1. Email newsletter sign-up [not].
Yes, make sure that shoppers can give their email address to
you. But, more importantly, give them a good reason! Too many retailers have a
simple “sign up” button with no associated benefits. We all need a little
incentive to hand over our email address, but we don’t need too much if we feel
an affinity with the brand. Try these…
– Offer a discount off their first purchase
– Explain what they’ll get: special offers, private sales,
hints and tips, magazine articles…
– Show them what they’ll get (see our recent articles, news,
reader offers etc)
Then make it straightforward. Resist the temptation to
collect lots of demographic & lifestyle information at this stage, it will
get in the way of collecting those email addresses. So just get the email
address at this stage.
2. Make the email sign-up visible
Make sure the box is in a prominent position on all
practicable pages across your website (i.e. in the main navigation). Bear in
mind some folk don’t read below the fold (and you can see in Google Analytics
that this is a huge % of your visitors).
3. Use the correct language
“subscribe” is up there with “register” as an Internet
no-no. Remove the words “subscription” and “subscribe”. The term implies a
commitment and worse, money.
You don’t need to call it a “newsletter” by the way, that
makes you sound like an IFA.
4. Friend get friend
Your best friends are already loyal, happy customers. Ask
them to recommend you to their friends and open up their rolodex to you. I am
quite prepared to recommend a brand (& give out a friend’s email) if I
think it will be of interest to a friend or I value the service/rate the
product.
If there’s some kind of incentive as well, this works even
better (money off, reward points etc). In fact, the happy customer will be
content to pass the reward/benefit on to their friend, expecting no payoff
themselves other than the pleasure of giving & sharing a good tip.
The incentive could sensibly be anything up to your average
per customer acquisition cost.
5. Ask for email referrals
In fact, there are plenty of opportunities to ask happy
customers for referals: in the order confirmation email, a few weeks after
purchase, when they sign up for your newsletter, one year after they became a
customer (“congratulations!”). Ask as frequently as you can/desire.
Be specific in your request – people are often too busy to
do all thinking.
6. Collect emails at the point of sale in shops
You have shops? You have footfall. Motivate them to handover
email addresses and/or explain they can buy online too. If they are not quote
ready to make a purchase today, but they like you, they can be persuaded. After
all, as they are local, they might love to know when the new range comes in or
the sale starts. Put an exciting/compelling placard at your point of sale/
till.
If you sell gifts, it may be more convenient since you can
deliver the goods for them.
One of the stumbling blocks here may be staff inertia. Offer
10p for every email address gained.
7. Collect cards & add emails from them
Every time you get a business card, add it to your mailing
list. I’d argue its a “contact me” opt in and if folk get upset, they can
unsubscribe or ask to be removed. Generally, you’ve had some kind of productive
meeting/conversation with them.
There are many different kinds of contact point for this:
business meetings, trade shows, seminars etc. Instruct telephone sales and
customer service staff to ask for addresses where appropriate.
Slick operators always add me to their email list – that’s
how I spot them.
8. Tell people about your great online presence
Publish the link and a summary of your proposition in all
communications material (online and off): on bags, flyers, store signs,
customer-feedback forms and satisfaction surveys, in ads and catalogues.
Add the email sign-up link to everyone’s email footer as a
PS.
9. Forward the email to a friend
Strictly a variant on [2] above, but under the guise of
“forward this crafty/sexy/compelling email offer” to your mates. A frequently
employed method would be the “family and friends” or “mates rates” promotion.
If the sender likes what’s on offer, they will forward.
10. Competitions (email required)
Competitions can generate untold numbers of email
submissions. However, many of the entrants will be for the free iPad or the
holiday in Antigua rather than your new environmentally friendly skin care
product. Having said that, you need to publish & promote the competition
which can be as costly as email acquisition itself.
Use this carefully and measure the effectiveness of the
follow-on business.
11. Swap email lists with your peers
You know where your customers are likely to shop and,
because you are an e-commerce professional, you maintain great contacts in the
industry, you can easily negotiate and structure co-operative list swaps (for
opted-ins) with synergistic propositions.
12. Invite people via social media (be active, get them to
your site)
Because you have understood how your target customers use
social media (if indeed they do), you will be able to establish a presence on
the properties that make sense for you & slowly lure them in.
13. Offline advertising (catalogues, reader offers, print,
posters)
If you are marketing via other traditional channels, make
sure to promote the email channel or more broadly, that you have a great way of
treating yourself via the Internet.
14. Run promotions on or via other sites
Get in the Amazon or the Play.com box. These are online customers
and the costs are £30-35 per 1,000 inserts in the box. Many of Screen Pages’
clients could do worse than speak to brands like Ocado and Boden who offer such
schemes (as well as banners on their website itself).
15. List brokers and media planners
Oh, and if none of these work, you could always contact a
list broker. Some brokers and media planner are up for cost per acquisition
fees nowadays(CPA), which means you pay for results. You will need to
understand the economics of [15] below.
16. Plan and measure
As any diehard direct marketeer will tell you, understanding
your customer acquisition costs in the context of a customer’s lifetime value
will determine the cost-effectiveness of any customer database building
exercise. Make sure it’s profitable.
Sometimes it’s depressing to see how few people understand
their customer acquisition costs. If’s £30 and you can get new customers
onboard via your email marketing for a lot less than this, you are doing well.
Measurement is of course only possible if you tag your
emails so they stand out in Analytics packages.
Here’s how the tagging system works in Google (simple
really, so criminal not to use it)
If you are still struggling, here’s a convenient URL builder
for email campaign tagging.
This is hugely important now because of the introduction of
reports showing “assisted conversions”, in Google Analytics. You will see how
email was also involved at the start, or during the course of, a sequence of
visits leading up to a purchase. The actual purchase visit may have come via
search. But email was involved in getting the order. e.g for every pound
credited to email, it might have contributed to another 3 or 4 pounds.
17. Email welcome messages
So now you have got someone to hand over their treasured
email address. Start loving them immediately with a good looking, warm &
compelling welcome email straight away, ideally with some kind of nice
promotion, but probably not a blanket introductory discount (as there’s a risk
of flooding your email list with duplicate extra accounts). If it contains
‘good stuff’ you increase the chance of someone forwarding it while they’re at
their most receptive.
If you’d like to get further email hints and tips to help
you grow your online sales – please sign up for our e-commerce updates.
By Roger Willcocks
