Email marketing is a must for every good ecommerce business. Not only does it outperform both search and social media in terms of conversion, but it also has the highest ROI of any other channel. Some even report up to 4000% return on investment!
It’s no wonder really. Through segmentation, automation and personalisation, email can deliver the right content to the right person at the right time – perfect messaging straight to the customer at every stage of the buying process. No other marketing channel can compete with that kind of relevance.
But there’s a problem. Unfortunately, your email marketing is contingent on an audience. And these audiences can’t be bought – they need to be collected. All good email marketing strategies need to rely on an even better lead capture strategy.
Don’t worry – lead capture is far less daunting than you might think. It takes time, but any online business can build up a healthy list of email subscribers with the right tools.
Converting website traffic to leads with plugins
On average, 98 people out of 100 will come to your website, look around, and leave without converting to a lead or a sale. Those numbers can be a bit of a downer. Imagine if the same happened in a bricks and mortar store? You’d go mad.
But there are ways to boost these numbers. And mercifully, it won’t require too much (if any) computer wizardry or coding.
Plugin tools like Rainmaker or NinjaForms can help you easily install forms on your WordPress website. But if you really want to boost your conversion rates, you need to grab your visitors’ attention. And the best way to grab their attention? Hijack it.
Enter ecomm’s secret weapon: pop-up plugins.
Many people often complain that pop-ups detract from the user experience of your website. They abruptly rip your attention away from the task at hand and force you to focus on something else. While this is a valid opinion, it’s also why pop-ups work. And they work very well indeed.
The average conversion rate for pop-ups is 3.09% – and the top 10% highest performers, on average, triple that. That’s an incredible performance – and with the right tools and practices, your business can achieve similar results.
Top tips for highly effective ecommerce pop-ups
Pop-ups don’t have to be as annoying as you might imagine. Like email, the difference between spam and a delightful experience is all down to relevance. Luckily – you’re in the driver’s seat.
Tools like JustUno and OptInMonster give you incredibly fine-grained control over what your pop-ups look like, who they’re delivered to, and when they appear. You can cater to your audience perfectly. Plus, they integrate seamlessly with WordPress, Shopify, and numerous other ecommerce platforms to make things easy on small businesses without a huge budget to spend on custom development.
If you’re thinking about implementing something similar on your website – here’s our top tips to ensure your pop-up converts.
- Only show your pop-up to the right people. You can target pop-ups to different audiences based on a huge number of factors: website behaviours, location, shopping habits, etc. Make sure you do. For example, if someone has already subscribed to your newsletter, there’s no point in showing them the pop-up again.
- Keep the content simple. Don’t remove all the personality from your content – but try to keep it direct and straightforward. If you hit someone with a novel out of the blue, you have no chance they’ll bother with it. Your copy should be brief, and have a clear call to action.
- Make sure it’s on-brand. Make sure the copy and visuals match your existing website and brand – you don’t want it to seem too out of place.
- Timing is everything. Spring your pop-up at the right moment. It’s always best to give your visitors 30 seconds or so to get accustomed to your website before hitting them with a call to action. Likewise, exit intent pop-ups (ones that trigger when it looks like the visitor is about to leave) can be used effectively for a wide variety of different applications.
- Offer an incentive. Last but certainly not least, for the best results, consider offering a discount, gift, e-book or other incentive to get more visitors to sign up. These can seriously boost your conversion rate. An email address is an incredibly valuable. You never know how many sales you might get out of a lead – so don’t skimp on the initial offer!