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How To Build An Email List For Your Business

Tips And Tricks For Building Your Email List

According to extensive research by Marketing Sherpa, 72% of consumers prefer email as their favored medium of communication with companies. 61% say they like to receive promotional emails weekly and 28% want them even more frequently.

The goal of your email list is to get people to return to your website, and eventually buy. So far;

  • You got your website or blog developed – check
  • You promote your site on social media – check
  • You want more traffic to your website – check

How Can You Use These To Build Up Your Email List?

If you are a smart business owner, you will want to convert any website and social media traffic into an email list.

You do this so you can engage your visitors, share your products, services, and exciting offers, and eventually turn those visitors into paying customers.

Building an email list is a major component of Email Marketing, which is an important part of a successful marketing strategy. It helps to grow your business and retain your existing customers. But the question is how do you start building your email list?

Based on our experience managing clients’ requirements for email marketing, we’ll share some basic concepts to help you jump on to the email list building wagon.

1) A website and/or landing page is a must

First of all, you need a place to direct your potential traffic and customers.

Ideally, you should have a professionally designed website which is search engine optimized to attract prospects through searches on google, as well as your other promotions. The offer you make can be on a landing page on your website.

Since a website is the base of all your marketing efforts, it makes sense to have one that is well optimized for conversions.

A landing page, aka lead page or destination page – is a page on your website used for converting visitors, even if it is just to get them to sign up for your mailing list. It has an opt-in to collect visitor’s information, like email addresses, in exchange for a giveaway of some value; information or a gift.

2) Know your audience

Next, it is crucial to know who are you targeting. Who are they, what are their demographics, what are their interests?

Who is your desired client?

First, you do your research to find out what your prospects may be searching for and where they search. Then you have to attract these potential customers to your website/landing page and encourage them to share their email addresses in exchange for your irresistible offer.

3) Choose your email marketing provider

First impressions are everything. We are talking about business emails to your potential customers, not your family and friends where you email them using Gmail or Hotmail.

You need a professional email marketing platform that allows you to gather email addresses from visitors, create engaging emails, and allow you to grow as your website traffic grows.

There are many options to choose from when it comes to email marketing software/services. Out top 10 recommended platforms include:

4) Create an opt-in form for your website

Every email marketing service will allow you to create opt-in forms where you can allow your website visitors, to sign up and gather their email addresses. Then you can add those forms to your website.

You must create a tantalizing offer that will inspire visitors to sign up. Offer them something like a freebie or helpful information or anything to incentivize them.

According to HubSpot, every page of your website should have a Call-to-Action, a pop-up or slide-in to inspire visitors to sign up with their email addresses.

5) Welcome message and First email

When your visitors sign up to your email list, they will get an automatic welcome message. This is your first email to them.

This is the point where the first impression is everything. So, you need to put some effort into crafting your welcome message.

Few key elements that you should keep in mind when writing your first email are:

  • Show gratitude – thank them for taking time to subscribe to your email list
  • Incentivize Them – Offer them a special discount or some great offer to show your appreciation
  • Inform Them – Update them on what they can expect from your emails and any rules, etc.
  • Relate to them – Engage them by personalizing your email, add your picture or other social contact details, etc.

6) Structure your Email

Sending emails to your potential customers is not about spamming their inboxes with shouts of offers. You need to think and plan how you can provide value to your audience.

The best approach will be to do some competitor analysis. Sign-up to their newsletter. See their emails and identify what you like and what annoys you.

It will provide you with ideas and inspiration to finalize your email structure.

Remember, the goal is to ensure that your audience is provided with valuable information, to keep them informed or entertained.

7) Give people a reason to signup

Nothing is free in this world, except a freebie! People won’t give their email addresses to you for nothing. You need to entice them with a great offer to sign up.

You can’t expect to sign up by simply asking them to do so.

That’s where freebies come in. People love freebies. You create a custom offer to show your appreciation and also to point out how awesome you are and how useful it would be for them to subscribe.

Some common ideas for such freebies include:

  • an eBook
  • a checklist
  • a cheat sheet
  • a video tutorial
  • a free email course
  • a discount code
  • a PDF guide

8) Create more giveaways and landing pages to see what works

Not everyone would be interested in one form of freebie. So, it would be smart to think of a few giveaway options.

 

It will also give you an idea about what type of content people are interested in.

 

You should also put some effort into personalizing these offers along with creating more landing pages. In fact, according to research, companies get 55% more leads when they increase their landing pages.

9) Drive traffic to your landing page

Now that you have laid down the foundations for your email list building and create eye-catching forms, pop-ups, and offers, it is time to put it out there. It would be a shame to create an awesome campaign to build your list and not spend enough time to promote it.

 

There are countless ways that you can drive traffic to your landing pages. A few of them are listed here:

  • Send it to your contacts
  • Run a viral contest
  • Share in social media posts
  • Include the links in your social media bios
  • Add personalized CTAs in blog posts
  • Put them in the sidebar on your website
  • Share them in Facebook groups, forums or other places your readers hang out
  • In guest posts on other websites
  • Use Pay-Per-Click advertising using Facebook Ads, LinkedIn sponsored updated, Twitter ads, Google AdWords

10) Plan, execute and analyze

This is the step that most people ignore. Email list building is an ongoing process and people’s interest changes with time. You need to spend time planning a long-term content strategy and offers and execute it effectively.

Keep rotating the offers or create new offers based on the interest of your audience.

And keep analyzing the performance and results of your email signups so see where improvements or changes can be made. It will also provide insights into what is working and what is not.

Next Steps

Building your email list usually takes time and is not quite straight forward, but results make it worth all the effort. Things start getting interested when your list starts growing with loyal followers because your valuable content helps them in their lives.

Did you find this article useful in devising your own email list building strategy? Do you need our help with email or other marketing services such as SEO and Web Design? Visit us at https://iDesignYours.com Thank you!