There might actually be an exact formula for getting customers to sign up to your mailing lists and this is great news! There is a huge potential return on investment when it comes to email marketing and all you have to do is build a respectable number of subscribers. Of all digital marketing channels, email marketing is seen as the cheapest and most effective. There is no need to struggle when it comes to building an audience, follow these basic principles and it can be done.
A targeted approach is the first step in getting those signups. The last thing you want to do is place an oppressive and grotesque “sign up to our mailing list now” banner on every inch of your website. Equally though, a small “sign up to our mailing list” link in the footer of webpages also won’t win you many subscribers. You have to start treating your site visitors as individuals and recognise that they all behave differently and have different past experiences with you. Gather this data and communicate with customers in a way that makes it clear that you know their backstory and then invite them to sign up.
First on the list of stops to pull out in order to get your subscriptions up is creating a prominent call to action, i.e the text that encourages site visitors to sign up to your newsletter. This can be done via placement of the call to action. Some sticky sites such as that of Primark opt to display these calls to action at the top of the page and some sites go for the traditional footer placement. There is also the pop-up, that often appears as a fly-out from the corner of the webpage or in the center. In terms of conversion rates, banners that sit at the top or bottom of a site, but start in a “hidden” state until triggered, have a conversion rate of 2.2%. Full-width bars at either end of a site have a conversion rate of 1.34% and those loud, overly prominent pop-ups which can be seen as abrasive only yield a conversion rate of 1.31%.
The appearance of a call to action can be triggered by site visitor behaviour and the timing in which this happens can be instrumental in whether or not visitors take you up on your request. For example, it can be effective for sign up requests to appear in the checkout pages. This is because it is assumed that if customers are already entering their details in preparation to make a transaction, one more piece of admin won’t deter them. It is here that boxes appear urging visitors to tick to subscribe to a newsletter. There are also mechanisms in place on certain websites that can trigger pop-ups that display calls to action for newsletter sign ups when a visitor is exhibiting certain behaviours. For example, if it is suspected that a visitor is about to leave a site and their mouse is hovering near the x or the URL, pop-ups can appear in the a ditch attempt to gain their email addresses for mailing lists.
Offering incentives is another great way to increase sign ups. Saying things like “sign up now and receive 10% off” or “sign up now and receive all our latest products before they go on regular sale” has been proven to increase sign ups. Evidence shows that special offers in your call to action yields a 5% conversion rate, but the biggest pull is those calls to action that offer a competition users can enter to win, this yields a 15% conversion rate.
Another key way of increasing your mailing list sign-ups is quite simply by making the process as easy as possible. Avoid giving your site visitors function fatigue and make sure you allow them to sign up via the fewest number of clicks possible. It is proven that the longer the sign up form the less likely it is to be completed.
Finally, don’t enforce sign ups. Always give consumers the option not to subscribe. You want your subscribers to be there out of choice and because they are on board with your brand and its products. Only then are they likely to turn into loyal and profitable customers.
Sending emails to people with no interest in your brand results in you being seen as a brand that relentlessly spams and crucially you will be without an engaged audience.
Getting people to sign up to your mailing list need not be a chore. There are simple procedures and strategies to apply and bear and mind, once you do your lists will lengthen and your ability to sell and promote your stock to an engaged audience will increase.
