Why Collected Emails Are One of Your Website’s Most Important Assets

 

Did you know that over three-fourths of your visitors are not going to turn into customers? That means that out of every 100 visitors, less than 25 of them will purchase something.

When you are working hard for your traffic, that statistic is downright depressing. Couple this with the fact that your site may not be optimized to complete the purchasing process and your numbers could be a lot more dismal than the average.

So while not everyone will purchase, adding as many people to your sales funnel via email collection could be the lifeline of your business.

Your sales emails, whether they are daily, weekly or on special occasions could generate massive amounts of sales that you would miss otherwise.

Why people don’t purchase immediately

You may be thinking… well, instead of creating sales funnels with collected emails, I will just optimize my website so more people will purchase. But while optimization is good, that may not always be the fix to your problem.

For example, optimization is important and can increase purchase rates if you struggle with credibility or have a confusing checkout process or your shipping prices are too high. Generally, however, if a purchase does not fall in the necessary or impulse category, you most likely aren’t going to strike buyer gold on the first try.

Think about it this way:

If you were looking to purchase a computer, what are the chances you are going to purchase the first one you search for? Slim to none. But, once you learn about the computer, learn about the warranties and take a few days to research all options, you may be willing to purchase.

In that time while your customer is doing their research and is presented with multiple options, your site may get lost in a sea of offers.

But, if you collected their email address when they entered or exited the site and then finessed them through the sales process with both educational materials and offers, you will be more likely to close the sale before your competition does.

Closing the sale: how to set up a proper sales funnel

Your sales funnel is your marketing system that leads someone through a systematic process with the end goal of making a purchase. The people who land on your site are leads. Once they enter their email address to learn more, they become prospects. And finally, after they purchase, they are your customers.

Optimizing your site to land the lead

When a lead lands on your website, it needs to be properly optimized to sell the person on your product or instill enough trust and value to get them to give you their email address before exiting.

This could mean making sure your site looks credible, making sure you have enough social proof via reviews and testimonials or insuring that your product meets the needs of your target market.

Converting the lead into a prospect

In exchange for your lead’s email address, you must offer some kind of value. This may be an offer/coupon code or a download for educational material. Whatever it is, it must be of benefit to the person you are targeting.

Collecting these email addresses can be done via a timed pop up, exit intent technology (i.e. interrupting a person who is moving towards their browser’s back button) or when you click on a link to access gated material. However you collect the email, offering them value in exchange for their address and then following up is key to getting the sale.

Turning your prospect into a customer

Once you have collected the email of your potential lead, converting them into a customer is about injecting them into the sales process at the right point. If they were about to checkout and failed to do so, emailing them a coupon or an offer for free shipping may close the deal. If they entered your sales funnel when asking for more information, sending them a few educational emails before shooting for the sale is an important way to make them feel comfortable enough to pull the trigger.

How GrooveJar helps e-commerce businesses turn visitors into customers

We actually built GrooveJar to help us grow our e-commerce businesses. Using a combination of exit intent pop ups and other apps in the GrooveJar suite, we increased our revenue by 26% in seven days. We also built a solid funnel that helped us continue growth exponentially while putting the process on autopilot.

Interested in learning more about GrooveJar and how it can help you close sales by increasing trust, creating urgency and building your email list?  Our Optimization Specialist is always available to assist!

This guest blog post was written by Kevin Pereira, Co-Founder of Groovejar.