There are many ways to reach your target audience then why spend time in building an eCommerce email list?
Well, there is this study which found that ROI of email is more than 4 times higher than other channels like paid search, social media, display etc. In the same study it was also revealed that email is way more profitable to use in comparison to other channels.
Also, it is relatively more easy to convince someone to give their email id rather than asking them to buy a product.
For the new eCommerce store owners it is imperative that they soon start building an email list as it gives them the opportunity to convert them into buyers.
In here we are going to discuss tactic which can lead to increase in subscription rate.
Opt-In Forms
Going for opt in form is the most common way of building your eCommerce email lists. Most of the eCommerce platforms by default offer email Opt-In forms integrated in the stores. Having said this, placing the Opt-In forms strategically is the key to get a higher subscription rate.
A study shows that typical Opt-In forms have less than 1% subscription rate. This figure varies between different kinds of Opt-In form positions. Typically, an eCommerce store will have the Opt-In form in the footer section. This is based on the assumption that visitors should be lead to subscription form only when they have gone through the entire page content.
Do people prefer to fill the subscription form given in the end?
Right…that’s what we thought.
Here’s an interesting example of Adidas which has placed the subscription field right at the top of their website as well as at the footer section.
This is a unique strategy from the brand’s perspective as it is trying to maximize its leverage by deploying the forms on both the ends.
And there are other less successful ways to plot your Opt-In form on the website as well. You can place them on the sides of the main content which is roughly a “mid page” position. You can clearly see that it is the least engaging place for people to sign up for your emails.
Even though it is the most commonly used method for building eCommerce email list. It suffers from the lowest subscription rate. Also, Opt-In forms can easily get lost as it may not stand out from the rest of the website content. This is why now Pop up windows are gradually gaining an upper hand over Opt-In forms.
Pop-Up Windows
Before you jump to any conclusion about the pros and cons of choosing Pop-Up windows, we would like to lay down few facts about them.
We are optimistic that Pop-Up windows or messages will only grow in popularity even though not many eCommerce owners are using it on their store right now.
It is clearly the second most popular way of getting sign ups on the website (see the graph above).
This case study shows how a start up was able to boost their subscriptions by 114% by just using pop up window.
Yes, it is a fact that people don’t like to get interrupted because of pop-ups. The reason being most marketers use these pop ups to hard sell their products and services and end up harassing their visitors.
Pop-Up messages offering discounts and incentives in exchange for your email id fare much better. Also, Pop-Up messages based on exit intent have shown to have a high success rate compared to regular Pop-Ups which interrupt the user experience.
Here’s an interesting blog you can read which discusses how one can craft an ideal exit Pop Up message.
Capturing Emails during Purchase
This is a clever way of capturing email ids of customers who are about to complete their order. You can strategically place the email id capture field along with other details fields. You may ask why should they give you their email id? Well, on the contrary, this is the very stage where the customer is looking forward to share his email id so that they can receive not only the order related details but also to receive your future discounts/offerings.
Social Media Contest
You can run attractive contests on different social media channels where your target audience frequents.
You must have an attractive discount or product up for sale so that it becomes an attractive proposition for your fans to engage and participate in the contest.
Make sure you use high quality pictures as it will help to grab your audience’s attention in their feed.
There are tools out there which can create contest for different social media platforms. With the help of these tools you can quickly create such contest and start building the email list.
Landing Page
Landing page is just another type of pop up window but it has to serve a specific purpose in order to build the eCommerce email list. This comes handy for upcoming stores as it is challenging for them to get email ids from new visitors.
This landing page should have a lead magnet i.e. a free PDF/Templates/Photos etc. which convinces the visitor to share their email id.
The best thing about having a landing page is that it is totally an independent element in your website and doesn’t interfere with your main website flow.
Parting note
Until now we only discussed what one should do to capture email id but this is just the beginning. You will now have to devise an effective email marketing strategy to leverage all this data. This means you will have to prepare a battery of automated emails which can be triggered the moment someone signs up with you. You will also need to keep them engaged with quality content to keep them coming to your website every now and then. A word of caution, at any given instance you may have customers at different stage of buyer’s journey and hence you will have to adopt a different strategy for each segment.
If your objective is to bring more business, building an ever growing eCommerce email list is the key.
