Win New Email Subscribers – Part 2
Haven’t you always wondered how to turn your newsletter form into a real temptation?
Put these incentives on your website and your email list will almost grow by itself: Our 5 tips and ideas for winning email subscribers will make resistance futile!
The central question to address generation is: What do your customers expect from subscribing to your newsletter? Do they desperately need a discount to to buy that one product from your shop? Do they want an insight into the best life hacks, styling, or finance tips? Some of the readers simply love the feeling of being part of an exclusive group. Others just want to have fun, play, and win. And real fans of a brand get haunted by the fear of missing out.
- Freebies – Gifts, Coupons & Discounts
- Everything you ever wanted to know about… – Tutorials, Tips & Trends
- Subscribers only! – Clubs & Lounges
- First come, first served – The Fear of Missing Out
- Games, Fun & Excitement – Promotions
Read on and decide which of our five measures fit your business model best:
Incentive 1 – Freebies
Gifts, Coupons & Discounts
No matter whether you offer a welcome discount, “Glad-You-Are-Here” coupon or Thank-You discount – discounts and coupons always do the job and work especially well in eCommerce:
Discounts and Coupons trigger the reward center of your customers’ brains.Welcome Gifts make you win email subscribers on your website in a snap. Positive side-effect: increasing traffic and sales.
On 404 sites, gifts and discounts come as a surprise when marketed as „Compensation“ for the missing page: Here’s where visitors end up when a product or post is no longer available. As an „apology“ for their disappointment, you offer them a discount code. The unexpected attention gets subscribers and binds customers to your offer.
On product pages, instant discounts are a great temptation to sign up for your newsletter, and they can be the main incentive to buy.
Freebies are subscription catchers when they are particularly attractive or very useful as additional pieces, such as a corkscrew to the wine crate.
Free Services and Shipping are always interesting for potential subscribers and customers! Here’s an example from the fashion brand Free People:
Free shipping can also make your address generation easier. A reference to this in the DOI confirmation email can be the decisive incentive to actually complete the newsletter registration by clicking on the confirmation link.
Incentive 2 – Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About…
Tutorials, Tips & Trends
The apple from the tree of knowledge has already been a temptation for Adam and Eve.
Use your knowledge to win email subscribers. You’re an expert in fashion, yoga, interior design, DIY, gardening, styling, finances, web design…? Share your expertise!
Bloggers can use additional info or DIY tips to become a subscriber magnet. In-Content-Activation with in-text links is the best way to go: Achieve subscription rates up to 50%. If you are, for example, blogging about mindfulness and happiness, your readers will be longing for your “life hacks” subscription.
You’re an accountant selling expert knowledge? There is certainly some knowledge you can share to win subscribers. Current updates on fiscal law don’t only confirm your expertise; they also make you win subscribers and customers.
Or try seducing potential subscribers with free weekly email workshops, courses or video seminars in your newsletter, just like the US bloggerin Sarah Peterson:
Whichever tutorial action you use to convert your expert knowledge into subscribers, do it by arousing attention!
It’s best to use an unmissable pop-up or signup form. Both elements take up so much space that they don’t distract visitors from the question “Subscribe or not subscribe?“.
The key to success are short and relevant titles for your promotions. You have so much more to tell? Think about the three or four things you need to say to sell your workshop, course, or blog.
Offering expert knowledge is one of the most honest ways to attract subscribers. You promote the content of your newsletter. Your content doesn’t have to be jejune! Beside finance tips, other hot topics can be recipes, styling hacks, interior design trends and so much more.
Keap lures with inspiration:
Jouer takes it a step further and combines multiple great offers for their subscribers:
Incentive 3 – Subscribers Only!
Clubs & Lounges
People love being part of an exclusive community – especially young people. Fashion and lifestyle brands in particular like to work with V.I.P., lounge and club areas that are accessible for registered members, only.
The most consistent implementation of this is the “Club Store” business model: Only registered members – and subscribers! – have access to the shop. Members are informed about promotions and products via email on a daily basis.
Secret Escapes is one of the most well-known club stores:
Collecting addresses with the club store method is simple, but also daring. Each prospect has to become a newsletter subscriber, which also scares some people off. It didn’t work out for BuyVIP, Amazon’s club store, which has discontinued its services in 2017.
The majority of brands prefers two-track driving: There’s an online shop with products available for everyone and a club with special offers for members only.
Since GDPR entered into force, access to the club may no longer be linked to a newsletter subscription. But there are other ways to win new subscribers!
Take advantage of your best offers and most sought-after content for a premium area to which only registered members have access. These can be particularly high discounts, exclusive expert tips, sneak peeks (offers that can only be used in advance with a newsletter subscription), the best-of-blog, insider updates (coveted content only for newsletter recipients) or behind-the-scenes videos.
Incentive 4 – First Come, First Serve…
The Fear of Missing Out
One of the biggest drivers to subscribe to the newsletter of your shop, blog or website is the fear of missing out. This feeling is a very strong psychological trigger that can successfully be used in your eCommerce strategy.
Your brand has fans – Fans, who don’t want to miss any sale, product launches or special offers. Use the fear of missing out for getting potential subscribers to sign up for your newsletter.
Get potential subscribers excited with particularly appealing content and trigger their fear of missing out on grat offers or your newest launch.
Incentive 5 – Games, Fun & Excitement!
Promotions
Promotions make customers experience your brand in a positive way. They serve to strengthen customer retention and offer a high level of fun. Promotions make you win not only customers, but fans!
Promos include all types of promotions that serve the brand and customers – the most popular include sweepstakes, competitions and personality quizzes.
Airbnb use their Trip Matcher: „Can’t decide where to roam this year? We’ve got you covered! Take our quiz to find out your Travel Personality – and we’ll take care of the rest.“
Who doesn’t succumb to the temptation to find out what type of travel matches their personality and which destinations correspond to their type? Whether Bonvivant, Nature Lover or Time Traveler – taking this test is fun and makes you want to travel with an accommodation via Airbnb.
„Oh my Disney“ wants to know „Which Disney Princess Are You?“
Whether Cinderella, Snow White, Arielle or Mulan – the test also serves the purpose of fun and winning subscribers. After a bit of fun, a signup box appears:
Fun brands win fans and subscribers.
Personality quizzes work for every industry. In fashion, everyone wants to know which styling type they are. Top Shop, for example, offers a wardrobe quiz in which customers can find out their style and then receive individual styling tips – by email, of course!
Styling tips and it-pieces from influencers are also incredibly popular.
Personality quizzes, styling tips and other cool life hacks are very successful data claws. When having fun, customers are often more generous with sharing their data. You also build up a strong loyalty that’s effective for winning subscribers.
Competitions are perfect for gaining new recipients!
Organize a video contest: Ask customers to create a clip that shows why they love your shop, service or blog. Or you ask for their most curious experiences with your products, services or tips. When raffling off appealing prizes, you win lots of positive customer references you can show online (provided your customers have given their consent). Invite your website visitors to vote for a winner. Spread your contest via social media and get even more people to participate, vote and become subscribers. Then keep everybody updated via newsletter on how many people participated in your contest and which are the top ten clips. Do a countdown and proclaim the winner at the end.
Competitions are some of the most successful promotions when it comes to winning subscribers. If you have an appealing prizes and great giveaways, there’ll be lots of participants – and your email list will grow itself!
You can also ask your partner businesses to sponsor the giveaways – this is a win-win situation for both of you! They’ll have a great cross-marketing opportunity and you’ll see this has a positive impact on your customer loyalty and growing email lists.
Also try to trigger the fear of missing out or encourage people to leave comments on your products when taking part in your competition.
Despite GDPR, competitions are a crucial tool in winning new subscribers. It’s sufficient to add a simple checkbox for giving consent in the participation form. Participants check the box as they hope for better chances to win.
Keep in mind: You must not pre-check the checkbox. It’s also not permitted to link a participation to a newsletter subscription.
Irresistible: Winning Subscribers by Combining Incentives
Competitions, contests, quizzes, FOMO, clubs & lounges, inspiration, workshops, freebies, discounts – there are countless incentives. Which one will you implement?
It’s best to count on as many incentives as possible. The German fashion shop Zalando sets a good example. Zalando uses influencers and stylists for generating addresses, they have an exclusive lounge and added a FOMO signup form to their homepage. The fashion giant holds lots of great incentives for potential subscribers. Discounts are only offered in the lounge, which is quite effective at this point.
If you are a shop operator, don’t only count on discounts and coupons. Trigger curiosity, the urge for fun, the desire for being an exclusive member or the fear of missing out. Use each of these human traits to attract potential newsletter subscribers.
1 https://sumo.com/stories/how-to-collect-email-addresses-website
