5 List Building Mistakes You Need to Avoid in 2024

5 List Building Mistakes You Need to Avoid

Email list building is one of the most traditional digital marketing techniques for ecommerce stores, yet the most effective.

Email marketing is 40 times more effective than social media for acquiring new customers. It also provides an average ROI of 122%, which is four times higher than any other digital marketing channel. 

Have you heard about the 3/47/50 rule? It gives a quick snapshot of what’s happening on your site:

  • Only 3% of your website visitors are ready to purchase something now.
  • 47% of your visitors are not prepared to make a purchase now but might buy something in the future.
  • 50% of your visitors will never buy anything from you.

Most ecommerce stores are all about chasing that tiny 3% ready to spend.

But what about the 47% who might buy later? Ignoring them is like leaving money on the table.

This is where your email list building comes into play. Subscribe these maybe-later shoppers to your email list, hook them with the right email marketing campaigns, and watch them turn into your next customers.

Now that you know why email marketing is important for your ecommerce store growth, let’s review five list-building mistakes you should avoid.

Mistake #1: Asking for too many details

The more complex your email signup form is and the more information you ask, the more you’ll confuse your visitors.

Too many form fields decrease the chance that visitors will subscribe to your email list.

Here’s an example of a signup form with too many form fields:

Too many form fields on a pop-up form

The more comfortable your potential customers feel the more apt they are to hand over their information. Therefore, it’s best to limit what you ask of them.

Your email signup forms should have one or two fields:

  • Email address
  • First name

Here’s an example of a simple yet effective exit-intent popup by Extreme Digital for email list building.

Extreme Digital exit intent popup signup forms

They offered website visitors exclusive and latest discounts in exchange for their email addresses. This pop-up alone yielded them a 10% conversion rate which meant 900 new subscribers within the first seven days. 

If you’d like to collect more information (e.g. phone numbers as well), try using a multi-step signup form. 

Here are a few multi-step pop-up templates that ask for email addresses and phone numbers as well:

Mistake #2: Not offering incentives for email subscribers

Many ecommerce sites present visitors with generic pop-ups simply asking for email addresses.

These pop-ups and messages fail to convert because they don’t offer any incentive to visitors. 

List building pop-up example without an incentive

A list-building popup like this is ineffective and doesn’t offer any direct value for the visitors to subscribe to. Hence a minimal conversion rate.

What we recommend is that you stop using generic messages such as:

  • Join our newsletter.
  • Sign up to receive the latest information.
  • Subscribe.
  • Join our email list.

Instead, offer something of value with immediate benefit. Ebooks, guides, checklists, or personalized product recommendations are excellent value-adds for your visitors. 

Here’s an example from MyExcelOnline. They created an exit-intent popup specifically for visitors who spent more than two minutes on the website. The offer for new subscribers was a free Excel training course. 

As a result, their email list grew substantially and generated an additional $22,800 in sales.

MyExcelOnline - Exit Intent Popup

Ecommerce stores can also offer their visitors a direct incentive such as first-time discounts and free shipping coupon codes. 

Here’s an example from BlendJet. They displayed this exit-intent popup to visitors who have yet to make a purchase. 

This proved to be a great list-building strategy as not only their email list grew, but also their lead-to-sales conversion rate increased to over 13% globally, and over 20% for US-based visitors.

BlendJet list building popup

If you’d like to offer a discount as an incentive, try these ready-to-use templates:

Mistake #3: Not segmenting your landing page visitors

Another common list-building mistake that we notice is that ecommerce stores show the same offer or incentive to every visitor. 

Each visitor is unique and probably in a different stage of the customer journey. Showing everyone the same popup means that your messaging isn’t personalized.

Here’s one common scenario. 

An email subscriber returns to your site for their second visit. But on both visits, they see the exact same popup.

Duplicate messaging is a surefire way to annoy potential customers and decrease interest in your offers or your brand.

It’s important to segment your visitors based on their customer journey. Then, display a relevant offer.

A 10% discount or free shipping might only entice purchase-ready or price-sensitive customers.

Suppose someone is still educating themselves about your products and has not yet decided to buy. A free shipping offer might not work for them. Instead, offer a buying guide or educational content to build their trust in the solution.

To personalize your offers properly, the first thing you must do is to segment your audience. Then show each segment a different message. 

Here are some common forms of segmentation based on your visitors’ behavior:

  • New visitors vs. returning visitors.
  • Existing customer vs. a first-time customer.
  • Geographic or location-based segmentation.
  • Product-based segmentation.
  • Segmentation based on referral sources.

One example of exit-intent popups is from Digital Marketer, an online community that provides educational courses and guides for digital marketers. 

They created multiple popups and offers based on their visitors’ search intent and website behavior. They displayed this lead magnet “Facebook Ad templates” to any visitor who browsed any of their web pages with “Facebook” in the URL. 

This campaign alone resulted in 471 new email subscribers.

Digital Marketer popup for Facebook visitors

Mistake #4: Not sending a welcome email

The best way to build a relationship with a new subscriber is to send them a memorable welcome email.

Most consumers expect a welcome email, especially if they are anticipating a piece of collateral like an ebook download or free shipping.

Welcome emails have an average open rate of 42.2% and 10.5% click-through rates. Also, they produce 320% more revenue per email than promotional emails. 

Starting the relationship in the right way will help you to turn new subscribers into loyal subscribers. And then there’s a bigger chance they will convert.

Here’s an example from Firefox. They use double opt-in where a user receives this email so they can confirm that the visitors want to subscribe to the newsletter.

Firefox confirm subscription email campaign

Mistake #5: Optimizing only for conversion

The average ecommerce conversion rate is 3%. Despite a wide array of conversion rate optimization (CRO) methodologies, resources, tools, and data analytics the numbers are still low. 

If you’re solely using CRO techniques to build an email list, you’re hurting your business. 

To be more effective, you need to play the long game and build relationships with customers. Instead of pre-emptively showing them an opt-in form that they might not be interested in, find out what offer is ideal for them. Only then display those offers.

Customer Value Optimization (CVO) will give you an edge over other stores that use CRO techniques.

Customer Value Optimization is about creating a great customer journey and maximizing the ROI for all marketing activities. It focuses on optimization throughout the customer lifecycle to improve brand and loyalty—and create customers for life.

The popups are personalized based on their unique interests and behavior. Hence they are more effective in converting more email opt-ins.

But, to be successful at CVO, you first need to understand the 5 stages of customer awareness. 

Each customer goes through these stages before they are ready to place an order from your store.

  • Unaware: The shopper doesn’t know they have a problem or desire.
  • Problem aware: The shopper knows they have a problem, and it needs to be fixed but doesn’t know the solution.
  • Solution aware: The shopper realizes that they can solve this problem with the right solution, but not that your product provides it.
  • Product aware: The shopper learns about the product or solution that can solve the problem but isn’t sure it’s right for him.
  • Fully aware: The shopper knows the products that exist and how much they cost, and only needs to know “the best deal.”
5 Stages of Customer Awareness

Depending on where the visitors are in their “customer awareness” stage, you will offer them a unique email opt-in form.

Here’s what that could look like:

  • Unaware: Your goal in this stage is to raise awareness of the problem. Create and publish articles, podcasts, videos, webinars, etc., to evangelize and educate the market. Encourage them to subscribe to your email list to receive more educational content. 
  • Problem aware: Your goal here is to raise awareness of the solution. Offer educational content such as guides, quizzes, ebooks in exchange for their email address.
  • Solution aware: Your goal here is to help them choose the right product. Create buying guides, comparison charts, wizards. You can encourage them to opt-in to receive a personalized product comparison.
  • Product aware: Your goal here is to build trust and remove any doubts in their minds. Create and display social proof, live chats, etc. You can also send them customer stories and case studies to help reduce any resistance.
  • Fully aware: Your goal here is to offer them the best deal, so they don’t buy from anywhere else. Create and display coupon codes or timely offers, and keep them informed via email. 

By personalizing and optimizing your messages based on their customer journey, you’ll have more success in building your email list.

FAQ

What does list building mean?

List building refers to the process of developing a database of email addresses for the purpose of digital marketing. The aim is to gather a list of individuals who have shown interest in your product, service, or content, so you can communicate with them directly through email campaigns. This process involves various email list-building tactics to encourage potential customers to subscribe to your email list.

Why is list building important for my business?

Email list building is crucial because it helps you cultivate a direct relationship with your target audience. By building an email list, you can communicate directly with your subscribers, bypassing algorithm changes and platform restrictions. This direct line of communication enhances customer loyalty, increases conversions, and drives repeat business.

Does email marketing work?

Absolutely. Email marketing remains one of the most effective digital marketing strategies. It offers a high return on investment (ROI), allowing businesses to reach and engage their audience in a highly personalized way. When executed properly, email marketing strategies can significantly boost sales, strengthen customer relationships, and increase brand awareness.

Wrapping up

Email marketing continues to be a dominant lead generation, customer acquisition, and loyalty-building channel for ecommerce stores. Building an email list and nurturing a relationship with your subscribers (a.k.a. an effective email marketing strategy) will be essential to your online store’s growth.

This article covered the five mistakes that ecommerce stores when trying to build an email list asking too many questions, not offering any incentives to email subscribers, not segmenting your audience, not sending a welcome email, and focusing only on short-term conversions.

Not making the same mistakes will help you increase your conversions, get more subscribers, boost your ecommerce sales, and strengthen relationships with your existing subscribers and customers. 

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