Ask any marketer about the fastest and best way to convert browsers into buyers, and they’ll say email marketing still reigns supreme. Believe me, when your livelihood depends upon building a following from which to build a customer base, with whom to build trust, on which to build a relationship, on which to build a business, that’s a lot of building. The extortionist, hostage-taking approach to social media doesn’t work for everyone, as the algorithms used by social platforms that enable you to build a following, only to require you to pay for the privilege of communicating with them, can quickly get expensive.
The attention span of these followers is seconds at best, so the most effective way to capture a potential customer’s attention and convert that interest into a sale is by enabling them to voluntarily express that interest in hearing from you in the place where they live…their email inbox. Pop! We interrupt this compelling, well-written, information-packed article with a request to submit your email address.
Growth hackers have advocated a myriad ingenious solutions for increasing sales via email marketing, and each involves extensive site visit behavior analysis. Where does a web site visitor go? How long do they stay? What do they do after they click this page, or that link, and what is their next move? The resulting tools available to track, trip, and trap these site visitors into your sales web utilize landing pages, gateways, squeeze pages, popups, exit popups, video popups, slide-in popups, popup lightboxes, embedded forms, social popups, info bars, two step opt-ins, user inactivity triggers, exit intent triggers, repetition control, page level targeting, sticky ribbons, and referral detection trackers that the marketing gurus would all but guarantee will take your email subscription list to the next level. One subscription technique even helps you lock a portion of your content on the website by hiding or blurring it, and it asks visitors to enter their email address to unlock the content. It’s all very transactional.
If you are a business owner, then you know the number one rule is, know your customer. I do. I know my customers, and one thing I know is that some of them are screen reader users. In most cases, the cutting-edge techniques mentioned above are a usability nightmare. Disrupted reading flow, screen reader focus switching, click-trapping with no discoverable exit or close button, and other navigational black holes are a fast track to alienating my potential customers. So, I use none of these. Does my email subscriber list cup runneth over? No. I value quality over quantity. Does that make me a marketing chump? The gurus might say so. The email capturing techniques mentioned above may be “proven,” but they do not respect customers with disabilities who may find the pop-ups or slide-ins confusing, as they clutter the screen, create a cognitive load for new site visitors, or impose a barrier for customers who may be in a hurry, and may even trigger some users who need to avoid sudden motion, strobes, or flashes.
Usability is a simple concept that is inclusive of everyone, and it doesn’t have to be a tough choice. You can make your email opt-inform simple, obvious, and easily discoverable. Playing games with your site visitors can inspire annoyance, frustration, and resentment, which can easily result in avoidance or cart abandonment. Most site visitors who find a barrier to entry, especially if they are motivated to purchase or learn more, seldom return to a web site they have determined to be inaccessible. Word of mouth marketing is arguably the most effective marketing of all, and word quickly spreads about a destination that is a time-waster. Even though I live in Las Vegas, manipulative marketing is a game I’m definitely not willing to play.
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