😊 G'day, g'day! Welcome 😊👋
🔥 FRESH DROP Growth Marketing Checklists 2.0 🔥
NEW eCommerce Checklists
NEW SaaS Checklists 📈
UPDATES 500+ Tools Stack (with new adds)
📨 SUBSCRIBE Receive free resources & stay tuned for new guides
💬 Most of us know the importance of growing an engaging newsletter/email list to help with TOF/MOF growth - especially for key reasons around education/nurturing of 'new' visitors and turning them into becoming potential customers.
However, there's a lot of 'newsletter fatigue' out there, and eCommerce marketers/founders need to be smarter when it comes to their newsletter/email game to drive growth - that includes everything from end-to-end - how you go about testing opt-ins, segmenting/targeting, and the content you provide to get audiences engaged (both new prospects/visitors, as well as existing customers).
To help with really thinking about your newsletter growth strategy for your brand, these checklist points will certainly help brainstorm and think of new ideas and optimisations that you can make (which make sense for your context and goals).
💬 In some checklist points below, I made sure to incl. some examples from top brands I like, plus some software recommendations which are cost-effective for implementing some of them - let me know feedback/any comments. :)
The reality is that there are lots and lots of newsletters that audiences sign up too, and many of them in the world of DTC and eCommerce are quite promo-heavy.
Whilst promotional-based emails are of course important as part of any eCommerce email marketing strategy, you want to create a newsletter experience that audiences want to actually read.
If you really want to grow, you need to strategise how you will provide value to readers - and you need to also angle it in a way which isn't just transactional (i.e. only signing up for a discount code)
For example, you can do what Bloomscape have done here by offering some sort of lead magnet.
Apartment Therapy (whilst not exactly just eComm) provides value through their newsletter with related content.
Many brands go with the typical "sign up to get 10% off" type offers - which is justified because it does work.
Yet, it's worth testing various offers/incentives to see if you can improve opt-in results (and test whether you make more purchases within an X amount of days).
For example, you can test:
Key tip: In terms of offers, you can use platforms like Privy (and Shopify integration) to do "Spin to Win" type offers (I also like their pop-ups too as good UX and also decent customisable UI options for your brand).
Whilst gaining email subs is awesome, acquiring mobile numbers too are also great for doing promotions.
To try to acquire mobile numbers, you typically need a really good offer (or at least a very good reason, such as notifications for new product drops).
I like this example pop-up design layout from Vidaglow:
An experiment worth testing to acquire emails too are two-step newsletter opt-in forms.
Many pop-up tools provide this conditional logic, where you can ask for an email first, and then share another opt-in opportunity within the same form experience.
Also as an example, I like this from Heybud Skincare:
In terms of software options, there are two I recommend that can do this for Shopify, which are are Privy (as mentioned above), as well as Popupsmart.
I find many eCommerce brands over the years not have a dedicated page for newsletter signups, or sometimes they simply don't have one at all.
If you're pushing for more email signups and you share good content, this is a missed opportunity in my eyes.
You can use this page to have as a link on your socials, and distribute to audiences via organic socials, influencers, and even the likes of using for remarketing ads to acquire potential buyers/audiences (outside of normal product ads).
^ see above what Apartment Therapy have done - can also keep simple. Defs big opportunity to add social proof elements to help improve conv. rates.
To improve opt-ins with exit-intent pop-ups for email signups, and/or even for encouraging offer uptakes, is ensuring to utilise social proof elements - including the likes of amount of customers, reviews, star ratings, etc.
I like this example from Buoy with a key review callout.
Using scarcity/FOMO messaging and offers aligned with campaigns you're running is an effective way to increase opt-ins and grow the list.
In terms of FOMO-based/scarcity type messaging, you can do the likes of:
An email acquisition play that many brands are starting to adopt now are quizzes (which are funnels) - and I've seen it first-hand how effective this initiative can be, not just for email collection, but for quality and "intent-based" audiences.
When someone goes through it, they can learn more about different things related to your product and brand - whether that be specific product features, ingredients, facts about the niche, and lots more - and as they go along, you can use the data to then present a custom offering.
And based on tailoring an offer for them, there's a good chance it can lead to conversions.
For example, Blume has quiz that make evident on their site to capture quality audiences:
Check out their quiz flow here
So I've talked about eCommerce referrals before the and power of them to drive sales (and I even created a checklist on eCommerce referral best practices which you can see below) - but the power of referrals can also be aligned to helping build your audience (i.e. more subs).
It's similar to what you see top newsletter creators are doing (e.g. look up a platform called Beehiiv and the referral system they have) - it's a popular tool for both top brands and creators are using to build large email followers.
And you can apply a similar strategy initiative for your brand, depending on what your newsletter strategy is.
If it's value-lead (with not being just focused on product promotional material - as people don't share these typically), then it's certainly worth looking into.
You can even use the likes of Sparkloop which has an easy integration with popular eCommerce ESP's like Klaviyo.
This is more of a broad checklist strategy point to ensure you keep in mind and plan out.
These are some of the best tactics I've used over the years, and have seen from top brands, when it comes to audience and email acquisition.
Key action: Look for inspiration and see what other competitors and other top brands are doing for the likes:
A good tactic to encourage some sort of data collection touchpoint (typically prior to any purchases - i.e. visitors yet to convert) are Meta remarketing ads for newsletters signups.
These are easy to setup and have them run automatically based on key behaviour targeting events, and with integrations with popular ESPs like Klaviyo and it's ability to connect with Meta for audience creation.
Then, it's just about testing messaging/angles and some sort of offer to encourage signups.
Klaviyo has a couple of good guides worth reading, including how some customers use the Meta integration (use cases), as well as docs on how to integrate/sync both.
Good chance you've seen this before (or have it on your Shopify checkout as an option) - it's worth enabling to see if those checking out opt in when they check out.
Read more about what to be mindful of in terms of opt-ins via checkout in the Shopify docs.
Running viral comps can be a massive lever for email collection, and some brands have done really well this initiative.
Check out some of these case studies below to see for yourself.
One of those viral tools I recommend checking out is Vyper - and they have an awesome eCommerce case study from Coconut Bowls. Just see the results here (totally worth reading the case study to get inspired and think how it could potentially work for your brand).
I'm a big fan of doing drop sequences, especially when it comes to collecting new visitors/subscribers - it's a great opportunity to nurture and educate new subscribers who've come across your brand about your products - and with the right content/positioning, it can help establish authority/trust with new subs, which can then lead to purchases.
It's cost-effective to setup and you can easily automate it - it's just then maintenance around performance.
Key takeaway: the main thing to brainstorm and get inspiration from other brands on is the "offer" and the sort of content the share.
Whilst this checklist point is a bit more skewed towards product promotions, you can still use this tactic as an angle to build up email lists.
Exclusive drops and "mystery boxes" are a popular trend with brands and creators sharing on TikTok, which helps build up hype/excitement.
Even though you'd have their email when they signup to the loyalty program, this is a good activation/engagement strategy to get customers/members to signup.
This is a good positioning play to get members/subs to interact with 'special' offers you want to send.
This isn't directly related to list building, but I wanted to include this anyway as it can spur 'natural' referrals for subscribers to share with friends.
If you use the likes of Klaviyo, you can create properties to collect key info, like how polls works.
Klaviyo have done a guide on how to polls, which you can check out here.
Kate Spade in fact used live polls within their emails (good video as well outlining what Kate Spade did on this post from Litmus).
