If you’re a retailer then building your email database doesn’t have to be hard work.

There are plenty of opportunities and a few quick wins. In fact you can attract new customers and capture high-quality leads all while increasing your sales.

We’ve put together a multi-channel guide for retailers featuring tried-and-tested methods to improve data-capture.

In part one of this guide we look at the tactics that can be used online. Look out for part two, where we’ll share strategies that can be used in-store.

Promote your newsletter sign-up

It may sound obvious and basic but some retailers make their newsletter sign-up difficult to find. Your email sign-up should be one of the first things a visitor sees on your homepage and it needs to be visible throughout your website. Some retailers use pop-ups and some convert the visitor with a welcome offer – whatever you do make sure you get an email address fast before it’s too late. Once you have it can tempt them back using our PureTargeting tool to generate an email targeted at people who have browsed and then abandoned your site.

Convert social followers into subscribers

Don’t replace capturing email subscribers for collecting social media followers. Email marketing is 40 times more effective at acquiring new customers than Facebook and Twitter (McKinsey, 2014). And don’t think by publicising something on social media all your fans will see it – a mere 16% of fans see brand posts on Facebook (Devaney, 2016). If you’ve got a social media following then promote the benefits of signing-up to receive emails – the exclusive offers, pre-releases and news.

Ask customers to refer a friend

If you’re confident your customers like your products and services then why not ask them to refer a friend? Incentivise referrals by offering a discount off their next purchase if the friend signs up to receive emails. This tactic requires some work, matching up subscribers to referrals in your database but Next have been doing this successfully for years.

Offer a prize draw, competition or sweepstake on your homepage

It’s a tried and tested tactic but people still loves prizes. Create a monthly campaign promoting the fact you’re offering a free giveaway in return for signing-up to your database and feature it on your homepage. Our PurePromotions tool is a great way of capturing new data by offering sweepstakes, prize draws and competitions and can help grow your database by up to 20%. It can even be used to promote competitions on your Facebook page.

Convert affiliate customers

Affiliate networks offer you access to new databases – the trick is getting their customers to purchase from you directly so you don’t have to carry on paying commissions each time you receive a sale. Don’t shy away from using affiliate networks but always offer the best discounts to your own newsletter subscribers. Once affiliate customers see that your loyal customers receive the most regular or best offers they’ll soon convert into direct subscribers.

These are just a few of the strategies you can adopt to improve the quality and size of your email database.

And remember – if you try any of these then make sure you record what data is generated from which method so you can analyse the success. And when we say success we mean conversion – never judge a data capture program by volume – when it comes to data, quality is the thing that counts!

Keep an eye out for part two of our guide – giving you the best strategies to help you improve your data capture efforts in-store.




Download the Advanced Email Series: Data Capture Guide