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Email list building has never been easy especially when you start from scratch. In fact, the phrase “how to build an email list” has an approximate 1000+ search volume every month which is quite huge for a targeted phrase. But you should also know that growing your email list can become a walk in the park task when you follow the right techniques. Here’s one – using a WordPress popup plugin on your website.
Just so you’re quite not sure what a WordPress popup plugin is, here it is.
What is a WordPress Popup Plugin?
WordPress popup plugins help websites & eCommerce stores create highly converting lead capturing forms to grow email subscribers and to boost sales, revenue. A good WordPress popup plugin should make the popup form creation process easy, hassle-free and comes with power-packed features.
Now, some of you might come up with the question why one should build an email list. If that’s the case, here’s why you should do it.
5 Benefits of Growing Your Email List
1. Sending Emails is Cheap & Effective
Email marketing is by far the cheapest yet effective marketing method used by most of the successful businesses and eCommerce stores. Also, email marketing has a huge ROI – $42 for every $1 spent. An average open rate for a welcome email is 82% – just imagine the conversion rate provided your email is well-drafted.
2. Emails are Personal
Emails are always one step ahead when compared to other marketing activities. It’s because emails are more personal. An email with a personalized subject line has a 50% more open rate i.e. 50% more chances of a sale happening. Which one as a consumer would you be more interested in – a personalized email in your inbox with your name or some random ads?
3. Emails are Targeted
Unlike ads, emails are a highly targeted form of marketing. A well-built email list can be segmented based on geographical location, email responses, and user interactions which helps you analyze and send more relevant emails to your audience. The more targeted your emails are, the better your chances of increasing your sales and revenue.
4. Notify Audience & Subscribers
Whether it’s a new product launch or a well-written eBook or Black Friday sales, notify your email subscribers & loyal customers well in advance. Also, send reminder emails a day before so that they don’t miss your exclusive deals or whatsoever. Because now you know that this process is cheap yet effective, personal and targeted (like we saw above).
5. You Own Your Email List
This is what makes emails far more preferable than any other marketing medium. Your email list is built in-house and you have one hundred percent control over it. You can send any kind of emails at the most appropriate time, strategize, improve further and make the most out of your email list. There’s no external interferences or dependability factor with an organically built in-house email list.
That’s crazy benefits! Pretty sure now you are convinced with the mentioned reasons and email marketing stats but there’s this thing – in order to enjoy the above-mentioned benefits, you need to have an email list first. And I could not think of any better idea than using a popup maker to grow your email list which brings us to the main section of this read (the basics were equally important though). So, let’s get started!
5 Brilliant Ways to Grow Your Email List Using a WordPress Popup Plugin
1. Use Welcome Popups
Welcome popups are a brilliant way to greet your new website visitors (and to capture their email addresses). Websites and eCommerce stores that have used welcome pop-ups have witnessed significant email list growth. In order for this trick to work out, you should make sure that you are offering something to your first time visitors – it could be a flat discount or an eBook or anything that’s motivating enough for your visitor to give up his/her email id.
Speaking of eCommerce stores using welcome pop-ups on their website, here are a few examples,
Bonobos, an apparel store makes it exciting for its first time visitors by giving them a 20% off + free shipping on their first purchase. And the text below the opt-in box says that the offer is valid only for the next 48 hours which creates FOMO among visitors. Though the visitor does not end up making a purchase, chances are high that he/she would give up their email address – that’s quite well handled!
Here’s another example,
Monoset, a personalized stationery store greets its first time visitors and offers them a 10% off on their order provided they join the email list. And the call-to-action button, instead of “sign up” says “Get My 10% Off”. Also, Monoset emphasizes the point that they offer worldwide shipping on all orders which is not very common, making this welcome pop-up humble and results-driving at the same time.
Or you could also opt for a funnier approach like this popup below that makes it easy for your visitors to settle in.
This is one of our favorite welcome popup templates at Optinly. We thought why shouldn’t a cat welcome a website visitor and offer him/her a coupon worth $20? You just saw the output!
And that’s how most welcome pop-ups are – discounts or something attractive in return for the visitor’s email address.
2. Exit Intent Popups
Exit-intent popups are quite the opposite to welcome pop-ups. Exit popups help websites and eCommerce stores capture website visitors right when they are about to leave the website – more like a last-minute window opportunity.
Exit Intent popups can be your spectacular magic wand when you want to reduce cart abandonment, stop people running away from your live deals, reduce your website’s bounce rate and more.
Here are a few examples where exit popups have been nailed.
A $100 discount! Yes, that’s exactly what every abandoning visitor would think when they get to see this. It’s good ain’t it? Leesa has made this exit popup more appealing by blending the colors of the brand and a CTA that says “Yes, Send Me My Offer” instead of “Sign Up” makes it irresistible!
That’s not it, here’s another exit-intent popup example for you,
Though not the exact email capturing type we were speaking about, this exit intent popup helps in reducing cart abandonment. It’s common that your store visitor could get distracted by a number of external factors and tend to abandon their shopping cart. An exit popup makes sure that doesn’t happen or at least reduce it to a certain extent. The exit-intent popup example above promises the visitor free shipping provided they continue shopping. That’s one of a kind. You can also add a few more tricks like explicitly displaying the discount percentage like the exit popup template below
Cool ain’t it? The popup is simple, clutter-free and prompts the user to checkout out using strong action words, not to mention the 25% offer that’s put out right in front. Remember, a good popup design can go a long way in helping to grow your email list.
That’s enough exit popup examples!
3. Relevant Value-Driven Giveaway Popups
Website popups are known to yield more conversions when you deliver value to your visitors. To have a clear understanding of what this is about, let’s take a look at the below example,
Assume you are a freelancer and you are surfing through an article that explains how you should get started with freelancing. And by the time you reach the end of the read, you see a popup like the above appear in front of you. Now, being an aspiring freelancer, you’d definitely sign up to know what’s inside the eBook and how $12000 could be made in a single month. It’s because the eBook is relevant to you, is based on what you were reading and finally, delivers value to you.
Popularly called the giveaway popups/blog pop-ups, these can help grow your email list by adding a chunk of email addresses provided you use them right.
Here’s an example of another giveaway popup,
Pretty sure that this giveaway popup would appear on a health & fitness website. The popup is simple and straight to the point. The copy lines explain what the purpose of the popup is and the unique call-to-action button prompts you to take action.
Giveaways can be of any kind – an eBook, an infographic, a checklist and more. As long as it’s value-driven and relevant to your visitor, you don’t have to worry about the conversions.
4. Engage Visitors With Gamification Popups
Gamification popups are known for their high engagement factor and proven conversion rates. This makes them one of the popups you can never afford to miss when it comes to email list building. The most common form of gamification popups used by websites & eCommerce store is spin the wheel popup, thanks to the readily available spin the wheel popup plugins.
And speaking of spin the wheel of popups, here are a few examples
This spin the wheel popup has been one of the best-known email pop-up examples. Take a close look at the popup. You could see the shades of orange getting darker based on the reward value and “SEO Call With My Team” is the darkest – brilliant. Anyways, we are not talking about pop-up design here so let’s skip that. Now, on seeing this wheel of fortune appear before, this is what an SEO enthusiast would think – “SEO call with Neil’s Team? This is going to be my day!” and he/she eventually will spin the wheel. On the other end, Neil Patel would be quite happy because his email list is growing. You see how that works? All Neil had to do was place a gamification popup on his website and the rest is history!
Though MonsterInsights has used this as an exit spin the wheel popup, we are looking at the same theme here – engaging visitors with gamification popups when there’s a possible opportunity. And as for the spin the wheel popup example above, who wouldn’t want to enjoy a 70% off on MonsterInsighst (if they are extremely lucky).
5. Use Social Proof Popups
Social proof popups are another great way to grow your email list. The general logic behind is, people tend to believe other people especially when they are sailing in the same boat. Also, you on the other side are being transparent with your website visitors which helps you establish the trust factor and earn credibility.
Here’s an example of a well-executed social proof popup
For those who have a hard time understanding the language, the roughly translated version is
“Do as over 24,000 others …
Few inspirations for your holiday and great deals on hand-picked hotels with charm and soul.
Sign up for the newsletter and look forward to great tips, best offers and lots of exciting news :)”
The popup has unleashed a number game on the users. Believe me, numbers are a great way to manipulate and lure your website visitors into doing something you want them to. That’s exactly what this social proof popup above has done. People would think “How could 24,000 people take a wrong decision? Okay, let’s check this out!” and there comes an additional email subscriber!
Similarly, customer testimonials also prove to be an effective convincing factor on social proof pop-ups. Here’s an example,
Though the success rate of this popup highly depends on an individual’s decision, there’s no harm in trying this kind of social proof popup. What if a mere 2% of your total website traffic gets converted?
“Remember, every captured email address is a customer somewhere down the lane!”
And if you ask why this isn’t an email capture form, this should be a two-step optin form where you have to click the CTA button post which you will see an opt-in box.
That’s a lot of input for one day!
But here comes the most important part – though we’ve covered a few best existing ideas to grow your email list with a popup maker, it’s you who should master the art of creating good pop-ups.
A colorful pretty popup cannot always get the job done. It should be power-packed right from the design, the popup copy lines, the typography, the CTA text, and more (we’ll be discussing this in our upcoming blogs).
And don’t be sticking to the rules always. Remember the lady luck popup (the welcoming cat) we saw above? It was mentioned as a welcome popup but, the same can also be used as an exit-intent popup.
Monoset could use the same popup as an exit-intent popup just by modifying the popup copy lines. Just think of it. There are no visible boundaries when it comes to creating lead capturing forms. It’s pure experimentation to find out what works best and using it to grow your email list.
Final Few Words
Email list building with a WordPress popup plugin requires out of the box thinking from your side. Not that you will not be able to grow your email list without that, it’s just that how wonderful it could be if 30% of your website traffic become your email subscribers every month. Though the process is slow, you’ll be able to see significant email list growth once you start implementing them the right way. And above all, you need a good WordPress popup plugin to start off with. Check out some of the best WordPress Popup Plugins we’ve handpicked and start capturing some email addresses right away!
