Building a House List


As you learned in Chapter 13, "Acquiring Customers (Part 1)," email marketing can successfully bring visitors to your Yahoo! store. This involves renting a list and sending your email promotion "cold." But email is also a powerful tool in retention marketing. You must first build an in-house list of existing customers or those who have asked to be in communications with your business.

A house list is important because those consumers on your list have already expressed interest in your business and the products or services you sell. They are receptive to your promotional messages.

Another important reason to use email in your customer-retention plans is that it's far less expensive than most marketing vehicles. Of all the businesses marketing through email in 2005, 61% was used for retention. But it does take work and marketing savvy. That's all well and good. But how do you build a house list?

Because you have a Yahoo! store, you already have the start of one: your current customers. The trick is to grow that list, not only to grab additional sales from your current customers, but to attract and convert prospects as well. You can do this by using regular and informative email communications, such as promotional emails, newsletters, and loyalty programs. More important, instead of renting an opt-in list at 25¢ to 50¢ per name, you get a list for free because the names in your house list are yours. In addition, surveys indicate that you should get a better response from your own house list than from a rented list.

Here are some ways to expand the house list you already have:

  • Get an offer Users will not hand over their email addresses unless there's something in it for them. Putting a sign-up box on your home page that just says "Sign up for our newsletter" is not going to cut it; you need to give your visitors a reason to want to be solicited. So you need something to entice them. The best way is to offer them something of value. If it's a newsletter that you are soliciting subscribers for, explain to them just what kind of news they will get.

    For example, you might say, "Sign up for our whitepaper and learn the top three reasons why investors fail." Or "Sign up for our newsletter and learn how make your garden bloom in color throughout all the seasons." Or "Sign up for our promotion emails and receive special discounts on our clothing accessories every month." You get the idea. Make sure you state that users who sign up for the free offer are placed on the mailing list. Not spelling it out could get you in trouble for sending unsolicited commercial email (a.k.a. spam). Spell out any terms in the privacy policy page.

  • Promote your email offers on your site Place a subscribe box on your home page (top right), and a way to subscribe on every page of your site. Including a small sign-up box on the home page is a poor way to attract subscribers. Instead, have a link to a page where you can better explain what's in it for subscribers if they sign up. Also, place the link on your home pageand all other Web pages on your storefront, enticing visitors to click on. As you should remember, this is one of the three important elements to have on your home page (unique selling position tagline, call to action, email capture). If you can't sell visitors, recruit them: Get their email addresses so you can market to them later.

  • Have your subscribers spread the news (pass-alongs) If they find your promotional emails of value, ask your subscribers to forward them to a friend. Better yet, send them to a page listed or linked in your email or newsletter where they can enter the email addresses of friends, family, and colleagues whom they feel would find your newsletter of value. Of course, you need to confirm the referred address via email, politely say that so-and-so thought they would be interested in a subscription, and then give them a chance to opt out before you include them in your house list. The last thing you want is to be accused of is spamming.

    Tip: Promote Your Email Program On-Site

    The promotion of your email program doesn't have to be in your main or secondary navigation. Your email promotion can look like a small banner ad on your Web pages touting the value of your newsletter, loyalty club, or promotional emails to whomever and from wherever they reach your Web page. Also, add an opportunity to subscribe at the end of your checkout process. If you require free registration for visitors to personalize their visits to your site, include an opt-in for your email promotion there, too.


  • Promote your newsletter on other websites Look around for websites that compliment and not necessarily compete for your business. Then, see if they'll do a co-registration deal with you. They might be willing to add your newsletter opt-in along with the newsletter that they offer during their newsletter-subscription process.

  • Advertise your newsletter to comparable audiences Newsletter advertising is far cheaper than banner adsand newsletters get better results. By advertising in newsletters that match your audience, you not only save money, but your ad also is targeted. You can find a list of newsletters and e-zines to advertise in at www.newsletteraccess.com.

  • Promote your email promotions in meatspace You've spent a lot of time and money on your printed material (business cards, brochures, promotional flyers, letterhead), so promote your newsletter there and include the URL to the subscription page of your website. And if you exhibit at trade shows, give visitors to your booth a chance to sign up for your newsletter, loyalty program, or promotional emails.

The bottom line is that, by growing and using your house list, you can generate repeat visitors with periodic email mailings, get more links to search engines if you archive your content-rich newsletters on your site, and lower your acquisition cost per customer for far less than renting lists or buying banner ads.

Registration Page Basics

You might have a great offer that entices people to sign up for your house list, but if the process itself is too bulky or cumbersome, customers will quickly look for the door.

Here are some things to keep in mind for an effective registration page:

  • Explain the benefits and process of registration Don't expect visitors to your Yahoo! store to automatically sign up for your promotional emails based on a single phrase or one-line tagline. Explain the benefits of opting into your promotional program or newsletter, along with how the process works. Tell consumers what to expect and how long it will take to complete the form. The signup process should take less than a minuteany longer than that, and they're out the door.

  • Ask for permission Make clear your privacy policy and how you plan to use personal information that the subscriber gives you. Consumers today are skittish about giving personal information to strangers; be clear that you will not sell or loan their personal information to a third party. Also, don't automatically assume that every customer who buys from you wants to subscribe to your promotional email program or newsletter: Do not precheck the box at the end of your order process that says "Would you like to receive further mailings from us?" or "Send me offers and announcements from YourDomain.com." This will help keep your company out of the spam doghouse.

With the Campaigner email-marketing tool by GotMarketing, you can add a subscribe check box to your checkout process (see Figure 15.1). The great thing about Campaigner is that it's integrated with your Yahoo! store and can be accessed through the Store Manger via the Email Marketing link in the Promote column. All you have to do is sign up for a Campaigner account and then enable the Campaigner Customer Email Collection check box on the order form. This automatically adds the email address of any customer who opts into the Campaigner database. As a Yahoo! store owner, you can test-drive Campaigner free for 30 days and send up to 500 emails. After the trial period, you can sign up for a starter plan, which starts at $10 per month.

Figure 15.1. With the Campaigner email-marketing tool by GotMarketing, you can add a subscribe check box to your checkout process. Customers who opt in are automatically added to your email database.


Finally, don't forget to create a privacy policy and post it on your site. Create a text link at the bottom of the home pageand every page of your siteso visitors can find it easily and review your policy.

  • Keep the form short Be considerate of the subscriber's time. A 2004 Jupiter Research study found that 42% of surveyed registration/subscription pages had 21 or more fields. That's way too much information to ask; you risk the subscriber abandoning your form. Ask for only minimal information, such as email address and name, to start building your house list. Later, if you offer something in return, such as a benefit, a free product or service, valuable information, or a contest or sweepstakes, you can ask more in-depth personal information to help you profile the subscriber for marketing purposes. When you do this and your form becomes longer, flash a light at the end of the tunnelthat is, tell them how long the form will take to complete and where they are in the process. Also, break up the form into small pages. This way, you can place page numbers on the top of each page to let subscribers where they are in the sign-up process and how many more steps are yet to come. Less is more.

    Tip: Create a Privacy Policy the Easy Way

    The Direct Marketing Association can create a free legal privacy policy for your company. Go to www.the-dma.org/privacy/creating.shtml and answer the questions that are on the page. At the end, a privacy policy is generated in HTML for your business; you can paste it directly into a Web page on your storefront.

    Here are some other websites that will create your privacy policy for you via wizard, for free:

    www.p3wiz.com

    www.privacyalliance.org/resources

    www.w3.org/P3P/validator.html


  • Collect personal information one bit at a time As in the previous tip, collect information one bit at a time. Don't get too nosey at first. Limit the requested information to five to seven questions, such as email address, first name, last name, and ZIP/postal code. Do not ask for phone numbers. Use polls and surveys to collect additional profile information incrementally on subscribers. Even if you keep required information to a minimum, you can ask one simple market-segmentation question to help qualify or segment subscribers.

  • Take advantage of form-fill standards When programming your form, take advantage of the current Web browser autocomplete function. For example, you can have a previously typed name drop into the Name field, making the registration process faster and more efficient for the subscriber.

  • Confirm ages Comply with the guidelines set by the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 (COPPA), which prohibits companies from collecting data from children under 13especially if your Yahoo! store attracts teenagers or children with the products you sell. Ask subscribers to confirm their age on your sign-up form, if it's appropriate.

Subscribe and Unsubscribe Tips

Whether you are using an email promotion campaign, a newsletter, or some other promotional method to build your house list, you must have an easy subscribe and unsubscribe process established for your email retention program. You have to make it easy for subscribers not only to opt into your email retention marketing program, but also to opt out. The law says so.

No matter which email retention strategy you use, you must avoid being accused of spamming your house list. You learned about the negative consequences of spamming in Chapter 13. Remember that on the Internet, bad news travels fast. An angry online customer has many ways to broadcast frustration to friends and strangers. On the Net, customers are in control, and they are more than willing to exercise it against anyone or any company that raises their ire.

The first step in the opt-in process is to send an email to subscribers confirming that they did indeed sign up for your promotional emails (called double opt-in). You can automate this process with an autoresponder email.

The confirmation email should do the following:

  • Welcome the new subscriber and indicate what he or she has subscribed to

  • Ask the new subscriber to confirm the subscription by replying to the welcome message or opting out with a response

  • Provide subscribe and unsubscribe information at the end of the email message or newsletter

  • A link to your company privacy policy at the end of your email

You can enable subscribers to opt out of your email promotions in three ways. The first way is to ask them to reply to the message with the words unsubscribe or remove in the subject line. This process poses a problem to your company because you have to read each email and manually unsubscribe them from your list. It also poses the problem that you might miss the email and not remove someone. Then, the next time the subscriber receives your email promotion, you will have an irate member of your house list on your handsand you will not have complied with the CAN-SPAM Privacy Act.

The second way is to have a link inside your email that, when clicked on, automatically removes the subscriber's name from your house list. This takes some programming on your part, but it is one of the best ways to manage the unsubscribe process. If you would rather outsource this process to an established subscription-management company, check out Constant Contact, by Roving (www.roving.com), or Campaigner, by GotMarketing. You can access Campaigner right from the Store Manager via the Email Marketing link in the Promote column.

The best way to manage the subscribe and unsubscribe process is to use a special Web page on your site. Create a page on your website where recipients can unsubscribe by just clicking a URL in your email. As soon as they click the link, your server recognizes it as an unsubscribe action and presents them with a Web page stating that they have successfully unsubscribed from your list. This also gives you another chance to interact with subscribers at that page, perhaps to ask if they would like to subscribe to another list or join your new preferred shoppers club.




Succeeding At Your Yahoo! Business
Succeeding At Your Yahoo! Business
ISBN: 0789735342
EAN: 2147483647
Year: N/A
Pages: 208

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