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Capturing New Customers with Email Lists

July 6th, 2009

Many of you who are long-time store owners probably have an address book full of customers you’ve done business with in the past. But, are you aggressively collecting email addresses of store visitors who are simply browsing your store? Capturing this audience will get you one step closer to converting visitors to paying customers. This is a top priority for both new store owners and those who’ve been doing business for quite some time.

We’ll show you a simple and effective way to start capturing email addresses of web visitors so that you can create a dialog with these potentially profitable visitors. In our example exercise, we’ll use a store launch event as the hypothetical situation. So, if you’re new to Auctiva Commerce this will be right up your alley. More experienced store owners can customize this lesson to fit their specific needs. We’ll be giving you suggestions on how to do that as we go along.

The Power of Email Lists

Email lists are a terrific selling tool. It allows you to frequently keep in touch with your customers and drive high-quality traffic to your store. There are a variety of ways to do email lists, including a guerilla-style technique where you send emails to your email list through your standard email client (e.g., Microsoft Outlook or some other email application). This is one of the least expensive ways to operate an email list, however, it can become difficult to manage and design your email campaigns. This method also does not automate opt-in or opt-out functions or provide analytical data.

A good email list managing tool will automate the most essential email managing tasks and provide insights into the success of your email campaigns. This means that when you send an email to the recipients in your email list, you’ll be able view how many of those people open the email and how many of those click on a link within the email (i.e., the click through rate). This additional information can help you decide the value of the emails you send as well as assess which types of emails drive the most valuable traffic back to your store. Let’s say you want to feature a new product on your store next month. What kind of marketing copy would compel your email recipients to buy this product? You could write a hard sale, such as “Just Added to Our Inventory-Get 10% off Now.” Or, would you do better with something softer by writing a paragraph about the product itself and why you are excited to offer it on your store? These are difficult questions to answer, but a good email list tool should be able to offer us some insights. We encourage you to take a closer look at these tools and see if they’re right for you.

Email List Setup Summary

Here’s what we’re going to do:

Plan our Email Signup Workflow
Create a MailChimp account. We’ll tell you more about these monkeys later.
Create a new email list.
Create a Sign-Up form.
Create a new WebPage in Auctiva Commerce.
Create a link to the New WebPage from the Home Page.

We won’t discuss how to do an email campaign in this exercise. We’ll talk about email campaigns at a later date. This exercise is simply for creating the “net” that will capture web visitors so that we can sell to them, later. Let’s dig in.

Email Signup Workflow

It’s a good idea to have a game plan for converting your web visitors to email subscribers. We want to be efficient at converting new subscribers so that we can capture as many people as possible and also make sure the process is easy for the end user. Here’s how the workflow will go for your hypothetical store launch:

A visitor that views the Home page of your store will view a message about your forthcoming launch of the store that encourages the visitor to sign up for the Store Launch Newsletter. We’ll supply a link to the Signup WebPage.
When the visitor arrives to the Signup WebPage, they’ll learn more about the purpose of the Store Launch Newsletter. They’ll also be able to read the Email Privacy Policy. A link to the Signup form will be supplied.
When the visitor arrives to the Signup Form, they’ll enter their email address and first and last name. When they hit the submit button, they’ll be instructed to confirm their subscription by clicking on the confirmation email that was just sent to their email address.

That’s the basic workflow. You can add more links to the Signup WebPage (e.g., a link from the About Us page) or email the link to a list of existing customers if you’d like. You may also consider creating an email list for the purpose of reporting special offers to your customers if you’ve already launched your store.

Step 1. Create a MailChimp account

We’re using MailChimp for this exercise because they offer a free account and you can export your email list into a Microsoft Excel file. In this way, you can just use MailChimp for their handy sign-up forms to capture email info and then export this to just about anywhere. There is a limitation to the free account, however. We will be limited to 100 subscribers and 6 email campaigns per month. These limitations could be a problem for some of you. You can upgrade your account to the pre-paid $9.00 “Pay-As-You-Go” plan at anytime to be able to capture an unlimited amount of recipients. So, if you find that your email list is filling up fast, upgrading is an option. Is it worth $9.00? That’s up to you.

We should also let you know that we’re not affiliated with MailChimp in any way. In the Blog Notes section below, we have created a list of other email list providers that you can use if you’d like. It makes no difference to us. But for the sake of the exercise, we’ve found MailChimp to be ideal (free account + ease of use = a good time for all).

Go to MailChimp.com and sign up for a free account. Follow the steps provided in the account setup wizard.
When you’ve confirmed your account, you’ll be taken to the MailChimp Dashboard. That’s where we’ll begin our next step.

Step 2. Create an email list in MailChimp

In the MailChimp Dashboard, click on the “Create a List” link that’s located in the Getting Started section.
Click on the Start List Builder button.
List Name: Enter the email list name. In our exercise, we’re building a Store Launch Email list, so in this field we’ll write your store name and “Store Launch Newsletter.” For example, “Mike’s Hardware Store Launch Newsletter.”
Default From Name: Enter the name that will appear to recipients as the “From” name. Your store name would be good (e.g., “Mike’s Hardware Store”).
Default Reply-to Email: Enter the email address that will be used when a recipient chooses to reply to the email.
Default Subject Line: Enter in the default email subject if you’d like. This will appear only if you send an email without a subject specified.
Leave both checkboxes for the Format Selection and the Campaign Toolbar unselected. You can give users the choice of format, but make sure that you will support their preferences in the Email List tool you plan to use.
Send an email notification of subscribes to: Enter an email address that MailChimp will use to notify you about new users that join this email list. Make sure to do this, especially if you think you might get close to the 100 subscriber limit. This will allow you follow subscriber totals more closely. You should also enter your email address for the unsubscribe notices just in case you want to monitor that process too.
Click on the Next button to go to the next page.
Permission reminder: Enter in the text that will display at the bottom of an email that reminds recipients why they’re receiving emails from you.
Contact Info: Enter the require contact information. This information will appear when a user subscribes to your email list.
Click on the Next button to go to the next page.
You can edit the Signup Database fields if you’d like.
You can include Interest Groups if you’d like, however, it’s unnecessary for a Store Launch Newsletter.
Click on the Next button to go to the next page.
Follow the checklist to make sure your Email List complies with the statements provided.
Click on the Skip List Import button. (We won’t be imported any recipients). A confirmation message will appear. Move to the next step.

Step 3. Create and Design the Signup form

Click on the “design my signup form” button.
Click on the “edit” button to change the Header of the form if necessary. You can remove it by clicking on the remove link or use an image by clicking on the use image link.
Click your mouse cursor in the box with the red dotted line to add text. Enter a brief description that describes the purpose of the Newsletter. You make also want to add a note about your email privacy policy.
Click on the Design It tab to change the colors if you’d like.
Just above the form you are building, copy the subscribe form URL. The URL will be http://eepurl.com/<your unique string> . Now paste this URL somewhere (e.g., in a text document) so you can access it later.
Click on the Save & Exit button in the upper right corner.

Note: Your MailChimp Signup Form will always display the “MailChimp Postage Stamp” when you are using the free account. This is an affiliate link that helps drive traffic to MailChimp. It’s their way of keeping your account free.

Step 4. Create a Signup WebPage in Auctiva Commerce

This WebPage that we will create is one of the most import pieces of the Signup Workflow. The copy we write on this page will need to be compelling enough to get people to click through to the Signup form. Take your time when customizing this page to make sure it’s easy to read and understand. Also be clear about your privacy policy. Finally, consider “juicing-up” the content with some images if you feel comfortable doing that. But, don’t muddy up the page. We really want people to quickly get a sense of what the newsletter is about and feel safe about giving up their email address.

Log in to Auctiva Commerce Administration.
Go to Store> WebPages. The WebPages page will load.
Click on the WebPages icon in the Add WebPages box. The Add WebPage page will load.
Page Title: Enter the title for the WebPage. This will appear in the head of the WebPage and also will be used for the URL. A title such as “Store Launch Signup” would work.
You do not need to use the Thumbnail, Alt Text or Summary fields.
Page Content: In this field, we’re going to put some content on this WebPage using HTML code. You can customize it to your taste. Here’s the code:

<p>We’re gearing up for our BIG Store Launch Party and you’re invited. Join our Store Launch Newsletter and receive an exclusive coupon that you can use during our opening week. This is our way of saying "Thank You" to all our loyal patrons and new customers who want to help us celebrate our new store. Please join our newsletter and you’ll be hearing from us shortly about our exclusive coupon and upcoming store launch. <a href=”http://www.eepurl.com/replace with unique string”>Add me to the Store Launch Newsletter</a></p>

<h4>Email Privacy Policy</h4>

<ol>

<li>Your privacy is important to us. We will never share your email address with a third party.</li>

<li>You may opt-out of our email list at anytime.</li>

</ol>

Make sure you replace the URL in the hyperlink to the actual URL to the Signup form.
HTML Head: In this field will enter some Meta Tags to help search engines understand this page better. Copy and paste the code and replace the description and keyword properties with your own information.

<META name="description" content="Join the Mike’s Hardware Store Launch Newsletter to receive an exclusive coupon">

<META name="keywords" content="Mike’s Hardware Store, Email, Newsletter, Store, Opening, Launch">

Click on the Finish button. The Manage WebPages page will load.
Click on the Preview button (i.e., the Magnifying Glass icon) to preview the page. A preview will load in a new browser window. Copy the URL for this page. We’ll need the URL to create the link to this page from the Homepage.
If you’d like, you can continue to customize this page until you’re satisfied with the content.

Step 6. Create a link on the Home page

Go to Store> Theme> Customize Store Theme. The Customize Store Theme Viewer will load. This view looks like your typical storefront.
Scroll down until you see the Customize button (the one next to the Admin button). Click on the Customize button. A modal box will load.
Click on the Content button. The HTML Editor will load.
We’ll add some copy to our Home page using the HTML Editor window. You can customize the content to fit your needs. You can copy and paste the HTML code below as a starting point. Click on the Source button in the upper right corner of the HTML Editor window. Then copy and paste this HTML code at the top of source code in this window.

<div>

<h2>Store Launch Coming Soon</h2>

<p>We’ve being working hard to create the best shopping experience for you and now we’d like to have some fun. We want to invite you to our <strong>Store Launch Party</strong> and give you an exclusive coupon to use during our opening week. Go to our <a href=”/default.aspx”>Store Launch Party page</a> to learn more.</p>

</div>

Make sure you replace the URL for the hyperlink with the actual Signup page URL; otherwise it will link to the Home page. Click on the Preview button to preview the changes.
Make any edits you’d like in the HTML Editor. When you’re finished, click on the Save Changes button. Close the Edit HTML window. Close the Customize modal box by clicking on the Close link at the bottom of the box. Click on the Admin button to return to the Auctiva Commerce administration.
Now, double check your work by clicking on the Store icon in the upper-right corner of the Auctiva Commerce administration. Your storefront will load in a new browser window. Check to make sure the new content loads properly. Click on the link to make sure it takes you to the Signup WebPage. Click on the link that should send you to the Signup form. Now type in your email address to make sure the form is working properly. You should get a confirmation email that you’ve joined your email list.

Food For Thought

Our exercise focused on using a “Store Launch” theme, which might work for your store. You should also consider customizing the theme to fit the type of store your opening. For example, a “Ribbon Cutting Ceremony” might be a better fit for a women’s boutique or a store that sells craft supplies. Be creative with your approach, but make sure that it will be obvious to visitors what the event is all about. If you choose to create your own store opening theme, also make sure that it’s consistent across all the pages you’ve created. Don’t call it a “Ribbon Cutting Event” on the Home page and then call it a “Launch Party” on the Signup page.

Not Launching a Store?

If you’re not launching a store, you can easily create a different kind of email list that can capture potential customers. It’s not uncommon for stores to have a “Specials” newsletter that informs recipients on store sales, discounts, coupons, new products, etc. If you’ve already launched your store, consider adding one of these newsletters.

Sending Email to Your List

Now you have a “net” that is capturing web visitors who want to be informed about your store opening event, you can focus on sending them email campaigns. Feel free to use MailChimp if you’d like. The free account will let you to send 6 email campaigns per month to your 100 subscribers. That should cover your store launch newsletter in terms of frequency (one message a week will do). And, you’ll get to use the handy email campaign design and tracking tools. That’s not a bad deal. But if you’d like to take your business elsewhere, follow these steps to export your list to an Excel file:

Log in to MailChimp, if you’re not already logged in.
Go to the Lists tab.
Click on the View List button for the list that you will export.
Click on the View All link.
Click on the Download Members to Excel link.

Make sure to invest a good amount of time refining your messaging on the storefront and within your email campaigns. You subscribers are a valuable bunch of customers. Treat them with a great deal of care and they’ll be a reliable revenue source.