Challenge 3: Building an Email List

As business owners, we are all frequently told to build email lists. “Email is king,” “the money is in the list,” are common pieces of advice dispensed by marketing professionals to small and medium sized businesses. And to be honest - we agree with this. In fact, for every $1 you spend on email marketing, you can expect an average return of $42. Ultimately, however, it can feel awkward or overwhelming at the thought of building an email list. How are you supposed to ask someone for their email address without annoying them?  We want them to stay ON our website, not chase them away with aggressive marketing tactics!

As website professionals, we tend to hear that objection a lot. We know you want to succeed, so we have streamlined the process to make things a little easier for you. If you’ve been following the different parts of our blog mini series, you may have read our previous article on Increasing Brand Awareness. In this article, we review "Calls to Action" (CTAs) as a means of engaging with your potential customer in a way that is mutually beneficial.

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In the case of an email address, if you are asking them for their email address, it would make good business sense that you would want to offer them something in return. Identifying exactly what to offer them may be industry/business specific. Many e-commerce companies offer a 10% off discount code in exchange for their email address. A B2B company might offer the download of a free white paper in exchange for their email address. What’s important to keep in mind is that regardless of what you choose, as long as your offer is something of value to them, you can feel no guilt in asking for their email address in return!

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And, if your website design is smooth and intuitive, knowing where to place that offer so it is seen and appreciated will make all the difference. Having a sticky banner at the top of your website with a CTA is a great, non-intrusive way to capture their attention and remind them (consistently) of your offer to them.

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A website pop up, while more aggressive, has also statistically shown success in bringing in both email addresses, and (eventually), converted sales.  

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The most important thing to remember is that not only having a CTA is vital, but knowing how to stage them in multiple locations on your website can make all the difference when it comes to capturing email addresses. If someone is truly interested in your product or service, they will engage with you, so be sure to make it as easy for them as possible!

If you think you’d like to add an email capture CTA to your website, or would like advice on where to add one to your existing site, let us know!  It’s a simple change that can instigate a powerful marketing shift in your business!

Feeling frustrated and out of ideas on how to remain competitive in the fast paced business environment of 2020?  Check out our next article Remaining Competitive In Online Business for tips and tricks that our customers have used as proven methods.