The boring old newsletter signup - what's the point?
These days it is all about the social media. You need to be getting your facebook page up, your Twitter account going, and blogging...don't forget to blog at least two or three times a week. Oh and just to up the bar a little are you getting every one you know to rate and comment on your wines on Snooth.com? It is no wonder the email newsletter list is getting completely neglected. Let me just say that you should start with the email list and then move onto the other stuff.
Social media is about building connections and trust with potential and existing customers, not about making hard sales. On the other hand the email list if built correctly is made up of individuals who have given you permission to send them some information and some solid sales pitches. A list of 1000 qualified customers on your email list is way more valuable than 1000 twitter followers. The fact is that well crafted email campaigns give better ROI than social media (http://directmag.com/email/1014-email-roi-dma/). It is just more intimate, and therefore a more powerful tool to reach out to your customers and convert to sales. When your wine fans say to you..."Send me information when you have a special or release new product", then your should be doing that. They want to buy from you - right now!
There are a lot of reasons why email list building has started to slide recently. Focus on social media, spam blockers, lack luster response all add up to email list abandonment. Email marketing is the holy grail though. It would be unwise not to concentrate on building your email list and consistently delivering good emails targeting your customers desires and concerns. That list if built over years could number in the thousands and become a large source of immediate sales, and even a large segment of your sales. It is so important to work on building your list and sending email to your customers. Once you have that dialed then move onto the social media scene.
If you want to know more about email list building and how to get the most out of your website send us an email.
For another good article on email marketing copyblogger.com put up a great article.