A person’s email address can be worth $50 to companies. Having an email list, means you have a potential lead database that you can harness for conversion and a ready crowd to promote your upcoming content and latest product updates. This beats social media followings and advertisements in both cost and responsiveness
However, creating your own email lists with people’s permission is difficult. So, if you don’t have an email list yet, then this article is perfect for you. It'll help teach you email list-building strategies.
Table of contents
What is an email list?
An email list is a record of email addresses that organizations or individuals have gathered from prospects and potential customers with their permission. They are people who would like to get announcements, updates, bargains, and other attributes about your organization mailed to their email inbox.
Why should you have an email list?
There are several reasons why having an email list will always be beneficial to your organization. Here they are:
You can use emails to help you with your narrative, promote your brand, and show off your product or services.
With an email list you can send your subscribers emails to nurture your leads and convert them into paying clients.
You will always have the subscriber’s information when you build your email list. Unlike in social media, where it can shut down or your account can get deleted anytime, in which case you lose all your potential prospects.
You can ensure that every one of your subscribers will receive the emails, unlike other forms of digital marketing where the platform decides who to show your content.
How to build an email list in 3 steps
Here we have broken it down into actionable steps that you can take to start building an email list right now:
Step 1: Create incentives or content that people would want
For people to join your email list, you need to provide something enticing they would not want to miss. Such content or incentives, known as lead magnets, can be accessed by people once they sign up with their email ids.
We have listed down some ideas for lead magnets to get you started:
- Free content or lead magnet
Offer content that people in your niche will be interested in. It should be something that provides them value. The type of content depends on your industry and target audience’s needs and interests.
The free content works like a lead magnet that entices people to join your email list to receive the free content. Here are some of the most popular lead magnets that you can create and send out.
| Lead magnet | What is it? | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Email Newsletters | News report with information about the activities of an organization. | Email marketing tips, latest updates, etc. from Mailmodo |
| Guides | What or How-to articles that help people figure out a process or pain-point. | Guide to improve hashtag strategy |
| Whitepapers | An in-depth report on a topic’s problem while providing a solution. | Google Cloud's AI Adoption Framework by Google. |
| E-books | Digital book publication with text and images to read on electronic devices. | How to create a winning subject line? |
| Courses | Short education programs | Email Marketing Free course |
| Checklists | List of things to do to achieve something | 200 things to declutter checklist |
| Reports | Document with organized and detailed information about a topic for specific audiences. | Lead management report |
| Toolkits | Set of guidelines or suggestions to do something | Toolkit for online business growth |
| Webinars | Live or recorded online seminar | How to grow your Amazon business |
| Cheatsheets | Like a checklist, but it also contains hacks to help people. | Hacks to write a viral blog post |
- Early access or insider benefits with exclusive content
You can offer people early access to content available to the general public only weeks later. Exclusive content makes the people feel special and like they are a part of something special. You can provide them with something that'll help provide value, like improving their skills, process, increase growth, etc.
For example, Inktober gives people who sign up for their newsletter access to their challenge details one week before the general release. As a result, their audience wants to sign up because they get early access to the challenge.
- Offers and discounts
Discounts or coupons are great incentives that usually get people to sign up. If you are an e-commerce or B2C brand, these incentives will attract customers to your product or content.
- Service or product-based incentives and free trials
Many product and services companies offer complimentary trials for a limited time or limited features to their audiences. The free product requires people to sign up with an email id to access a small part of the product or service.
For example, Mailmodo offers a 21 day free trial to try out their product.
Step 2: Create an email signup form linked with the incentive
Now that you have something to offer, you need a sign-up form to collect the email address of people. A sign-up form is used to collect email addresses from people who want the incentive you are offering.
There are many ways to incorporate a signup page into your website. Here are a few:
- Create a unique landing page
The landing page is where your audience lands when they click on your incentive. It has a signup bar to capture email addresses from people before providing them the freebie.
- Add it to your blog or newsletters page
Include a signup area on your blog as the people who read the blogs are already interested in your content.
- Include it in the checkout process
If you sell online, then you can make people sign up before they checkout by providing them with a coupon if they sign up.
- Contact form
On the contact or about page on your website, you can set up a contact form for people to sign up through it if they want to contact you.
Source: {Leighellexson}(https://www.leighellexson.com/contact)
- Pop up
Greet people who visit your website with a pop-up. The pop-up can inform the people about incentives like seasonal sales, holiday offers, etc.
Source: Inktober
Step 3: Distribute the form and market your incentives
Now that you have set up the process and the backend systems, it's time to drive traffic towards your signup forms. You can tell your audience about the incentive to create exposure for your brand and increase your email list subscribers.
You can use the following ways to distribute the incentives:
Social media
You can use social media channels to tell people what valuable incentive you are offering them for free. Make sure to direct them to your signup bar when you advertise on social media. You can use the following media to inform the audience about your email list:
Facebook posts, stories, shares in relevant groups, etc.
- YouTube
Promotional videos, video descriptions, etc.
Instagram stories, bio, posts, IGTV, Reels, etc.
- Advertisements
You can create ads on Google or social media about your free product or service. The ads will direct people to your landing page, where they'll signup to receive the freebie.
- Events or conferences (virtual or in-person)
If your organization is going to organize meetups, set up stalls, or present at trade shows, then you can inform people of the free benefits you are providing when they sign up online. You can also collect their contact information during the event. And later on, you can add it to your email list.
- Email signature
In the signature of all your personal and professional emails, provide a link to your opt-in form. Then, the people who receive your emails can sign up if they are interested.
- Email co-marketing
Email co-marketing is when two brands collaborate to develop an email marketing campaign. They are not creating something new. They are only marketing what they already have. For example, affiliate marketing, where brands collaborate with popular influencers to access and engage with new audiences.
Etiquettes of email list building
Etiquettes are important when building an email list. Waltzing in people's inboxes without manners is a recipe for "report as spam". And to avoid that, here are some things to keep in mind:
Get permission to collect information
Sign-up sheets are helpful because they get permission from people to collect their email addresses. Consent is necessary because you have to value their privacy. And also, according to laws like GDPR, CAN-SPAM, HIPAA, etc., people have to permit companies to manage their data.
Keep your promise and deliver the incentive on time
Once they have joined your mailing list and verified, ensure that you fulfill your end of the deal in due time. Send them the reward or incentive that you promised and for which they signed up.
Validation of emails through opt-ins
Send people an email to verify and opt into your email list. Use a combination of single and double opt-ins to make sure that people want to be a part of your email list.
To know how to use opt-in in your marketing strategy you can read these guides:
How to Use Opt-In in Your Email Marketing Strategy
What Is Double Opt-In and Why You Should Use It
What's next now that you have an email list
Manage your email list
Once you have a list, you need to maintain it and send consistent emails. You need to remove the incorrect email addresses and segment them based on their interests. Check out our article on how to maintain a clean email list.
Send consistent emails
Keep up a consistent schedule to send targeted emails to your existing subscribers, to stay relevant in their minds.
Takeaway
Building an email list is a gradual process. It doesn't happen overnight and nor do you have a genie to build it in a whiff. It takes constant work. And a part of that work is providing valuable and relevant content to attract people. And while creating content, also keep in mind the etiquettes we have discussed in this article. Those are important as people should know what data you are collecting.
Once you have an email list, you have to maintain it and send out emails. So signing up to an email service platform/ provider like Mailmodo makes the whole email marketing process much more manageable.
Mailmodo provides tools to manage email lists, create campaigns, and track and analyze email metrics. It helps you create and manage your email marketing campaigns all in one place. You can also send AMP emails for a better user experience. So sign up with us and start building your list.
