7 proven tips for capturing quality leads from your website

Learn about the value of email marketing and how to effectively use it to capture quality leads from your website. We run through the best email platforms for your business, how to create standout designs and spam-friendly subject lines, responsive email templates, newsletter offers, subscription pop-up boxes and more (we’re spoiling you now).

Can email be profitable?

In the age of social media influencers, viral videos and chatbots, you may wonder if email is still a profitable marketing strategy?

The answer is YES. Email sign-up forms capture quality leads from your website, which creates a bank of highly receptive people who are interested in your blogs, seasonal events, special offers and VIP experiences.

What’s more, according to HubSpot, 99% of consumers check their email every day, and 59% of people say email marketing impacts their buying decisions.

They’re incredible statistics that show just how many people you can reach through email marketing. However, to truly make an impact, your campaigns must stand out visually and provide value to potential guests.

How do you get started? We’ve collated our tips in this handy blog.

1 – Choose a platform that suits your attraction & business goals

There are plenty of email marketing providers out there. To help you decide, we’ve listed three popular options below.

HubSpot is easy-to-use, has a high deliverability rate and plenty of attractive, customisable templates. They also provide a whole suite of services that can help you with lead generation.

Mailchimp is a crowd-favourite and has fans in over 175 countries! What’s more, they use data from their customers to provide actionable insights to improve your email strategy. Their tools are flexible and ideal for someone just getting started.

Campaign Monitor features an intuitive drag-and-drop email editor, bundles of reporting tools and a massive library of resources to browse, which helps users improve their email marketing knowledge.

2 – Keep branding consistent

It’s essential that your email campaigns use the same colours, fonts and branding as your other marketing materials. This makes your brand instantly recognisable and assures people know the email came from a credible source.

3 – Use email templates that are mobile friendly

Emails that display incorrectly on mobile may be deleted within just three seconds and more people open emails on mobile than they do on desktop. That’s why it’s imperative you use newsletter templates that are responsive and look great on mobile and alternate devices.

4 – Send compelling offers

Offers are an effective way to target audiences outside your local area, push specific experiences and boost visitor numbers during quiet off-seasons.

Incentivise people to join your mailing list by creating exclusive VIP offers that can’t be found anywhere else.  These could include money off vouchers, 2 for 1 offers or free food or drink coupons.

5 – Choose a clever and spam-friendly subject line

Subject lines are your hook – the text people first see when they receive your email.

Their goal is to reel in potential guests – and they’re essential because it doesn’t matter how brilliant your offer and email campaign is if nobody bothers to open it.

Writing catchy and spam-friendly subject lines is an art – good ones make a powerful impact on your readers, and bad ones are sent straight to trash.

Here are five tips for creating compelling subject lines that boost open rates, dodge spam filters and encourage conversions:

• Keep your subject line under 40 characters (five to seven words), so it doesn’t get cut short.
• Avoid aggressive sales language and in-your-face punctuation (BUY OUR CHEAP TICKETS NOW!!!) – emails like this trigger spam filters.
• Ask open-ended questions to focus your reader’s attention – it’s an effective way to spark their interest, and they’ll open the email to look for answers.
• Personalisation keeps content relevant to guests. It used to consist of simply adding a person’s name into the subject line – but this is now too common to stand out. It’s more effective to target people with location-specific offers or by interest or language. Voucher sites like Groupon do this well and send emails with subject lines promoting deals in the recipient’s area.
• Funny subject lines are memorable and stand out – jokes, wordplay and one-words make a real impact. Just remember, what’s funny to you might not be funny to your audience – so keep it clean.

6 – Add a subscription popup box on the exit

If done well, popups are a powerful way to build your subscriber list. Unfortunately, more often than not they’re done… not so well.

How can you avoid annoying your customers with rubbish popups?

Think about the following:

Get the timing right

Don’t be in-your-face – popups are more successful when a user spends time on the website and feels invested in your content.

We suggest using a programme like Sumo, which gives the option to show a pop on exit-intent. It does this by tracking the user’s mouse movement – when they gesture quickly to the top of the page (which indicates they’re about to visit elsewhere) the popup appears.

According to one study, exit popups outperform other types of popups by 5% – it seems like a small increase, but that’s pretty significant for this type of marketing tactic. The reason they perform so well is because they don’t interrupt the user’s experience.

Exit popups outperform other types of popups by 5%

Make sure they’re not intrusive

Pop ups should compliment your website’s existing design while standing out enough to grab a user’s attention. They need to be seamlessly integrated into the user’s experience on your website.

A simple call to action

You only have a brief moment to capture a guest’s data before they leave the page or website, so don’t overwhelm them with information! Include a single, explicit call to action.

Explain the benefits clearly

Highlight the benefits of signing up to the newsletter. What does the customer get in exchange for their personal details?

The benefits need to be clear, compelling and valuable. They could include:

• Special VIP offers
• Insider information
• Informative blogs and articles
• Exclusive competitions and giveaways

7 – Personalise your emails

Personalisation is one of the most effective ways to get results from your email campaigns.

What is personalisation?

It goes way beyond using someone’s first name – only 8% of people would engage more with a business if addressed in this way.

Instead, think about tailored offers or experiences, product recommendations, segmentation and individual campaign messages. In one study, nearly half of consumers said they would engage more with brands if they used personalisation in this way.

Conclusion

Phew, we bet you need a Rennie after digesting all that delicious content!

Now we’ve catapulted you into the wonderful world of email marketing, it’s up to you to do the rest.

Once you’ve captured quality leads from your website and turned them into a bank of highly receptive potential guests, you can push your seasonal events, special offers, VIP experiences and blogs.

The trick is to deliver newsletters that are impossible to ignore, with standout designs, witty subject lines and out of this world offers.

We know it sounds a little daunting, but the strategies in this guide will get you started. And if you need a helping hand (and who doesn’t from time to time?). Get in touch with us today to see how we can be your hero baby.

Photo by Austin Distel on Unsplash

This article was taken from our free ebook – The Ultimate Guide to Doubling Your Visitor Numbers Download your copy today for 100’s of digital strategies to get more guests through your door.

Author:

Kelly Molson Managing Director

Host of the popular Skip the Queue Podcast, for people working in or working with visitor attractions, she regularly delivers workshops and presentations on the sector at various national conferences and universities including The Visitor Attractions Conference, ASVA and Anglia Ruskin University.

Read more about me