7 Best Practices for Increasing Email Signups on Your eCommerce Store

Your email list is one of your eCommerce store’s most powerful audience-building tools. Whether you operate a store on popular eCommerce platforms like Shopify, Magento, or WooCommerce, your email list represents people interested in your brand who are either existing or potential customers.

Because your email list is such a great way to communicate with your target audience, it only makes sense to want to build that list, including as many of the right people as possible. That’s why you’ll want to focus on implementing a strategy leading more people to subscribe to your email list.

In this post, we’ll look at seven best practices for increasing email signups for your eCommerce store.

Use a popup

The first rule of increasing email signups for eCommerce is to use the gold standard of converting prospects to subscribers: use a popup. Popups are the best, easiest way to attract email subscribers for eCommerce sites.

They speak to someone already viewing your site, engaging them and inviting them to continue the engagement further.

Popups provide you with a chance to sweeten your offering to the prospect and move you both onto the next level of the buyer’s journey. They have the ability to persuade your prospects to quickly provide their email address and receive valuable information or offers from you.

Here’s a tip on how to get the most out of your popups: engage in A/B testing. This is where you rotate the copy you use in your popups to see which ones work best. Make sure that you record the conversions from each popup and then compare the results to see which one performs better.

Remember that convincing your audience to take action sometimes requires innovation and flexibility; A/B testing allows you to tap into that to sample different approaches to understand what formula resonates the most with your audience.

Offer a discount

You might refer to a discount as the oldest trick in the book, only it’s not really a trick – it’s a transaction. You can offer your users a promotional code that provides them with a discount on their first eCommerce purchase.

This has a cascading effect on your potential subscribers. First, it emboldens them to sign up for your email list. Second, it tantalizes them to make a purchase with the offer of money off their first transaction with you.

A discount offer is a simple, no-frills way to incentivize email signups in a way that benefits you and the prospects.

Make it ridiculously easy to sign up

When it comes to shopping online, assume your customers prefer the path of least resistance. That means that the fewer barriers you can put between them and the sale, the better your chance of converting them.

Do this by minimizing the number of fields you present when asking for their email. Collect only the information you need and nothing more.

For popups, one to two input fields should be the maximum amount you use when you’re asking for data. Make the fields clear, visible, and easy to complete.

You’ll want your prospects to be able to sign up without distractions. Make it as simple as possible for them to do so by limiting the number of fields you ask them to fill out.

Excess fields do more than just complicate things; they may irritate or aggravate your customers. Simplicity is the key to getting that email address.

Run a contest, giveaway, or sweepstakes

In his seminal work on sales tactics and persuasion titled Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, sociologist Dr. Robert Cialdini identifies six universal principles of influence. These are time-tested methods that salespeople often use to convert a prospect to a customer.

One of those principles deals with reciprocity. It contends that if you do something for a person, they’re more likely to want to return the favor by doing something for you.

Giving something to your prospects for free is one of the best ways to get people to sign up for your email list.

When you run a giveaway, you offer value to the prospect. When they receive this, they’ll be more likely to want to reciprocate by signing up for your email list either to A) do something for you in return or B) receive value from engaging with you in the future.

Contests and sweepstakes operate under a similar idea, although those will attract visitors looking to potentially win something down the line. Even if they don’t win, you still have the opportunity to hook them with your content or other offers in the future.

Make sure to have the #1 element needed in all popups

There’s one thing that all popups need as a way to catch your viewer’s eye, generate interest, and lead them to sign up for your list: a striking, memorable image.

Using an image in your popup ad gives you a better chance to attract the prospect over popups that don’t have them. It gives the prospect something to latch onto visually.

Writing engaging, persuasive copy is important to getting signups, but an eye-popping visual can convince them to investigate more about what you can offer by signing up for your email list.

Use any one of several popup parameters to take it to the next level

There are a few other techniques you can implement into your popup to help make it more effective, including:

• An eight-second delay. A slight delay allows the prospect to visit your site and establish themselves there before you ask for their email address.
• A 35% scrolling popup. Another approach is to use a scroll popup. This induces a popup after a prospect has scrolled 35% of the way down your landing page. This ensures they’ll be engaged with your site when they receive the offer to sign up.
• Exit intent. This triggers a popup for someone leaving your site, offering them some kind of reason to signup (i.e. a discount). It provides the visitor with one last chance to convert, offering them something of value in return for their email address.

Optimize for mobile

People are more likely to shop using a smartphone. Optimizing an eCommerce site for mobile use is critical to your success, and this is equally true for your signup forms.

Ensure your popups and signup forms are all optimized for mobile viewing. That means you’ll want to test it on mobile before publishing the form and/or site.

You could make the argument that when it comes to eCommerce, optimizing for mobile may be even more important than optimizing for a desktop view. So, don’t cut corners on this now or into the future as mobile purchasing only becomes more common.

In summary, increasing email signups for your eCommerce store requires adopting a strategic approach. By using the tactics outlined above, you can cultivate a strong email list full of engaged, interested users that you’ve persuaded to sign up due to their interest in learning more about your offering.

Interested in more tips like this or in building an eCommerce store that converts sales? At Future Holidays, we create beautiful eCommerce websites and digital experiences that form a cornerstone for sustainable business growth and help businesses work smarter. For more on how we can help you grow your business online, contact us today!