With email, there’s power in numbers. A business should live and die by its email list, since this marketing platform isn’t going away. If you receive visitors to your retail location every day and don’t have at least 5,000 names, then you need this post on how to grow an email list. Don’t be behind the eight ball… nurture that list! It could be the last opportunity for further outreach and to follow up to that customer who just realized that you’re the bomb diggity. (Read: Email Marketing for Food & Drink Brands)
The pressure doesn’t stop here, unfortunately. Since unsubscribing is super easy to do, you need to grow even faster to make up for the drop off in names. But, no worries. These ten tips for how to grow your email list should start you down the road to selling more stuff and getting your brand out there.
How to Grow an Email List
- Incentivize your retail staff to capture email addresses. Think you’re already sending loads of cash their way in commission dollars? Yes, all that is crucial but if you gain the email address of the buying (and even non-buying) customers, you can convert these folks later and garner additional revenue.
- To make sure the customer would be willing to hand over their email address, retail staff should be able to tell your story in an eloquent and practiced way. Send someone in to secret shop and monitor what they’re saying. Secret shoppers don’t have to be professionals, but friends who represent the every-person visitor. Pay them in trade, if needed.
- Invest in a system like Zenreach that will capture email addresses if/when people sign on to wifi. For a busy retail location, this could garner 200-300 emails per month. Fantastic way to grow an email list!
- Are you harvesting the emails provided while setting up a reservation? if so, be sure to send out a Thank You for Your Visit email within three days and be memorable in your copy writing to stand out from the crowd. Briefly tell your story again to remind them.
- Do you have an online sign up form on your website? Is it front and center where someone can easily see it? Do you drive traffic to that sign up through social media posts? Think about a contest for your social followers, rewarding those who send the most your way, by setting up a sign up code field.
- Speaking of contests, use the “Email to Friend” option to encourage current subscribers to forward and include a call to action to subscribe somewhere in the copy. This, however, requires your emails to be awesome. Do that, always.
- Consider a pop-up window on your website for email sign up. I know… these can get really annoying (especially when launched as soon as you land on a page) but initiate the pop-up after the person has perused at least two pages. That way, you know they’re engaged. By the way, these pop-ups work to grow an email list.
- Is your email sign up link in every employee’s signature line? A call to action line could be going out to tons of people each day.
- Does your Facebook page have an email sign up call to action? Although this tactic won’t garner tons of email signups, it gets the word out that you do marketing outreach with hopefully awesome content. Also be sure to pimp your email list every now and then in your social posts, especially when you have a sweetheart deal going.
- Run a promotion with a partner, like an event, a media outlet, or another email newsletter. This is one of the most effective ways to grow your email list quickly.
Need assistance with email marketing? Cork & Fork Digital Media has over 20 years of experience in growing revenue and databases through email. Contact us today.