For all its strategizing and versatility, email marketing is pretty simple when you boil it down: find people who want to hear from you and send them emails.
It’s a simple concept but far from an easy task. People are everywhere online. They’re on your website, all over social media, scrolling through search results… The trick is finding the right people, who have a need for what you sell, and convincing them to hand over their email address.
That’s no small feat – if there’s one thing that unites us on the internet, it’s the precious email inbox. We either fiercely protect this space or drown in subject lines.
To access this sacred temple, you need to be in the right place at the right time to snag email subscribers.
Where to Capture Subscribers
Any of these digital locations can be that “right place, right time” for your business. If you aren’t capitalizing on that, you could be missing out on troves of potential subscribers.
1. The top of your sidebar
A long time ago, in the yesteryear of ecommerce, someone somewhere decided to put an email signup at the top of their website’s sidebar. For whatever reason, this took off like wildfire, and internet users expect to find an email capture there.
The number one rule of email marketing is to make it radically easy for people who want to subscribe to do so. That’s why you’re missing out big time by ignoring your sidebar.
2. Pop-ups
If you’ve been on the internet for more than 5 minutes, chances are you’ve come across a pop-up or two. They can be annoying as a consumer, but design and time pop-ups with the customer in mind, and you can mitigate the annoyance factor.
Two great times to use pop-up captures are as readers reach the end of a piece of content and when they show an intent to exit the page. As long as you offer real value, no one will mind the interruption.
3. The bottom of content articles
Speaking of content, the bottom of blog posts or ebooks is an ideal place to score email subscribers. For one, they’re already somewhat familiar with your brand. Not to mention, if they’ve actually read the entire article, they value what you have to say.
You probably aren’t crafting content just for the fun of it, so include a subscribe call-to-action (CTA) at the end to get the most out of them.
4. Your Facebook business page
We’ve already agreed your goal is to make it radically easy for people to subscribe to your email list. A big part of that means eliminating any friction or unnecessary steps that provide an opportunity for consumers to abandon ship.
Someone who’s navigated to your business Facebook page is definitely ripe for an email campaign. A pinned post or embedded signup button are the fastest ways to get them there.
5. A pinned tweet
Speaking of social media, those on your Twitter profile are just as ready to subscribe. With the same goal of minimizing the steps and time it takes to join your email list, it makes sense to include a link to subscribe directly from Twitter.
Post a tweet with the URL to subscribe and pin it to the top of your business’ profile page. You can also include the link in your Twitter bio.
6. A persistent bar
One thing that still stands out in the cluttered digital space is when you scroll and some part of the page doesn’t. A persistent bar draws attention. It also allows potential leads to keep reading, shopping, or learning more, while the option to subscribe follows with them.
Add a persistent bar to your online shop’s homepage, product pages, order confirmation page… anywhere you want to capture subscribers.
7. Gated content
If you’ve frequented any of our 3dcart ebooks, you know exactly what this looks like. The more valuable and comprehensive a piece of content is, the more it makes sense to ask readers for something in return.
Choose a few pieces of your best or most intensive guides or ebooks and put them behind a “pay wall” of sorts. Consumers are more than willing to hand over an email address in return for high-quality content.
8. Your email signature
You send a lot of emails every day, right? Each of those is an opportunity to spread the word about your email list. That’s why Kevin Duncan recommends adding a CTA and link to your email signature – so every email you send has the potential to score a new subscriber.
9. Email campaigns
I know what you’re thinking. If someone gets your email campaign, they’re already subscribed. True – but their friends may not be. And friends of subscribers are usually good candidates to become new subscribers.
In lieu of an email signup inside your campaigns, end each email with a call-to-action for subscribers to share or recommend your email list to their friends or colleagues.
Were you missing out on any of these?
Taking advantage of all the places online to capture subscribers will grow your email list and take your email marketing to the next level. That means more customers and more sales – a win/win!
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