It might seem like we’re approaching the process of email marketing somewhat arse-about-face, but there is a method in it.
Last week we identified the sectors we want to market to, and thought about how many offers there are available in that market, and we picked the system we are going to use to send and report on our campaigns, and to build and manage our list.
Now we’re going to set up a form on our website to gather email addresses.
There are two ways of setting about this:
1) Pick up emails alongside your site from your most interested visitors
2) Go all out to get every email to sign up to your list that you can, then send them lots of offers.
Your decision should be based on the answer to one question.
“Can I make more money out of getting this visitors email address and sending them several offers, or should I get them to take up just one offer right now?”
To get the answer to this for any given market you’ll need to try both approaches and take into account the following numbers:
The-get-the-offer-now approach
- How much does it cost me to get a visitor to my site?
(any SEO’s out there who are saying ‘nothing’ should start keeping timesheets!) - How many visitors click through to the offer and take it up
- What is my commission or margin on that offer?
The email marketing approach
- How much does it cost me to get a visitor to my site?
- How many visitors sign up to my list
- How many visitors click through to the offer and take it up
- What is my commission or margin on that offer?
- How many times can I repeat this before they leave my list.
Let’s have a look at how we might use each of these approaches on our site. First off, lets look at a page that concentrates on one offer.
We’ve still got our email capture form, and by adding target=”_blank” to the end of our links, some of our visitors will return to the site after completing the offer and hopefully sign up for future offers.
Next lets have a look at our other approach.
Notice how cut down this page is. No links, no distractions, one offer, simple form. It has one purpose and one only, to get the email address. Then you can start sending them other offers.
It takes some courage to cut down your site and all the other links and offers on it to just one offer and a form, but you can do it on one site, and use a little PPC to get traffic to your pages while you test them.
If you’ve been worrying about diverting your visitors away from your other offers, or using these not-too-SEO friendly landing pages, then this is a good way to build up your list on the side.