Data is the modern equivalent of gold. Capturing customer data gives the opportunity to market products to them and entice them to spend more money. It also offers useful insights if you canvass their opinions.
An email address is what most companies want when a visitor drops by their website. But unless you have something to offer a website visitor, they are unlikely to hand over their email address. Here are five strategies for capturing a visitor’s email address.
Before you get stuck into ways of harvesting email addresses, it’s wise to have an email marketing system ready and waiting for all this data you will soon have flowing your way. There are plenty of email marketing software solutions to choose from, with big names like Constant Contact are very popular. Go right ahead and check it out and see if it’s got everything you need, but you can check alternatives here, too.
Don’t forget to set your email account up on your website, as you’ll need this to contact people on your email marketing list. It’s wise to set up a virtual private server – VPS – for your website, so customer data is protected.
Now let’s look at how we can capture emails without causing offense.
Free Downloads
People always love freebies, and by offering a free something, they are much more likely to hand over their email in return for the freebie. What you offer will depend on the kind of website you have.
For example, an e-commerce website might offer a discount code in return for a customer’s email address. Or even a free product of low value. If you offer a service rather than actual goods, you could provide a free e-book download that gives the customer something useful, such as additional knowledge.
Another way to harvest an email address is to encourage the visitor to sign up for a free course, such as a webinar offered exclusively to email signups.
The more valuable and enticing your offer is, the more likely people are to hand out their email address. And because they are already expressed interest in what you have to offer, they are likely to be interested in future communications from you.
Pop-Ups
Pop-ups are much maligned, but they do still have a place in the world of marketing. Non-intrusive popups offering something can often encourage users to give you their email address.
Make it easy for a visitor to subscribe, but don’t be too annoying. Rather than blast them with a huge pop-up as soon as they land on your site, wait until they are about to click away before the pop-up appears.
Strong offers in lightboxes are often very successful, but it’s worth experimenting with different formats and placings, to see which pop-ups work the best.
Content Upgrades
Putting certain content behind an email subscriber wall is very effective. This is kind of how a site like Patreon works – users offer free videos on YouTube, but if a fan wants access to more exclusive content, they have to subscribe on Patreon.
Consider making some content only available to email subscribers. You can segment this content, so people only see what is of interest to them, which makes it more appealing.
Surveys
The humble survey can be very useful for marketing purposes. Don’t make it too long and odious, or nobody will want to do it. Ask some short and sweet questions, in return for a discount code (or similar). This lets you harvest the person’s email address at the same time as gleaning useful information.
Run surveys on social media. It’s nice and easy to promote surveys on sites like Facebook. You can make them fun and appealing to the maximum number of people.
You could even offer rewards to sharing the survey or a free giveaway for the 100th person who fills out the survey. The more attractive you make your offer, the more likely you are to have a decent response rate.
Promote a Newsletter
Newsletters are a tried and tested way of capturing email addresses, but any newsletter you send out must be useful. Do not spam your marketing list with junk news they won’t be interested in, or they will soon hit the unsubscribe button.
Offer a varied selection of content, including embedded videos and short articles. Once you have the customer’s email address, you can send them special offers and marketing deals.
There are lots of other ways to harvest email addresses. Let us know your best methods below!
Further Reading
