Since the very beginning of the internet, email was present as a way to communicate especially, in businesses. However, with the time, technologies have become advanced, trends have changed and the way of communications have also evolved.
Today, many think email as an old-fashioned way of communicating with others. Likewise, some believe that email marketing has become outdated too, and social media is the new cool way of promoting things and grabbing people’s attention.
If you have similar thinking, then you should hold your thought right now. It’s true that social media has become a big game but yet, the email lists play a significant role in marketing. Email marketing is effective, economical, personal, customizable and most importantly, measurable. Even all the social media giants know this as they asks for your email id before signing on their websites.
The sooner you realize this fact, the better it would be for your website, whether be it blogs or e-commerce website. Still, you don’t believe me then have a look at some of the stats on email marketing-
- Total number of email user across the world is expected to reach 2.9 billion by the end of 2019.
- 91% of online consumers check their email daily.
- According to a study, email subscribers are three times more likely to share your content than other individuals who came through other mediums.
- According to another study by Campaign Monitor, every $1 invested in email marketing has the return value of $44.
- 80% of retail professionals have accepted that email marketing is important for retaining the customer.
Why Everyone should Practice Email List Building?
Email marketing helps you to build a relationship with your customer so that they better know, understand and like you.
Email marketing is important to connect with your customer and also makes them aware of your product or services. It can take your business to the next level as you can personally provide values to your customers.
If you have the list of your audiences, then you don’t have to heavily rely on social media as now, you can directly connect with your audience anytime. Another best part about Email marketing is that it is possible that some of your audiences may miss the social media message but by sending an Email this is not the case.
Current technologies also let you understand the behavior of your Email subscribers like when they open/read/ click through you Emails. This helps you to know their likes and dislikes. Basically, it puts you in a better position for taking correct decisions while creating new content, launching new products, etc.
You can read Why Email Marketing is Worth your Time for a better understanding.
Challenge which Everyone Faces while Building Email List
Okay, it’s true that some people use the deceptive practice of buying emails to grow their lists. It’s relatively easy but before you go for it, just wait and think.
What’s the point of having thousands of emails of the people who do not even care about your work or products; instead, you can collect the emails of the relevant people who really want to hear from you, right?
You should focus on whitehat practices for email list building and try to provide a good user experience. The essential part of this strategy is to provide as much value as you can to the visitors by providing free valuable content such as E-Books, PDFs or others.
Best Email Marketing Practices for Maximizing your Growth
First and foremost, remember that gone are the days when people used to make money by just emailing to their audiences. With time, your audience has become matured and advanced but so does the email marketing tactics.
Before reading further, accept it that there is no such thing called instant email list building for marketing. Some of the good practices of email marketing which you should know are:
- The subject line should be engaging, short, and must offer value.
- Don’t spam your customers with all the sales offers. Try mixing up sales offers with some useful content.
- If you are sending an email about your blog then instead of just sending one blog, try to add content from other blogs of your niche.
- Get whitelisted by asking your audience to add you to their list of trusted emailers.
- Research the best times or the days appropriate for sending an email to your audience.
- Design mobile-friendly emails as a vast amount of people access their email from the mobile.
Here are 7 Must have Elements which you should consider for your Email Marketing Strategy.
So, are you convinced enough to read the different ways by which you can grow your email list? If yes, then here it is!
Correct Way of Email List Building
1. Go for Pop-up or Slide-in
If anyone is already browsing your website, then they’re already interested. Add pop-up or slide-in on each of your pages including about us, contact us or popular pages. Add timed pop-ups or practice on site retargeting meaning that if any user submits a significant amount of time on any particular page, then he/she can receive a pop-up relevant to that content. These may include exit pop-up where a pop-up appears when the user tries to leave the page or scroll pop-up which appears when any user scrolls a certain percentage of that page. Within these pop-ups, you can give impressive offers or free giveaways.
2. Learn to Create a Timed Pop-up Survey
Today, almost everyone thinks about the pop-up when visiting any new website and it can be irritating for many. To build the email list, first, let the visitor feel invested in your content or product then present the pop-ups asking their emails after some time. Furthermore, you can also run a survey of “A or B” type questions asking the emails.
3. Make Signing-Up Simple
Make the whole signing-up process easier with the least amount of fields. Additionally, on some websites, sign-up form is hidden at some corner which is hard to locate. It should be present at all the important pages/location with a clear call-to-action. For instance, you can display the sign-up form in the sticky navigation bar offering a newsletter or free ebook or anything else.
4. A/B Test different Campaign
A/B test or split test is used for testing a different aspect of the same content such as changing the color or call-to-action text or the time for posting to see the right combinations for higher conversions.
5. Creative Email Content
If you want to retain your users or keep them subscribed, then you have to constantly make the email content amazing, informative, useful and interactive. If your content is useful, people will always forward your emails to others.
6. Add a Link to your Signature
Always hyperlinked the signature of your each mail to a landing page having the option of a sign-up. It naturally grows your email list.
7. Create/Distribute Free Content
Who doesn’t like a free product especially if it is valuable and useful? Providing free ebooks or PDFs are a great way to exchange and collect email addresses. You can request your visitors to complete an opt-in form to download the bonus contents or advanced tips and tricks.
8. Ask for the Feedback
It has two benefits; one, you’ll have a clear view of what your user thinks about the content and you can constantly improve it and two, you’ll get their email addresses. I mean look around you, everyone loves to give feedback on any information that they know about. You can add a form on certain pages asking visitors what they think. They can submit their opinions by providing their emails.
9. Shorten your Lead Capturing Forms
Adding too many fields on your pop-up or slide-in will lead to bad user experience and can actually drive people away from your website. Instead of trying to collect the age, gender and others, just keep it short and sweet by adding the name or email options. Keep around two or three fields in your forms. In many cases asking for just email or name and email is sufficient.
10. Create a Blog that Readers can Subscribe to
Again, it has several advantages than just building the email list. Writing a blog helps you in ranking higher in Google, it will help you in building a community, to run a survey and of course, growing your email list. Blogs are a great way to build a relationship with your user or customers. You should try to end your blogs with a call-to-action which will encourage the readers to subscribe to all the newsletters and other emails. Readers can also give their email id by commenting on your blog.
11. Create an Online Community
Take any of the successful websites, be it Reddit, Facebook, Twitter or others all have some or other kinds of community. Building a great community may take time but is one of the most effective ways to grow your email list. You can include a sign-up form or pop-ins on every page of the community.
12. Guest Blogging with Call-to-Action
There are numerous website and bloggers present which allows guest blogging to their already popular websites. Guest blogging helps you to drive traffic from that website to your website. While guest blogging, always try to include a call-to-action and a link to your website with the landing page having an option to subscribe to your own website.
13. Host an Online Webinar
Webinars are one of the most effective ways to connect with the right audiences. Here, you can talk about your industry, content, products, website and others. Above all, everyone has to register to a webinar via their email id. This helps you to collect the email during the registration process.
14. Put up the Sign-up Sheet
While attending any trade shows, conferences or any event, you can collect email id’s in person by putting out a sign-up sheet and encouraging people to sign-up by telling them more about your products or content.
15. Word of Mouth
It is one of the greatest ways to make your content or product go viral. You can simply ask your visitors to refer to new subscribers and in return, you can offer them a reward or discount.
For further understanding and deeper insights about email lists, you can opt for the course Secrets of Email Lists.
Conclusion
These were all the basic but essential things about growing your email list. Most of them are not complicated or hard to start with and practicing them will always boost your business. Here, the two important key point is that you have to be patient, as your email list will not grow overnight and you have to always look for all the possible ways by which you can collect the emails of your users. It may take some time but once you have a sufficient number of emails, it will be essential for marketing success.
If you have any other ideas or tactics which you have used or using, then do share with everyone in the comment section below. However, if you don’t have the time or skills, then we have a solution for both. Explore Email Marketing tutorial for learning all the concepts, tips and tricks of email list building and using it effectively.
