Building and Maintaining an Email List is a Must-Have When You're in Sales
In this post I'm using Etsy as an example, but the following isn't exclusive to this Print-on-Demand Business. Anyone in sales should grow and maintain an email list.
So Etsy's pretty great, it's a market place people know, and as I've said before ****the platform hosts 95.1 million active buyers****. That's not a small number so, if you have something to sell and you know how to sell on Etsy, you have a decent pool of customers to draw from right at the source!
Sounds good right? That's because it is.... BUT being tied to a platform like Etsy means that you need to abide by their rules and unclear policies. Not that it's a hard thing to do, but there is some careful tip-toeing that need to be done when it's time to list an item for sale.
The consequences of going against Etsy's policies can lead you to being banned for life... and word is that they ban your ip address, which makes things a bit more difficult!
The difficulties of getting around the ban isn't the problem. When someone has spent years building their Etsy shop and make more than half their income from that one platform, the real problem in getting the boot lies in loosing everything you've created.
But being banned is not the end of the world as long as you built a mailing list. You see, the emails of passed and/or future customers who have agreed to receive promotional emails from you are yours to keep. You own that email list, and Etsy cannot do anything about it.
This can be applied to any one who is in sales. Don't
Why is an Email List Important
Your list becomes a your lifeline for reeling in more sales and more customers, when used properly.
When it comes to Etsy, the main reason you want to build a list is to create a safety net in case you get banned. It's never pleasant to get the boot from any platform, but when it comes from that place which makes you income... It's important to make arrangements to rebuild easily and fast. That is something that can be achieved when you own you email list.
Building an Email List:
If you're just starting out or you're an established Etsy seller and you do not have an email list, you must start building one ASAP (I'm going to repeat that).
The most direct way I found so far is to send a message to my existing customers through Etsy's internal messaging system.
When someone buys something I've listed I will send them a thank you message explaining our process and letting them know their t-shirt (or whatever else) will be processed asap. With that message I attached a few words about joining our VIP club and its benefits.
Those benefits will vary from shop to shop... for now mine offers a 30% discount just for signing up, monthly giveaways and exclusive deals. I also let them know I only send one email a week, unless I get some crazy idea for a discount people can't pass up.
The most effective way I found, is to create a giveaway and run Facebook ads to my targeted audience.
The key here, is to create a giveaway which will attract a large amount of people. To make it worth their while, you want to value the giveaway to a minimum of $100. That seems to be the number at which people start to really sign up. Bellow that you risk not getting very many emails for the cost of what it is you're giving away and the cost of ads.
My first giveaway was such a mistake. I was only worth $25 and I ran a couple ads at $5/day without understanding how it worked very well. By the end of the giveaway and 7 days of running ads I had one contestant! It wasn't worth my time (except for learning how to run ads a bit), and that person ended up unsubscribing from the list anyway!
When this is done correctly, you will target the people who already buy the things you're selling. Those who buy from your shop are already in, and those who you advertise to through Facebook's amazing algorithm will be (mostly) more of the same people.
Do not advertise your giveaway willy-nilly wherever you want. if you do, you will attract a lot of people for sure, but the majority of them will not be specifically targeted to your niche. That means that over time these people will unsubscribe from your list as fast as they came on. There are a lot of people searching for giveaways out there, they will take a chance to win something for free, and will not shop.
Basically, when you cast a wide net, your chances of catching only one kind of fish is slim... you will bring up all sorts of junk with it.
Another way I found that works well is to let people who look at my listings know that I have a mailing list they can join for all the benefits mentioned above.
These are the places where I make it visible on Etsy:
- "Shop Announcement" section
- Listing images
- Listing description
- Listing videos
Conclusion
When we prioritize the things we need done for a project, it really takes on momentum. Things fall into place and I've made progress in my e-commerce journey because I have dedicated some time to learn everything I can about it... and I continue to learn everyday!!!
So far I'm happy to say that my last giveaway collected 240 emails and that since December 25th 2023 (the end of that last winter giveaway) only 22 people have unsubscribed. While it cost me close to $200, those emails are turning out to be pretty precious to have.
I will continue this journey and I want to teach you everything I learn on the way.
Visit our Etsy Shop at Fractal Jungle
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