Going direct to consumer is no easy feat. It requires building a beautifully designed and functional website, proper inventory forecasting, managing channel conflict, and more. But have you thought about your marketing plans and how those will change with your new DTC strategy? Email is an important piece of your overall marketing plan, but it can be overwhelming at first — especially in regards to list building. Where are you going to find these emails? How do you know if they are quality leads? Here’s what you need to consider.
Bigger Isn’t Always Better
Remember that bigger isn’t always better. You should be focusing on quality, not quantity. If you have a list with 10,000 emails, but most of them were purchased and have no interest in your product, the list is useless. A smaller list, however, with emails gathered from lead generation campaigns, opt-in campaigns and emails collected at conferences will be way more effective in the long-run.
Listen to Your List
If you already have a list and a quarter of the recipients haven’t opened a single email in six months, they’re telling you they are no longer interested. Continuing to include them in email campaigns can lead to low open rates and even land you in spam. On the flip side, someone who entered your free giveaway contest and has made purchases in the past is telling you, “Hey. I’m interested!” Segment your email lists based on activity levels, and create campaigns that target these lists specifically.
Find Creative Ways to Capture Email Addresses
Offer Discounts
You can incentivize shoppers to share their email addresses by offering a discount. You can also get creative with this method and test how many people will share their email address for 10% off vs. 20% off vs. 50% off. Additionally, some brands will up the ante and offer a higher discount to visitors who have been to their site before. They know they are interested and just need to find the right offer to get them to convert.
Use Your Content
Do you have a blog where you talk about ways to use your product, discuss industry trends or provide helpful tips? There’s an opportunity to collect more email addresses here, too! Put a newsletter signup box on your blog to encourage people to subscribe. You can use CTAs like “never miss a blog post” or “content delivered right to your inbox” or “be the first to see new trends or deals.”
Perhaps the best part about a blog is the ability to interact with your consumers through commenting. Allow users to comment, but require that they input an email address to comment. Not only does this allow you to collect their information, but it’s with a person who is clearly interested in your product, too.
Give Gifts, Get Emails
Everyone loves free stuff, which is why giveaways are such an effective way of collecting email addresses. However, you’ll want to be very transparent and let them know that by inputting their email addresses, they’re automatically opting in to receive marketing emails.
Provide Value to Your Subscribers
Growing your list isn’t just about the initial email capture. It’s also about nurturing your current list in a way that encourages them to stick around. Be cognizant of the cadence of your outreach. We’ve all unsubscribed from a brand for sending too many emails and too frequently.
Additionally, think of ways to add value to your subscribers. Don’t blast them with promotion after promotion. Send tips, send interactive quizzes, send trending topics. If you’re strategic with how you nurture your audiences, they’ll be more invested in the relationship that you’re trying to build with them.
Looking to launch your direct to consumer operation but don’t know where to start or what you need to consider? Contact us today — we’ll be happy to walk through your questions.
