How to Generate an Impressive Email Marketing List

The Blog Herald

Feb. 05, 2016
2 min read

Your email marketing efforts are only as good as your list is long. In other words, you can create incredibly targeted emails that are crisp and actionable, but you aren’t going to derive any value from them if you don’t have an audience ready to engage. This means you need to spend a considerable amount of time building your email marketing list.

5 Proven List Building Strategies

Before focusing your attention on list building, you need to make sure you have a clear understanding of the purpose of your email marketing efforts. Are you looking to target potential customers, or do you want to engage existing ones? Do you want a little bit of both? Are your emails going to be sales-heavy, or merely informational and entertaining?

Based on the answers to these questions, your approach may change. Make sure you conduct a full assessment so that your link building strategies compliment your overall email marketing goals. With that being said, here are some tips worthy of your consideration.

Use Twitter

Are you aware that Twitter may be one of your best tools for acquiring emails? They have something called Lead Generation Cards, which are incredibly effective for a number of purposes – including collecting email addresses.

Try setting up a Lead Generation Card. Then any one of your Twitter followers can subscribe to your email list with a single click of a button. By integrating this action directly into Twitter, you avoid sending users to another website or landing page. This means less friction and a smaller chance of losing the lead. Many brands have seen significant improvements in conversion rates as a result of using these Lead Generation Cards.

Invest in Quality Email Content

Sometimes the best strategy for organically growing an email subscriber list is to simply invest in a quality email. If you send out useful content on a regular basis – and avoid being spammy – then you can expect to get word of mouth referrals from your existing subscribers.

For example, a website like Built in NYC would have more success sending emails in which they pull job listings from a page such as this one than if they simply mentioned there are job openings on the market. The key is to add as much value to each email as possible.

Strategically Encourage Opt-in

You should be encouraging email opt-ins in as many places as possible. If you’re only asking for opt-ins on a single URL, you’re messing up. Some of the top places to include email opt-ins include your homepage, the blog comment section, and after checkout is completed.

As a rule of thumb, you want to make these opt-in forms as brief and simple as possible. The more information you request, the less likely that a user will fill out the form. Simply asking for a name and email address may be a solid strategy for beginners. Here’s a good example of a strategic opt-in by Success Measured.

Offer Incentives

Put yourself in the shoes of your users. Would you really be willing to provide your email address for nothing in return? Don’t expect users to simply hand over their information. You need to incentivize them. Offering discounts, coupons, free downloads, and inside access are all good strategies for drumming up excitement surrounding an email opt-in.

Have Patience

Finally, have patience. Building a large email list will take time. There’s no way to build a list that includes thousands of followers in just a few days. It’s going to take months of effort to grow your list to a number you can be proud of. Just make sure you’re actively pursuing growth every step of the way.

Never Stop Building

You should never be satisfied with the size of your email list. Theoretically, the more subscribers you have, the better your chance of converting prospects into paying customers. You know your target market best, but it’s likely that these five tips will be effective in helping you scale your growing list. Best of luck!