Of all the different things you can be doing online with your game store, building your email list is one of the most important. Posting on Facebook and Instagram and TikTok are great, creating graphics, writing content, they’re are all excellent moves in the game of digital marketing.
But they don’t compare to the bottom line potential of building an email list and using a strategic welcome sequence to warm your audience up.
When I’m doing a digital marketing assessment for a new game store, one of the first things I do is look for a way to subscribe to the store’s email list. A surprising amount of the time, there isn’t one. When there is, I have yet to find a single one that had a welcome sequence in place after I subscribed.
Almost every game store goes radio silence after I sign up.
Imagine this from your customer’s point of view.
They’re interested in your business. They like what they see. They think you’ve got some cool products they would like to learn more about, maybe find out about the events you’ve got planned or sales coming up.
They’re into you, and they see your newsletter sign up near the footer of your website, and when they put their email address in the only thing that happens is they get a little thank you message.
That’s it.
If they don’t decide to buy something from you right then, and 97% of all website visitors DON’T buy, they may just be gone forever.
They may never think of your game store again, simply because there is so many other things demanding their attention online.
And if you randomly start emailing them with your upcoming sale in a few months, you’re going to get almost no traction.
You never called them back after the first date so it’s no wonder.
Somewhat ironically given the heavy focus on face-to-face connections and interaction, most game stores don’t take the time to build any kind of relationship with customers online.
This is why, if you have given emails a try at some point in the past, you probably got minimal results.
If you don’t have a well thought out welcome sequence that automatically goes out to new subscribers who join your list, you’re leaving money on the table.
You’re missing out on the chance to make a bond with someone and give them a good first impression of your game store.
If someone comes through your doors for the first time, you would greet them warmly and strike up a conversation to get to know them and what they might be interested in. That’s essentially what a welcome sequence does for people online and not having one is just like giving someone the cold shoulder in person.
You risk them turning cold and ending up with a dead email list later on, and when you do start sending emails later on your open rates will be minimal.
You don’t want this, do you?
Stop sleeping on the opportunity to welcome someone to your list and deepen your relationship with them.
When someone signs up for your list, they are almost as hot as they will ever be. They want to know more and they are engaged and paying attention, which is the most valuable commodity online!
Spending some time now to create a well-crafted welcome sequence will help your game store:
- Instantly bond with your new subscribers, which will make it easier to sell to them later.
- Warm them up and allow them to get to know YOU, building the know, like, and trust factor that determines whether someone will buy from you.
- Boost the open rates of your other emails because they will look forward to and expect them.
- Keep your other emails out of their spam folder and in their primary inbox.
- Take a customer who was on the fence and turn them into a buyer (on autopilot!).
With all this potential, there is no excuse for not creating a welcome email sequence.