in Email Marketing

Building Your List: The Foundation of Profitable Online Marketing

by Melissa M. Kellogg

A good customer contact list can be a gold mine for your store, says retail expert Ted Hurlbut, principal of Hurlbut & Associates, a merchandising and inventory management consulting firm based in Foxboro, MA; and the best lists are built one person at a time as part of creating better relationships with your customers. The most useful and profitable list is one that customers and prospects have requested to be a part of. Customers will want to receive email from you if it provides something of value to them, Hurlbut says, and asking customers what is of value to them is one of the best ways to create a list-building strategy that will work.

How to ask
Building a list successfully is all in how you ask for new subscribers, says Doug Fleener, president of Dynamic Experiences Group, a retail and customer experience consulting firm based in Lexington, MA. If you simply ask for a customer’s email address, they hear: “can I spam you?” The best way to get customers to sign up is to mention one of the benefits of being on your list such as, “would you like me to let you know when more styles or colors of this item come in?” or “we’d love to send you a gift on your birthday, what’s the date and your email address?” Once you have permission to contact a customer or prospect using email, make sure to promptly send them an email welcoming them to your store’s community. List all the benefits of membership, let them know what they can expect to receive from you, and invite them to become your store’s fan on Facebook, says Fleener.

Contact current customers
Begin building your list by contacting your core group of loyal customers, those that make up the majority of return visits and sales. Take time to ask them what it is that brings them back to the store and whether they would be willing to tell a friend about your store, says Hurlbut. Based on what you learn by talking to your customers, start your list-building strategy by deciding what pieces of information you want to collect and how you want to reward customers for signing up. An email address is a great place to start but consider collecting additional pieces of information from your customers. Fleener recommends asking for a mailing address and birth date. He says, people love to celebrate their birthdays and getting an acknowledgment from you along with a gift card is a great way to increase customer loyalty.

Attract new customers
Recruiting new subscribers takes consistent effort and creativity. Bob Negen, retail expert, and founder of WhizBang Training, based in Grand Haven, MI says there are numerous ways to build your list but some are more effective than others.

Frequent buyer program
The most effective way to build your list, according to Negen, is to create a frequent buyer program. Create a program that is heavy on benefits that are redeemable by email and your customers will be much more willing to offer their contact information. The key to
having a successful frequent buyer program is to offer benefits that make the program worth being a part of. Benefits could include a free monthly newsletter chock full of great ideas, a first look at new popular products, special member’s-only events and a monthly contest where the winner gets a gift card or free gift.

Promote your rewards program in your store as well as on your website where you can include a sign-up page. Include links in your email marketing as well as on your Facebook fan page. Encourage customers to forward sign-up information to friends. Have a regular “Invite-a-Friend” promotion and for customers that get a friend to sign up, either in-store or online, both will get a free gift or be entered into a frequent drawing.

Contests and giveaways
Having an annual or semi-annual contest can be a great way to catapult the size of your list. Get creative and have fun with your contest such as asking entrants to describe an experience with one of your products or your store. La-Z-Boy is a great example. The furniture retailer grew the size of its list by 13,000 new prospects with a creative contest called “Comfort Stories,” which asked entrants to submit a story about how La-Z-Boy furniture brought comfort to their lives. The retailer promoted the contest with informational content on its website and launched three email marketing campaigns. The winners were awarded highly desirable prizes such as a room makeover, recliners, a Nintendo Wii game console, and Amazon gift cards.

Contests that include a random drawing can be just as effective. For example, you could have a monthly drawing for a free gift for all that sign up. Promote your contest in your store as well as on your website and social media pages. Include information and a sign up form on your website with a very visible link on your home page. You can post a link to the sign up form on your Facebook fan page and any other social media websites you use. Promote the contest by using email marketing. Then, once you have a winner, you have a great reason to send an email to all the entrants congratulating the winner. In that email you can also promote your store by inviting recipients to visit, announcing your upcoming events, and suggesting they become a Facebook fan of the store.

Ask everywhere
Recruit new subscribers to your list in every form of communication that you produce, such as press releases, print advertisements and radio spots. Make sure to mention the main benefits of subscribing like a special discount, monthly drawings, a newsletter loaded with valuable ideas, and exclusive invitations to special events. Ask for new subscribers on the homepage of your website and at the check out of your ecommerce site with a link to your sign-up page. Provide a link to your sign-up page in your email marketing, write posts on your social media pages, and even include a link in your personal email signature line. Little by little you will see your list increase in size.

Creating a great list of customers, prospects and friends of your store is the foundation of building a more loyal and profitable customer base. Traditional, impersonal marketing is not as effective, says Hurlbut; customers want to be engaged by more personal communications. Get to know your customers and create a list that you can use to continue to communicate with them even when they are not in your store. This will increase customer loyalty and increase repeat sales. Although it may seem like marketing primarily to a finite list may not be as effective as blanketing your community with print and radio ads, you will likely find that most of your sales and foot traffic come from repeat buyers. Build your list by asking core customers to introduce others to your store, says Hurlbut. Have fun and get creative with increasing the size of your list, by hosting contests and giveaways and consider setting up a frequent buyer program. Building your list and using it to get to know your customers will help your sales and increase customer loyalty.