Introduction
Building an email list is one of the most important things a business or blog can do for marketing and growing their audience. Email marketing has consistently high open and click-through rates compared to other channels like social media. For example, email marketing has an average open rate of 21% and click-through rate of 3%, while Facebook advertising has an average click-through rate of just 0.9%.
Having an owned audience that you can reach directly through email provides tremendous value. It allows you to drive repeat traffic, conversions, and sales. You can use email to educate subscribers, promote new content, run contests, and build relationships. Plus, you aren’t reliant on algorithms and can reach subscribers instantly.
Growing an email list takes effort, but implementing smart website visitor identification strategies makes it much easier. This article will walk through proven methods to turn website visitors into email subscribers. By following these tactics, you can start building a highly engaged audience that drives business success.
Collect Email Addresses with Pop-ups
Pop-ups and slide-ins are effective ways to collect email addresses directly from visitors to your website. When designed well and used strategically, pop-ups can help you grow your email list and build an audience.
When creating pop-ups to capture emails, follow these best practices:
- Offer an incentive for signing up – Give visitors a compelling reason to exchange their email, like a discount, freebie, or exclusive content. This converts better than just asking for their email alone.
- Time it appropriately – Display the pop-up when visitors seem engaged, not immediately when they land on your site. Wait until they’ve scrolled down or spent time reading.
- Keep it simple – Avoid cluttering your pop-up with too many images or distracting colors. Use clean, simple design focused on a clear headline, brief text, and call-to-action button.
- Make the CTA button obvious – Use contrasting colors to make the button for email sign-up stand out. This guides visitors to take your desired action.
- Offer an exit option – While you want sign-ups, also provide a clear and visible close option in case visitors don’t want to subscribe. Don’t force them.
- Test different designs – Try different headlines, incentives, timing, and designs to see what converts best for your audience. Continually refine your pop-up for higher conversion rates.
With smart pop-up design and placement, you can turn website visitors into email subscribers willing to hear more from you later. Just be sure to provide value in exchange for their email address.
Use Exit-Intent Pop-ups
Exit-intent pop-ups are special pop-ups that are triggered when a visitor is about to leave your website. The pop-up is automatically displayed when the user’s mouse cursor moves to exit the page. This catches the visitor’s attention right before they leave and gives you a final chance to get them to convert.
Exit-intent pop-ups are an extremely effective way to capture email addresses from engaged visitors who seem interested in your site. Here are some tips for making the most of exit-intent pop-ups:
- Offer a compelling incentive in the pop-up. This gives visitors a reason to trade their email address. Good incentives include discounts, free samples, access to premium content, etc.
- Personalize the message based on the pages the user visited. For example, if they were reading a blog post on email marketing, the pop-up could say “Wait! Don’t lose these email marketing tips. Join our list for more.”
- Use effective copywriting that creates urgency and value. “Don’t miss out! Join our list for…”, “Sign up to get…”, “Free access to…” are examples of compelling phrases.
- Test and target by only showing the pop-up to visitors who have spent a certain amount of time on high-value pages of your site. Don’t show it to those who just land and leave.
- Make the pop-up visually appealing and mobile-friendly. Use contrasting colors, enticing graphics, and a clean responsive design.
- Allow visitors to close the pop-up if they wish to continue browsing. Don’t force it in their face.
Exit-intent pop-ups are a set-it-and-forget-it way to passively collect more emails from your website traffic. Just make sure to provide value in exchange for the email address.
Use Customers.ai Website Visitor Identification Platform
Identify Visitors with Lead Magnets
Offering free lead magnets in exchange for an email address is one of the most effective strategies for growing your email list. A lead magnet is simply a free piece of content that provides value to your website visitors. When you offer something helpful or interesting in return for an email signup, visitors are much more inclined to opt-in.
Some examples of highly effective lead magnets include:
- eBooks and whitepapers: An in-depth guide, report or book on a topic related to your niche is an appealing lead magnet. Make sure it provides useful information, data or analysis beyond what’s on your blog. eBooks can easily be created using a PDF document.
- Resource lists and cheat sheets: A curated list of your favorite tools, apps, or resources related to a topic can make for an excellent lead magnet. Other options are one-page cheat sheets that provide tips, guidelines or facts about a complex topic. These are quick and easy to produce.
- Video tutorials or courses: If you have presentation skills, produce a short educational video tutorial or mini online course to offer visitors. Screen capture software makes it easy to quickly create simple tutorials.
- Free trial or sample: For some businesses, offering a free trial, sample or consultation is a great lead magnet option. This works well for SaaS products, apps, services and tools.
- Checklists, templates and worksheets: Create something that makes your visitors’ lives easier. Checklists for accomplishing tasks, fillable PDF worksheets and spreadsheet templates work well for productivity-focused sites.
- Discounts and giveaways: Offering an exclusive discount, coupon code or giveaway in exchange for an email signup is simple but effective. Free contests and sweepstakes also persuade visitors to opt-in.
The key is providing compelling content that addresses a need or solves a problem for your target audience. Avoid generic ebooks – create something memorable and tailored to your niche. Place ebook download landing pages prominently on your site and promote your lead magnet across all channels.
Retarget Website Visitors
Retargeting engaged visitors with tailored ads is an effective way to capture more email sign-ups.
Retargeting involves placing a tracking pixel on your website. This allows you to track visitors and then serve them targeted ads later when they visit other sites. The key is to focus your retargeting on visitors that seemed engaged on your site – those who spent time reading content or clicked around.
When setting up your retargeting ads, tailor the messaging specifically around getting visitors to sign up for your email list. For example, you could show them a headline like:
“Don’t Miss Our Latest Updates – Sign Up For Our Newsletter Below”
Or you could highlight the lead magnet/freebie they would get by signing up:
“Sign up for our newsletter and get our free guide: Top 10 Tips for Better Sleep”
Test different ad variations to see which convert visitors best.
Retargeting works because it reminds engaged visitors about your site and content when they may have forgotten. Following up with relevant messaging gives you a second chance at lead capture.