Understanding how to construct an email list from the ground up might feel overwhelming, particularly if you’re aiming for speed and efficiency. Nonetheless, the effort invested early on is invaluable, as your email list will ultimately become your most vital asset.
Targeting your audience through email marketing remains a tried-and-true method, yielding an impressive return on investment of $42 for every $1 spent.
In this guide, we’ll delve into and elucidate 14 effective tactics that you can employ to swiftly build your email list from scratch. What’s more, by implementing these tactics, you’ll not only acquire new email contacts but also cultivate a loyal and engaged subscriber base.
Let's Dive into Those Tactics!
1. Choose A Trustworthy Email Marketing Platform
The initial step in constructing an email list involves selecting the right email marketing platform. While basic email campaigns can be managed using platforms like Gmail and Outlook initially, as your list grows, you’ll require a more robust solution.
Investing in a reliable email marketing tool ensures efficient management and organization of your expanding list, along with the capability to send automated campaigns. This choice allows you to capitalize on the full potential of email marketing from the outset, saving you valuable time.
Moosend stands out in this regard. With a free account, you gain access to proven subscription forms for increasing email signups and advanced segmentation options to enhance campaign effectiveness. But don’t just take my word for it—experience it firsthand!
2. Give People Incentives to Sign Up
Once you’ve selected an email marketing platform, the next step is to implement a method for collecting emails on your website. However, before doing so, you must offer visitors a compelling reason to sign up and provide their email addresses.
Merely presenting a basic email signup form with a generic message like “Sign up to our email list to receive our latest content” is unlikely to yield high conversion rates. People need an incentive to share their email addresses.
One effective strategy is to create a lead magnet—a valuable offering that motivates visitors to sign up. Here are some ideas for lead magnets:
– A free eBook
– A checklist outlining key steps from a blog post
– A downloadable PDF version of a blog post or case study
– A cheat sheet summarizing important information
– A coupon for discounts or special offers
– Registration for a webinar
– Access to a template or worksheet
– Enrollment in a free course or email series
By offering a compelling lead magnet, you can significantly increase the likelihood of visitors subscribing to your email list.
3. Create Pop-Ups For Your Website
While pop-ups are often associated with annoyance, they can be incredibly effective in list building when implemented thoughtfully and with a clear purpose.
A crucial tip to remember is to prioritize user experience when designing your pop-up forms. This means ensuring that your pop-ups are relevant and appear at appropriate times.
There are several strategies for using pop-ups effectively. For instance, you can implement a “surprise” pop-up box that appears after a user has spent some time on the page or engaged with the content by scrolling. This pop-up could offer a discount for their first purchase or another enticing incentive.
4. Craft CTAs For Your Website/Landing Page
It’s unrealistic to expect individuals to actively seek out ways to join your email list. Therefore, it’s essential to offer them multiple opportunities to subscribe through your content or website.
To effectively build an email list, you must have a well-defined workflow strategy in place. This involves creating a user flow design that outlines each step of the process, from the acquisition channel for traffic to the lead magnet used, all the way to the welcome email and subsequent sequences deployed. This approach facilitates testing different strategies and benchmarking their effectiveness.
If your digital marketing strategy includes content marketing, then leveraging your content to grow your list is imperative. After all, having valuable resources for your audience presents an excellent opportunity to capture email subscribers.
5. Create A High-Converting Landing Page
When starting from zero to grow your email list, it’s wise to explore avenues beyond just your homepage. One effective strategy is to create dedicated landing pages directly linked to your LinkedIn ads, Facebook ads, and other platforms.
For instance, if you’re promoting free shipping, an exclusive offer, or a limited-time sale, directing users to a dedicated landing page is far more effective than sending them to your homepage, where they might get lost in navigation.
6. Leverage Your Social Media Accounts
Social media platforms serve as powerful tools for accelerating the growth of your email list. If your business is active in social media marketing alongside email marketing, leveraging these channels becomes imperative.
Firstly, integrating a sign-up button or opt-in form on your Facebook page can significantly enhance your lead generation efforts. This straightforward approach is particularly beneficial for businesses starting out.
Additionally, launching a social media campaign urging your followers to subscribe to your newsletter can yield substantial results. Given the vast reach and visibility offered by social media platforms, regardless of the size of your business, this strategy holds immense value.
Moreover, social media platforms can be harnessed for advertising purposes. Running ad campaigns that offer exclusive discounts and coupons to subscribers can effectively incentivize sign-ups.
Platforms like Facebook provide the option to run Lead Ads, streamlining the process by enabling in-platform form submissions that are mobile-friendly and eliminate the need for a separate landing page.
Lastly, as we’ll delve into in the subsequent tactics, social media serves as an excellent platform for promoting contests and giveaways, thereby extending their reach and maximizing participation.
Estimated percentage of new subscribers: 15%
7. Run A Viral Contest
A viral contest incentivizes participants to share it in exchange for bonus entries, typically rewarding referrals who subsequently sign up for the contest with extra entries. Each participant is required to provide their email upon signing up, making this an effective technique for building your email list.
This approach is particularly advantageous as it leverages participants to spread the word about your contest, essentially outsourcing your marketing efforts while simultaneously encouraging sign-ups.
But the benefits don’t end there. Viral contests also foster the creation of user-generated content (UGC). UGC, characterized by its authenticity and originality, enhances brand trust and fosters deeper connections with potential customers.
Ultimately, this leads to an increase in sign-ups, with a portion of these new subscribers likely converting into customers. Therefore, by incorporating UGC, you reap a twofold benefit.
Estimated percentage of new subscribers: 35%
8. Manually Reach Out To Your Personal Contacts
Another strategy for growing your email list is to tap into your personal network of contacts. It’s likely that among your contacts, there are individuals who would be interested in signing up. Send out an email informing them about your new email list and highlight the benefits of subscribing.
Encourage them to spread the word by sharing the news with their own network of contacts.
Similarly, if you have an existing user base for your product but haven’t yet established an email list for content promotion, reach out to your users. Inquire if they would like to receive emails featuring your latest and most valuable content.
Estimated percentage of new subscribers: 80%
9. Create A Referral Program For New Signups
Harnessing the power of your existing customers to spread the word about your brand can significantly accelerate the growth of your email list.
Personal recommendations from friends carry significant weight and can persuade individuals to join your list and place trust in your brand, ultimately leading to purchases.
Implementing a well-crafted referral program for new subscribers is essential. This allows satisfied customers to share their positive experiences with others and incentivizes them to do so. By offering additional benefits such as discounts, special offers, or redeemable rewards, you provide added value and motivation for participation.
Referral programs are a popular and effective tool in eCommerce for building a loyal and engaged subscriber base. Fortunately, there are numerous user-friendly tools available, such as ReferralCandy, Tapfiliate, and Partnerstack, that streamline the process and require minimal technical expertise.
Estimated percentage of new subscribers: 30%
10. Grow Your Email List with an Exciting Giveaway
Contests and giveaways remain a potent strategy for eCommerce stores seeking to expand their email subscriber base rapidly. Their effectiveness lies in their ability to generate buzz quickly, resulting in a surge of email contacts within a short timeframe.
This is particularly evident when leveraging social media platforms like Facebook or Instagram, which offer broad reach and affordable advertising options.
However, a crucial aspect to remember when organizing a giveaway is to ensure that the prize aligns directly with your target audience’s interests and preferences. By offering a relevant prize, you not only attract more subscribers to your email list but also capture qualified leads, which are vital for sustained business growth.
Takeaway
Creating an email list from scratch is a gradual process that requires patience and persistence. Yet, by implementing the straightforward and impactful strategies outlined above, you can accelerate the growth of your new email list significantly.
While certain methods may yield better results than others, the key lies in combining multiple tactics to achieve optimal outcomes for your business.
As you gain familiarity with these foundational techniques for building an email list, you can progressively explore more advanced strategies such as webinars and podcasts to further enhance your subscriber base.
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