You need a good email marketing list before you can have an effective email marketing strategy.
One of the challenging aspects that companies face getting started with email marketing, is finding out how to build and grow an email marketing list. In this blog post, we are going to present several effective approaches that you can adapt today and start building an email list curated for your business’s success.
Email marketing is not dead, it still works in 2021 and beyond
Cultivating relationships with customers through email marketing is still one of the best channels a business owner can use today. Moreover, email marketing solutions can help you achieve sustainable growth and increase revenue in the long term. In fact, email generates $42 for every $1 spent, which is an astounding 4,200% ROI, making it one of the most effective options available. Hence, email marketing will help you achieve your goals by cultivating trust with subscribers, building customer loyalty, and providing insightful content that can keep customers coming back.
Start off with the right approach
Designing a successful email marketing strategy is challenging. At first, you have to make sure that the campaigns are complying with CAN-SPAM regulations. Next, you have to access the right email service provider (ESP) and tools, design effective emails, plan out various types of emails (transactional, informational, lead nurturing, etc), and last but not least track and perfect the strategy based on the performance reports.
What To Consider When Building An Email Marketing List?
The points below are things to consider before you send your first email:
- If you are not planning to hire an experienced email marketing service provider, start with research and learn about the basics of email list management: tags, segments, audiences. It’s important to set up descriptive tags, and separate segments within a specific audience according to the customer life cycle stage, campaign, or sign-up source.
- Email marketing automation and flows can be optimized only if the list is properly segmented. If the contacts within the same audience are in separate customer life cycle stages and they all add up from different sources and campaigns, then it will become nearly impossible to craft an effective strategy. Here are some ways you could break up your list: geographical location, lifecycle stage, awareness, consideration, decision stage, industry, previous engagement with your brand, language, job title.
- Be ready to test out all the possible channels, but make sure to ensure that the list is spam-free and clean. Purchasing a list is not the best way out if you are starting from scratch. However, if you go with it, use email verification tools to clean up the list and import only the ones that are verified.
- Always check that the ESP is synchronized with the sign-up source, the list is getting updated and there are no technical issues. For example, if you have an eCommerce website based on Shopify and you use Mailchimp, check the integration consistently to avoid losing subscribers or customers in the loop.
- Depending on your business type and target persona the strategies will differ. There are generally accepted ways, but you can stand out from competitors, brainstorm, and come up with something creative that could be more attractive than anything that is currently out there. Don’t limit the possibilities and tools, be open to test out new Call-to-actions, lead magnets, marketing campaigns, etc.
- The lists should entail all the necessary contact information details, that are needed for targeting. For example, if you need to sort out the contacts based on the zip codes, make sure the contact information entails the zip data. And at the same time, try to avoid unnecessary contact data.
- Consider the fact that you can do more with your email marketing list than just sending out emails. You can set up Facebook and Google ads, get valuable insights, and level up your marketing game by creating custom experiences for your beloved subscribers.
Now, as you have some general information on what to expect let’s dig deep into possible channel options that you can deploy for starting your list or increasing it.
General Strategies on How to Build An Email Marketing List
Build With Your Blog
Blog posts are one of the essential tools that you can use to develop relationships with visitors and customers, where you can get creative and provide enormous value to your prospects. You can consistently provide value, and give your visitor a reason to subscribe for more. Below are listed the main ways you can use the blog section on your website for increasing the number of contacts:
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- Include a call to action that asks readers to sign up for your email messages and new blog updates
- Require blog readers to sign up with an active email in order to leave comments
- Promote and give internal links to lead magnets or subscription forms
(See an example below)
It doesn’t matter what industry you are in, blogs are needed and will play a crucial role in the list-building process.
Provide ‘Email Only’ Specials
Send your email subscribers “specials” that are only available to loyal and active subscribers. You can come up with creative approaches in order to encourage them to forward the ‘’specials” to their friends or family members to involve them in the process. The “special” can be in the form of fun games, additional discounts, information that are not publicly available.
Create Landing Pages
With custom landing pages you can provide a better user experience for the visitors and target them with lead magnets that the readers are looking for. The landing page should be helpful and extremely optimized to convert visitors into subscribers. With landing pages, you will have more converting opportunities, leverage to target more specific niches, and promote new marketing collaterals, etc.
List Building Ideas for B2B Companies
Direct Outreach
Compared to B2C email marketing strategies, direct outreach is more acceptable and you can get creative if you are working on a B2B project. For example, if you have an online store targeting dog owners, it’s really hard to generate a list of dog owners. And even if you get one, just sending out information about your store may not work or provide a high ROI.
In B2B projects, when you promote a Saas solution, new tools that can improve the business operation, cut costs, or just stand out from competitors finding the contact information for the target persona is easier.
There are several tools that you can use to build a bulk email list such as ZoomInfo.com (personal contacts), email finder google extensions such as Skrapp.io, Getprospect.com, or scrap company contact information from Google with Botsol.com. But as mentioned above, make sure to clear the list before importing it into any ESP.
Webinars
On-demand or live webinars will boost the number of subscribers. If it is a live webinar with open access you still can attract viewers to subscribe for additional information or to receive the content materials.
Events
Special events with limited access will be a great trigger for prospects to subscribe and get into the loop. Events will also help to get new speakers on board with your team. So by promoting events you will reach the audience of the event speakers.
List Building Ideas for B2C Companies
Organize a giveaway
Giveaways can have a different set of rules, requirements, and structures. You can be flexible and adjust it to your marketing goal, business model, and upcoming plans. But overall it’s one of the easiest ways to encourage people to subscribe in order to stay updated and receive important information regarding updates.
Encourage customers with a daily or weekly deal
In fact, the frequency of deals can vary. It can be even monthly, or not specified. Just the fact that as a subscriber they will be able to access deals that are not public, will motivate visitors to join the list.
Add Game Apps
Visitors are more pronto play something fun, test out their luck to get excited about small wins. One of the ways is to integrate some simple apps, that are easy to use and require email entry. The spin of the wheel is a great example of such a strategy.
Get Started Building Your Email Marketing List
Email marketing starts with list building and management. If you don’t plan and manage your list in advance, you can’t proceed with the creation of successful email marketing automation strategies to help grow your business. Poor email marketing lists will have an impact on the effectiveness of your campaign conversion rate, and ROI(return on investment). Use these strategies and tools to achieve more results and maximum effectiveness. Contact us today if you need help building your email marketing list. Our team of email marketing experts is here to help.