How to Create the Perfect Email Capture Page

Do you want to increase your ecommerce sales and generate more leads without spending a fortune on advertising? The answer is email marketing. Email marketing is an inexpensive way for e-commerce companies to reach their target audience with promotional messages.

When new customers land on your site, the first thing they want to know is where they can find a discount coupon or “new customer” offer. Most of the time these offers are held behind an email capture page or signup form because it helps everyone involved; the customer gets a small discount for providing their email, and the brand gets a new email to add to their list where they can promote future products and offerings to them.

In this blog post, we will talk about 6 key steps that can help you create the perfect e-mail capture page on your ecommerce website:

Design

Design is everything! Your e-mail sign up form should blend with the rest of your ecommerce website’s design, otherwise it will stick out like a sore thumb.

It is also important to make sure that your email sign up form follows some best practices. It should be clear; don’t expect anyone to fill out a long, complicated form when they are in the middle of browsing for products on your site. Use short forms with one or two fields where possible and ensure you have all the required fields to avoid email capture form abandonment.

If you’re struggling on implementing an on-brand, well-designed sign up form, don’t worry! There is no need to use a specialized ecommerce-specific email capture form, you can opt for a plain and simple sign up page that will blend effortlessly with your existing site’s layout.

Location, Location, Location

Now that you’ve got your email capture page looking great, it’s time to find the perfect place to put it.

Your e-mail capture page should not only look good but function properly as well. This means that the email capture box needs to appear within reach of where most customers are likely to click. You’ll want to avoid putting the e-mail capture box at the very bottom of your ecommerce website because it will discourage customers from signing up.

So where exactly should you place this ecommerce email signup form?

The best ecommerce email signup form placement is at the top of your website. There are a number of benefits to placing it here: first, you’ll capture customers early and encourage them to purchase something right away; second, if they don’t buy anything but still enter their email address on this page, you can send them emails in the future about upcoming products and promotional offerings.

Another great place to ask for a visitor’s email is a pop-up window that includes a promotional offer once new visitors land on your website.

Page Contents

It’s important to include a call-to-action in your email capture page, otherwise it will feel like you’re just trying to add more email addresses into your email marketing list. Your goal here is twofold: first, you want customers to sign up for your email list and claim your offer; second, when they do enter their email address, you need to have a system in place that encourages them to click through that message and visit your ecommerce site again.

Some other things you should include in your initial confirmaiton email are:

• A compelling subject line that thanks them for signing up and let’s them know what to expect from your emails in the future
• A brief introduction/history of your brand and what you’re about
• The benefits they received by signing up (be sure to restate the original incentive/offering that got them to sign up in the first place)
• Links to your social media pages

Make sure your email signup page only includes one single call to action that’s clearly visible. This will ensure that your target audience knows exactly what you want them to do, which in this case is enter their email address.

You can make it even easier for users by including a “submit” button where the customer simply needs to click on it and voila! They’ve provided you with an email address.

Steps to take after email signup:

Let them know the next time you’ll be sending out emails about your products or promotional offers, as well as how often these emails will come through (monthly, weekly etc). Even if this is an automated email reminder system set by your ecommerce platform, it’s still important for customers to understand what level of communication they can expect from you going forward. This way there won’t be any miscommunication down the road.

You should also make sure that whatever email platform you’ve chosen (MailChimp, Constant Contact etc) can be integrated with WordPress so an automated system like Drip or MailerLite can take over and send out emails based on certain triggers set up by you (such as 20 days after they subscribed).

Most successful email capture campaigns typically have a 7, 14, or 30 day automated “journey” set up for new subscribers to receive specific, targeted emails that informs them of your brand and it’s products.

These email marketing campaigns are what keep your customers engaged with your brand and encourage them to purchase from you again. The email marketing campaigns should be a way to follow-up with your customers and send them targeted information about other products related to the first product they purchased from you.

Remember how important it is to make sure that people who sign up for your list actually want those emails, otherwise you’ll end up losing subscribers as time goes on because all of these email messages become spammy or irrelevant.

While most see losing subscribers as a bad thing, look on the bright side; those that unsubscribe were unlikely to purchase anything from you anyway, so it leaves more time to focus your marketing efforts on those that actually care about and interact with your brand.

Keep it Simple

It’s important to remember that creating a successful email capture form is as simple as understanding how your customers think and what they want.

The email capture form that you create should include a clear and concise call to action, letting customers know exactly what they’ll get by signing up for your email marketing list. It should also be placed where it can easily and quickly be found.

If you’re not sure where to start or have any questions about the best way to go about capturing emails on your website, let us know!