I was reading a report about a conference about email that was held in Miami a couple weeks ago (yes, they do have conferences on email) and found a statistic that jumped out to me:
Souplantation/Sweet Tomatoes (a chain of restaurant/bakeries) acquires about half of their email address in their stores
So what does that mean? That means that if you’re only taking names and email addresses online, you’re missing out on a lot of potential sign ups for your mailing list.
If you’re doing craft shows, home shows, teaching classes, doing lectures, or holding open studios those are great opportunities to add more people to your mailing list. I’m sure that you probably already have a guest book or mailing list sign up. Make sure that you also have a space on your sign up page so that people can enter their email addresses as well.
From my experience, the perfect time to get folks to sign up is:
a) when they’ve just purchased something and they’re waiting for you to package their order. Signing up for your email list gives them something to do while they’re waiting.
b) after they’ve shown interest in your work but it’s clear that they’re not able to buy right now. Some folks feel guilty about not buying, so providing their email address is a way to give you something.
Here’s a few more tips to collect email addresses offline:
- Provide plenty of room for people to fill out their entire email address. Some email addresses run pretty long.
- In the report I read, Souplantation/Sweet Tomatoes found that there was a 20% error rate on paper sign-up forms. Some may be due to handwriting issues, customer misspells then email address, etc. If you have a laptop, see if you can get your customers to type their information rather than write it. If that’s not an option, take a minute to confirm the spelling of the address with your customers before they leave.
- Provide an incentive to signing up for your email list. Maybe it’s for a contest, a giveaway, or a special gift. This will encourage more sign ups and it will also encourage people to give you an accurate email address that they actually check.
- If your business is mainly online, create ways to get more face to face time with customers. People that won’t give you their information to an impersonal website might be more than happy to do so after they’ve met you and saw that you’re a real person. If you’re on Etsy, join a street team, set up a home show or open studio, do a couple of local craft shows or art fairs. You’ll be able to get out of your studio every now and then and personally interact with your customers.
You can read the entire report at the Retail Email Blog.
If you want more tips on how to start and manage an email list, sign up for my FREE article series “How to Plan and Start a Great Email Newsletter“.
