Investing in your email subscriber list

Customers coming to your website from both paid and organic searches are extremely valuable to your business. However, climbing Google’s search rankings is getting harder and harder. A lot of the tried and true methods that SEO experts have used in the past to gain higher keyword rankings are being devalued by Google.

Algorithmic changes are rightfully targetting low quality content such as building links via article marketing and blog networks, keyword-based anchor text (trying to rank your product by creating a high volume of links using that term), bought links, guest posts, infographics and many other linking strategies. This has put many businesses in a state of constant fear that they may lose their rankings in the future.

Most of the SEO strategies that are safe and work well (like creating genuine content) take time to build upon before desired rankings are achieved, leaving new businesses with only one option to get on the first page quickly: search engine marketing by buying Google AdWords. And for some, the complexities of pay per click advertising can be enough to make your head spin.

We recommend your ecommerce business invests in pay per click to build your emailing list.

Instead of just getting a potentially one-time click in search (once you’ve paid to get them to your site, they either purchase or they’re gone), you are opening the door to future communications with your target customers.

According to recent research:

• Email has an ROI of around 4,300% (according to the Direct Marketing Association)
• 60% of people say that receiving special offers is the top reason they subscribe to an email list from a business.
• 70% of people make use of coupons or discounts they learn about from email.
• 80% of people say they receive marketing messages alongside their personal emails on a daily basis.

Quite simply, if your ecommerce business isn’t building its email marketing list, then you’re leaving money on the table.

You could also use pay per click to drive and capture customers on social networks (Facebook likes, Twitter followers etc), but the average customer lifetime value of users acquired via email is considerably higher than those coming from social media.

While social media and search are both good ways to be discovered by potential customers and have a part to play (especially for brand trust, viral marketing, communication and openess etc), email is a great way to capture your customer’s attention and build a long term successful marketing strategy.