How to maximize your e-mail capture rate
E-mail marketing is an incredibly effective way to make the most of your website traffic by communicating with both existing and potential clients. Years of research and thousands of successful campaigns are a testament to its triumph. This said, there are just as many attempts that fail. At first glance, the reasons for e-mail capture failure may seem run the gamut, but they all boil down to the same specific – and basic - flaws. Generally speaking, most failed attempts to capture addresses stem from a lack of incentive. Or, in other words, from not understanding what your webpage visitors actually want.
MailPropeller has developed a system that guarantees outstanding e-mail capture by ensuring visitors feel they get value in exchange for their address. Sound overly simplistic? Well, it is, broadly speaking. However, while people can be spoken of in broad terms, a person cannot – and this is what is important to remember: You cannot generalize value over an entire website. Each specific page in a website imparts information on a specific topic or theme and as such, each page should feature a specific offer. Moreover, the offers with the highest click-through rate should be displayed most often. While many mass mailing providers provide free tools for clients, MailPropeller also provides rotating captures which self-maximize. This is one of the many reasons MailPropeller surpasses industry standards.
Another key component of our success is our in depth understanding of market stratagem. Many tactics used to capture e-mail address stem from valid research, but this data can then be misappropriated and misunderstood. For example, while e-mail capture is an invaluable marketing tool, it is not spam. When someone gives an e-mail address to a webpage, they are not necessarily asking for random sales offers, newsletters or contest notifications. This is why it’s important to ascertain why the person gave their e-mail in the first place and then send valuable correspondence based on that premise. After all, while the method of e-mail capture is important, it is not nearly as important as the offer behind the capture – and, as mentioned before, the offer must appeal to your webpage’s traffic if it is to succeed.
It is helpful to put yourself in the place of your visitors. Think why you may have given your e-mail address to a particular website. Chances are you didn’t feel tricked, or apprehensive about the safety of your address. By giving your e-mail, you were going to get something you wanted. Plain and simple. So how do you know what your clients want? Especially when it is so much easier to give people what they don’t want? Research is key. Google Analytics is one invaluable tool to help you determine which search words drove traffic to your web pages. Once you have this information, you can design an offer suitable to the traffic. Page design can also make a big difference to your e-mail capture quota. For instance, having multiple topics on the page will make it difficult to determine exactly what the user is looking for and increase your likelihood of showing them the wrong offer. Keeping your pages resolutely focussed can help you see what your traffic is looking for; thereby making it possible to show them offers they want. However, understanding what people are looking for only gives you the niche. You must create an offer that’s lucrative enough to convince the niche their e-mail addresses are a small price to pay for that offer. In return, you will capture more e-mail addresses.