Email marketing when done correctly is an extremely powerful tool that gets your brand messaging into the hands of your fans and customers. However, one of the most challenging parts of email marketing is building your email list organically. In this article we’re going to look at some of the ways your existing marketing strategies can help you grow your list. We’re also going to look at some new ideas you can implement into your eCommerce marketing campaigns now.

Grow your email list on your website

Your website should be at the centre of your eCommerce marketing. This is where your user makes their final decision whether or not to buy from you.

For those that don’t end up buying straight away, you can capture their data for re-marketing at a later date. This can come in the form of advertising, email marketing and even push notifications. Here are some tips to grow your email list from your website.

1. Create content worth signing up for

   Your content needs to be high quality and avoid the spammy sales tactic that so many eCommerce blogs have. Blog writing for ecommerce can be difficult but it has many benefits, especially if you use it in a search engine optimisation or a content marketing strategy.

   The trick is to create engaging blog posts with a call to action at the bottom for the user to sign up. This will see your mailing list grow substantially and you’ll be able to work out which blog posts work the best based on subscription rates.

2. Add a sign up form on every page

   Users will rarely visit a site and sign up as soon as they hit the first landing page. Having consistent messaging across the site with clear CTAs will encourage the user to sign up at different points in their user journey. Make sure you have an opt in form in the footer of your site, a pop-up on the homepage and strategically placed CTAs throughout your blog and content pages.

3. Segment from the start

   Show your visitors that you’re serious about giving them the right content by having segmentation options at the sign up process. If you have a fashion eCommerce business that sells men and women clothes, then ask for the gender at the sign up form. If you have a site that sells B2B and B2C, then ask if they’re a business. These little details could be the difference between someone becoming your next email subscriber.

4. Use intelligent pop-ups & fly outs

   Obviously, if you’re being bombarded by the same pop-up over and over again then a visitor to the site may start to become stale to your brand. But if you use intelligent pop-ups and fly outs, you can change which ones they see depending on how many times they’ve visited the site before. This can be extremely powerful if you leave with a “last chance to sign up”. Leaving them with a FOMO (fear of missing out).

   Intelligent pop-ups can be used to gather more information from a user post-sign up. For instance, if they’ve signed up already, then the next time they visit the site, you can ask them which topics they’re interested in. This helps create better segmentation for better content.

5. Benefits of signing up should be clear

   You should be asking yourself, “why would I sign up to this email list?”. Make it clear that you’ll provide them with relevant content, be the first to know about new product launches, latest offers and even hand over a discount for sign ups.

6. Implement into your loyalty program

   If you’re running a loyalty program on your site, you should be offering points for signing up to your mailing list. This is a great way to give back to the customer without having to use discount codes.

7. Subscribe to view content

   If you have a brand that has lots of sought after content, whether that’s behind the scenes footage, interviews with brand ambassadors or even white papers, then you need to consider content upgrades. This is a strategy where you give some content away to the general public, but only VIPs and email subscribers can see the rest of the content. This can be an extremely efficient way of lead generating and growing your email list.

8. Make it easy

   The visitors to your site want content now, speed and efficiency matter. So, you need to make your sign up form as easy as possible to use and have as few options as possible.

   In-depth segmentation can be done at a later date. For now, just capture the email addresses. It’s also worth noting that it should be easy to close the pop-up, you don’t want the visitor associating your site with a frustrating experience.

Encourage new subscribers from your emails

Once you’ve managed to grow your list from optimising your sign up forms on the website, you’ll have a list full of subscribers that love the content you send. You can use this to your advantage, by asking them to refer friends. By making some small amends to your campaigns and even your flows you can encourage more sign ups. And because these sign ups come from a friendly recommendation, then the new subscriber is likely trust your brand.

1. Make it your emails easy to share

   At the top or the bottom or even both of your emails you should have some standardised sharing options. Make it easy for your subscribers to share an email across social media and be able to forward it to their friends. You can include this as part of your UGC campaigns to have a bigger reach.

2. Recommend the sign up

   Adding a CTA to your emails that encourages subscribers to share the sign up form can be a great way to grow your list. Use phrases such as: “Don’t keep this a secret” and “got a friend you think might like this?” will encourage engagement.

3. Send recommendation specific emails

   You should be doing some automated email marketing flows as part of your digital marketing campaigns. You could look at adding another flow based around how engaged users are. Create a segmentation of your most highly engaged users and when someone enters that segment, send out an email. Use this email to thank the user for being so engaged in your content and then ask them to recommend it to a friend.

How to grow your email list through social media

A lot of brands get discovered on social media and once the fan is rooted in with the brand they will likely get daily info about them from their social accounts. It’s a powerful platform that, when utilised correctly can help grow your email marketing list.

1. Set up a CTA

   On your Facebook page, you can add a tab that encourages users to sign up. While this is just a small CTA, it shows the users where your priorities lie – serving them high quality content.

2. Run competitions

   Competitions are a fantastic way to getting rid of old stock engaging users and growing a brand reputation. Use competitions as a lead magnet to grow your list and encourage users to opt-in. Use a separate segmentation/list so that you can pick a winner from that specific competition.

3. Use social ads

   Utilising advertising on social media can be a quick way to grow your email list. This can be especially true if the user browsing wants to find out more or finalise the purchase at another time or on another device. Use a sign up box as your main intention on your Facebook ads to encourage users to sign up to your mailing list.

4. Use guest blogging

   Guest posts can be a fantastic way to grow your audience, increase your SEO and cross collaborate with other brands. But you can also encourage users to sign up to your mailing list in your guest post. Using a sign up CTA rather than directing the reader to a sale page will probably be more effective for conversions in the long run too.

How to grow your email list in an omnichannel marketing strategy

Omnichannel marketing allows you to provide a seamless experience across different channels both online and offline. Here are some tips that you can use in your omnichannel marketing strategies that can help you grow your mailing list.

1. Bricks and mortar sign up

   The obvious suggestion that comes to mind is the ability to be able to collect emails in brick and mortar stores. Setting up tablets on stands in store will encourage users to sign up. You could also use “back in stock” notifications to gather users data for marketing purposes. If you email out receipts for in-store purchases, you could use this opportunity to collect GDPR consent at the same time.

2. Customer service

   Using customer service questions to encourage sign ups can be powerful because you’re answering a customers query or question by providing them with quality information. You would have to use this tactfully because if a customer is complaining, you don’t want to be offering out more marketing.

3. Remember the user

   The whole point of omnichannel marketing is to be able provide a seamless experience across all channels. This means that if someone is already signed up to the email marketing list online, they shouldn’t be asked to be signed up again in another channel. At the least you should acknowledge that you know they’re already signed up.

Hopefully you’ve got some good ideas from this article that you can put into your own marketing strategy to grow your own emailing list. If you need any more advice on growing your marketing list then get in touch.