How to grow your email list as an ecommerce store

With the end of the financial year looming it’s time to clear some stock and make space for new products right? If you want some ideas on what to do to sell some of that current stock, listen back to episode 83 where I give you marketing ideas for the end of the financial year. 

In this episode I want to talk about one of my favourite things.

List building, but in particular – how to grow your email list as an ecommerce store.

If you haven’t tuned in to one of my previous episodes about list building and why it’s my absolute favourite topic, let me fill you in.

List building is the intentional activity of getting your audience to join your email marketing list, or also called your database. 

The reasons we need to build our list are that *one* you’re not putting your valuable eggs in one basket or relying on what I call rented land and *two* Your email list is the most lucrative marketing investment you’ll ever come across. 

Tune in to this episode to learn more about list building for ecommerce

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Website: www.newschoolofmarketing.com
Facebook: @newschoolofmarketing
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Instagram: @bianca_mckenzie

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Transcript

Hello, and welcome to the new school of marketing podcast. How are you all doing? I hope you’re ready for June, which is the last month of the financial year in Australia. This year is honestly going so fast, we’re almost 6 months in. 

With the end of the financial year looming it’s time to clear some stock and make space for new products right? If you want some ideas on what to do to sell some of that current stock, listen back to episode 83 where I give you marketing ideas for the end of the financial year. 

In this episode I want to talk about one of my favourite things.

List building, but in particular – how to grow your email list as an ecommerce store.

If you haven’t tuned in to one of my previous episodes about list building and why it’s my absolute favourite topic, let me fill you in.

List building is the intentional activity of getting your audience to join your email marketing list, or also called your database. 

The reasons we need to build our list are that *one* you’re not putting your valuable eggs in one basket or relying on what I call rented land and *two* Your email list is the most lucrative marketing investment you’ll ever come across. 

Even though I’m a Facebook ads manager and talk about advertising a lot, a lot of it is focused around list building and getting people to join your email marketing list because it’s the most reliable investment. You’re in charge and not relying on social media algorithms or face having your accounts shut down. Your email list is yours and an even better point of it is that email has the highest return on investment out of all the marketing tactics. 

If you want to hear more about list building, I have loads of episodes and blog posts about this topic. I recently recorded episode 81 in which I talk about list building still being the most popular ad objective.  

For ecommerce it has always been a tricky topic, even though you probably know some of the tricks already. 

Plenty of online stores get people to sign up to their email list, most often by offering them a discount on their first order, which is a really awesome way to get someone to join your list. If you then play it well and they order from you, they are either going to be a long term customer or a one off. I don’t really want to go into how to wow your customers but that’s what it basically boils down to. 

There are other options to build your list too, especially if you don’t want to discount your products and position yourself as an exclusive store.

I’ve worked with clients who never offer discounts, instead they attract people to their list by offering exclusive promotions or the option to purchase first. This works with limited editions or limited stock as waiting means that you’ll miss out and not being on the email list also means that you might miss out. 

There are plenty of ways to organically grow your email list but here’s where it gets tricky, it’s not that sexy to advertise for list building when you’re an ecommerce store. 

Course creators and service providers often advertise to build their lists and you’ve probably come across one of the various lead magnets like PDF guides, checklists, webinars, challenges, quizzes etc. 

But what do you do for ecomm?

Advertising for a discount isn’t that sexy and you’re most likely not going to attract that many sign ups or possibly the wrong type of clients. 

That’s why I love brainstorming ideas with my students and your lead magnet – that’s what we call the freebies that you advertise – will be very different from anyone else’s. 

So we already mentioned a percentage discount on their first order and exclusive access to promotions or limited editions or stock, but there are other options to attract leads.

It comes down to thinking about your product and what your ideal client might want or need. It could be something complimentary or something that helps them with your product.

Here’s an example of one of my students that we recently brainstormed. 

My students sell beautiful stationery, and I mean absolutely beautiful!

During one of our group calls we were talking about list building and we literally started rambling off ideas about what type of freebie would be great.

Now, like I said, it comes down to your ideal client but this was my thought.

To create a beautiful PDF with all of the dates that could (and some should) require a card. This business already shares ideas on what to write in specific cards, for example they recently shared tips on what to write in a Mothers Day card. 

This could be included inside the PDF with all of the dates. So then you have a PDF with dates and prompts on what to write for each of these dates. 

They could even go one step further and create a way to share all of these dates to people’s calendars. There are ways to share dates to a gmail calendar and I’m never one to say no to things that make my life easier. 

So their list building freebie could be this gorgeously designed PDF with dates, prompts and people could have it added to their calendar.

The way this business can then leverage this is by offering packages with cards for each of the dates, or perhaps a recurring subscription each quarter where they send a selection of cards that people can post out for the dates mentioned on the freebie.

There are endless possibilities really.

So even though you have an ecommerce store, it doesn’t mean that you’re stuck with discounts or exclusive offers to your subscribers. There are other ways to build your list. 

It’s tricky to give you ideas right here because it’s so personal to each business and their audience.

I suggest that you put your thinking cap on and brainstorm ideas for freebies. Or get on a call with some of your clients to ask what would help them. 

Inside my group program we often brainstorm marketing ideas, strategies and ways to grow your business, so if you’re looking for a group of like minded people who are also here to grow their ecommerce store, get in touch with me. 

I’ll put the link to the program in the show notes.