You can experiment in different locations and test which location has the highest conversion rate (percentage of viewers who visit your website page and join your email list).
Optimize Your About Page
Chances are if your visitor is on your about page, they are interested in learning more about you and your business. Be sure to place your sign up form on this page so people can join your email list. Putting it on the sidebar (the section to the right of your main content) would be an ideal location because you don’t want to distract the visitor from reading about you and your company. As an extra bonus, why not add an exit pop up to this page?
Now that you know which strategies work well to build your email list, it’s time to look at your website. Do you have an offer they can’t refuse? Are you annoying your viewers with pop-ups? Can people easily find your sign up form? Is your sign up form strategically placed on your entire website? If your answer is no to any of these questions, then its time to revisit your strategy to grow your email list. Let me know what changes you made and how they worked out.
Too busy to change your strategy to grow your email list? Hire us to do it for you. At Acorn Digital, your local digital marketing agency in Cape Cod, we can revamp not only email strategy but also your overall online presence to boost your sales and revenue.
