Grab Your Customer's Email Address
The Money is in the List
How many times have you heard that?
It's totally and absolutely true.
If you have a monetized website, you must create a list of customers and their email addresses so that you can email them again with new offers. An existing customer is 90% more likely to buy from you than a new prospect. An existing customer is the only person you can request a testimonial from. And testimonials are your best weapon for building trust.
And, unless you're dropshipping or selling your own product (which pretty much means you're an an affiliate marketer) your list is your only asset if/when you want to sell your business.
But I'm an Affiliate Marketer
It's the big downside of affiliate marketing.
You spend time, money or both promoting a vendor's offer.
Some of your visitors click on your link, buy the product you're promoting and you get paid an affiliate commission.
Who collects that customer's name and email address?
Your vendor, not you.
How Valuable are the Customer's Contact Details?
Here's an example:
I have a vendor whose products I promote. One of those products sells for $69 and I get an affiliate commission of $120! Read that again. I get (considerably) more in commission than the vendor gets from the sale. That's how valuable this vendor sees their customer's contact details. Because they can sell to them over and over again.
How to Collect YOUR Customer's Details
Note the emphasis on "your". You are the one who's spent time and money acquiring the customer. They are your customer and you are entitled to know who they are!
To collect your customer's detail, you need 1) a Lead Generation form and 2) an autoresponder that allows you to keep your customer's name and email address on file and stay in contact with them. You also need to understand Landing Pages.
Lead Generation Form
There are plugins that allow you to add a Lead Generation form to a page on your WordPress website. The plugin will produce a form that asks the visitor to fill in their details. Keep the requested fields to a minimum, perhaps just First Name and Email Address. You will get more sign-ups that way.
Search for "WordPress lead generation forms" and research what comes up. Some are free, some are paid and some are free with a paid upgrade. None are expensive. You could check out 12 Best Lead Generation WordPress Plugins from WPBeginner for starters.
Autoresponder
There are several autoresponders to choose from. AWeber and GetResponse have been around the longest. MailChimp has a free plan that you upgrade when your list exceeds a certain number. I use Active Campaign because I like its User Interface and it allows me to create more complex automations. It also has an excellent delivery rate.
Do your research and choose one that suits your style.
All have export/import facilities that allow you to swap from one to another.
You will link your Lead Generation form to your autoresponder using the built-in facilities provided by your form.
Typically, you will create an automation in your autoresponder that sends a welcoming email to anyone who signs up using your form.
Why Should Anyone Fill in My Form?
All of this begs the question: Why should anyone fill in my form?
Which brings us to two new concepts.
Landing pages and opt-ins/giveaways/bribes.
You persuade your visitor to give you their name and email address in exchange for a free gift.
And landing pages are what you use to bring the offer to their attention and to follow it through.
Let me explain.
But I Haven't Got a Free Gift
You can't really do flowers and chocolate (best save them for Valentine's Day) and they're not very downloadable, but creating a free gift is easier than you think.
You use PLR (Private Label Rights) that's relevant to your niche.
Just search [niche] PLR and you should find plenty to choose from. They are typically books and cost just a few dollars. You are allowed to claim authorship and change the cover if you have the tools to do so.
For example, here's one of mine in the Pets niche:
Emma Morgan is my collaborator on this site, so I used her name as the author (there's one for dog training as well which has my name).
I think the PLR cost me around $7. It came with a cover (which I've replaced) and in both PDF and Word formats. I made some changes in the Word file, used my own template and recreated it as a PDF. Around an hour's work all up.
Landing Pages
Landing pages are just pages on your website that you aim to get visitors to land on and take some action, such as linking to a vendor's site through your affiliate link or, as in this case, offering them a gift in exchange for their name and email address. Often, a landing page doesn't include your menus, so that the visitor's only choice is to take the required action or leave, but this isn't essential.
You promote the landing page through blog posts or advertising.
This opt-in/lead generation requires three landing pages:
1. Gift. This page discusses why the visitor needs this free gift (and, of course, includes an illustration like the one shown above) and provides the lead generation form for them to enter their details in order to get it.
2. Gift Confirmation. The visitor sees this page immediately after they submit their details. It tells them that an email has been sent to the address they entered with a link to download the gift. At the same time, your autoresponder has sent them this email. Note that this protects you against someone entering a fake email address.
3. Gift Download. This is the page linked to in the email. It contains the link to the gift itself, usually a PDF that has been compressed into a Zip file.
Conclusion
At the end of this process, your visitor has a gift and you have their details on your mailing list.
Your autoresponder shoul be set up to send them a second email fairly quickly (like maybe a couple of hours after the initial one) with a link to another landing page.
This landing page will pre-sell an affiliate product closely related to their free gift and containing your affiliate link.
Repeat for different (but all related) products.
Rinse and repeat.
I hope you found this useful. Don't hesitate to respond if you have any questions about this process.
Recent Comments
29
Excellent article. The life of an online business.
That is called a sales funnel. I had one several years ago. Lost the computer where I had all that was needed to build one.
Forget about that process. Need a restart.
Advertising > clicks a link > goes to the sales page with the invitation and call to action to get something free related to the service or product offered > visitor enters name and email and clicks link > goes to a confirmation page and information that an email was sent to visitor's email address and that visitor has to go to that email and confirm to get the free gift > visitor goes to his/her email and confirms > goes to free gift download page > downloads free digital gift.
This process puts the visitor's email in an autoresponder email messages series giving the visitor valuable information on the subject of the business and offering products and/or services.
It is said that a visitor will need about seven (7) messages to get to buy something from a new "business" relationship.
And that each email in an autoresponder system is worth about a dollar ($1) a year. If you have 100,000 subscribers to your email series that could represent $100,000 a year.
I visited one of your online businesses and it is great what you have created.
I will have to create one and it is like starting new for me.
Can you give any links to a sales funnel system?
Thank you for such a detailed response, Antonias.
You are probably aware that JVZoo and Warrior+ allow you to build sales funnels and upsells if you are promoting their vendor's products.
I generally build my own sales funnels. It's not rocket science, but there are a few moving parts.
Perhaps I should do a tutorial on it.
If I get a second email the same day I unsubscribe immediately, it is very annoying.
If after the first day they start sending 2 or 3 emails per day I report it as spam and unsubscribe.
It is an intrusion.
I too have criteria that cause me to delete the immediately and/or unsubscribe. They're just different from yours :-)
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I do agree that, the best approach to getting e-mails, is by giving something away. Based on that giveaway, you can promote something related to it. This post is a great example of how to get e-mail lists. Thanks. All the best!
Yes, I use it on all my websites.