Growing your Lists with a Cross-Channel Approach – Your Next Steps

6 minute read

Upland Admin

Back in August of 2017, studies online predicted that GDPR would render 75% of UK marking data obsolete.

While it is hard to say how much data was actually lost, if you consider that on average an email address is worth £13 then even one address lost is one too many. Do the math and you’ll find out that 200,000 contacts could be worth £2.6 million, so it’s time to rebuild and get those numbers up.

Following a recent blog from our Head of Customer Success, Danielle Woolley, we thought we would give you even more tips on how you can benefit from the different channels available. If you do it right, you’ll not only increase your number of contacts, but also enrich your data.

Website

For any brand, in any industry, your website is one of the main ways audiences will interact with you. As a result it is important that you use all the tactics available to capture email data through this channel. For example, do you have multiple email sign-up forms? Are these sign-ups in the optimum place? Should you be using pop-ups? These are all questions you should consider, because they could generate great returns. Big Cup Little Cup optimized their website by placing the email sign-up box above the fold and their list size increased by 206% in 6 months.

Social

In 2017, the average daily usage of social media worldwide was 135 minutes per day. That means that you have a window of more than 2 hours a day to contact your audience and engage with them. Social media can be the vehicle by which you hook your customers and then nurture a connection via email. Ask yourself: are you making the most of this opportunity?

You could, for example, use Facebook to include a CTA button on your page, implement an email sign-up tab and use email within your Facebook Lead Adds. BuzzedUp helped Taxi Shop use Facebook advertising to generate qualified inquiries and website traffic. They then used Adestra’s APB to segment and target contacts. This resulted in a 26% open rate, 190 clicks and 823% ROI. Something that can be implemented across all social networks.

SMS

There are a lot of conflicting views on SMS: some believe it’s too intrusive, while others see real value there. There is, of course, no right or wrong answer, and without testing you’re never really going to know if it works for your brand or not.

For example, our partner TextLocal helped Booker, the wholesaler and online retailer, increase their database by allowing people to opt-in via text. This resulted in over 32,000 customers signing up to the Booker database and an increase in sales of branded goods.

They’ve also seen success in other industries. Tessuti, a design clothing brand with various stores throughout the UK, used SMS to collect mobile numbers as they needed to build up their database. They saw a significant uplift in sales over a 24-hour period and a 70% growth in opt-in customer database contacts.

Wi-Fi sign-ups

Back in 2014, a study across 2540 people from over 30 countries showed that 72 % of respondents use public Wi-Fi, with 78% actively looking for it. Out of this number, three quarters admitted that they would spend more time in a place that offers free Wi-Fi and two thirds were likely to even spend more money to get it. If we’re spending more time and more money due to Wi-Fi, this means that we’re also more likely to give our email address, right?

Well Starbucks thinks so. This year they have announced that within their U.S. stores they will be asking customers to provide their email address before connecting to Wi-Fi. The reason for this? According to them, they have 75 million U.S. customers who visit their stores monthly, but only 15 million are members of their Rewards program. This is another opportunity to capture data and create an online relationship with their consumers.

In-store experience

Have you heard about the concept of gamification? In recent years it has been a growing trend. One of our partners ODICCI use this concept to not only improve overall customer experience, but more importantly encourage them to share their email and details with brands. They create interactive ways to capture emails and enrich existing data.

ODICCI partnered up with Greene King, the UK’s largest pub retailer, to create a campaign that would re-engage customers and acquire new ones. They created a fun way to interact with people which included an email marketing campaign that used a digital scratch card to give away freebies. Participants could increase their changes by sharing the campaign with friends, which led to a 25% increase in new email addresses. In fact, their overall efforts resulted in 730k entries, 330k new customers and £700k of associated sales from an investment of approximately £7k.

Key takeaways:

• Think about your website and consider if you are making the most of your current email sign-ups. Do consider using other methods as well, such as pop-ups.

• Social media is important, and you can use it to hook customers. Think about adding a CTA to encourage customers to sign up, add an email sign-up tab, and don’t forget about social ads.

• SMS can be another channel that may help you capture email data. Test it to see if it can work for you.

• Wi-Fi sign-ups can be a great tactic to use. If customers are already providing an address to connect to your Wi-Fi, why not also encourage them to sign up for your newsletter?

• As always, think about the overall customer journey, use gamification and existing technology to create interactive experiences that capture data.

DISCLAIMER: The content and opinions within this blog post are for information purposes only. They are not intended to constitute legal or other professional advice, and should not be relied on or treated as a substitute for specific advice relevant to particular circumstances, the Data Protection Act, or any other current or future legislation. Adestra shall accept no responsibility for any errors, omissions or misleading statements, or for any loss which may arise from reliance on materials contained within this blog post.

Reliable products. Real results.

Every day, thousands of companies rely on Upland to get their jobs done simply and effectively. See how brands are putting Upland to work.

View Success Stories