It's amazing how many companies don’t realize the value of a solid email database. It is truly the most valuable online asset a company has. Yet many completely ignore this asset by not including any tactics or calls to action on their website asking for this priceless piece of information.
Just think about it for a second. This person arrived on your website because they were interested in something you offer that is related to problem they are looking to solve. They are a prospect for your offering, and therefore you should be interested in gaining the identity of that visitor.
I know what you are thinking. You personally receive at least 50 emails a day from people and companies that are of no interest to you. Combined with the wide variety of spam, you spend too much time trying to sort through and find the emails that apply to you. I’d like to help shift your mindset a bit and show how you can have your visitors volunteering their email address to you left and right. There are a couple things you need to be aware of first though….
Your website visitors don’t care about your products, your services, your company or you. They only care about what’s in it for them.
Although this may seem harsh, it’s absolutely true. This can be powerful ammunition when used properly. If you truly want to build a large email database, take the time to completely understand your prospective customers and find out what they want most.
PLEASE NOTE: I said what they want and not what they need.
We see people every day that need to stop drinking, stop smoking, or push back from the table much sooner than they do. The same people continue to make the same choices regardless of how much you tell them you can fulfill their needs.
Conversely, the same person sitting at the casino playing a slot machine with their unemployment money, a cigarette hanging out of their mouth and an oxygen tank by their side, responds immediately to the Marlboro sign in the gift shop because it is something he truly wants. We all know this person is doing everything listed in this example that is contrary to what they need and based solely on what they want.
The seller of a weight loss product should focus on how sexy their buyer will look if they take the product, not on the fact that they’ll be healthy. If they truly wanted to be healthy they’d probably exercise and wouldn’t have this weight issue.
If pictures are showcased of great looking people with before and after shots, the visitor will be motivated to try your product because they really want to look like the person in the after picture. The sad thing is it doesn’t matter if the pictures are believable. Their feeling of want is so strong that they’ll suspend their disbelief.
Take time to deeply research what your visitors want, and create a “giveaway” that caters to their most intense want.
You need to create an offer with far greater value than what you are asking for.
Once you’ve identified what your visitor wants more than anything, create a report, an eBook, a video or some type of informative product or special deal which will help them achieve this want.
During a workshop a couple months back we were digging into a discussion forum so I could show an example of how to get intimately familiar with buyers by hanging out where they hang out and reading content which was created by them. During this exercise we found a post which was a couple of hours old.
Someone was asking for a spreadsheet that would help them with some type of calculation. That particular post had been viewed 68 times in the two hours following its origination. The gentleman who saw this mentioned he had such a spreadsheet.
We talked through a plan to create a clear call to action on his website offering this report in exchange for an email address. To take it a step further, he could take the exact question that was asked in the forum and conduct some quick keyword research to identify how many times that question was searched on each month. If the volume was high, he could create an optimized page on his site and attract a significant amount of targeted traffic.
The key to making this work is to make sure the value of your offering is far greater than the email address you are requesting. Remember, the visitor is already barraged with unwanted email so they’ll be evaluating whether it is worth it for them to receive more email in exchange for this item.
Take care not to violate your visitors' trust, or you will pay dearly.
I’ve seen companies who offer “give-to-get” reports and the content of the report is horrible. This is completely illogical to me. You’ve worked hard to get visitors to your site, you spent time to find out what their most critical want is, you’ve taken the steps to giveaway something that satisfies their want in exchange for their email address. Then you hurry up and create a piece of garbage that wasn’t nearly as valuable as you advertised? Do you really think this visitor is coming back? I don’t think so!
Remember that your visitors were weighing whether your offer was worth the risk of receiving unsolicited email? Don’t make them regret giving you their information! Your report, How to Raise Perfect Children Who Never Do Anything Other Than What You Tell Them, would suddenly lose its luster if they received multiple emails each day. You need to know and understand the frequency to email customers. It is important to use the Web to develop relationships with your visitors. Keep in mind that the beginning stages of any relationship are spent evaluating whether it is worth continuing. If you’d like to build a killer email database, take the following simple steps:
1. Understand your buyers and their most intense want.
2. Create a valuable giveaway that will make it a no-brainer for your visitor to give you their email address.
3. Provide value and not simply sell to them.
If you follow these three steps religiously, you’ll be on your way to building, what should be, your largest online asset: a killer email database! You can start by reading this short post about email marketing strategies.
