One of the most effective online marketing methods continues to be email marketing. You constantly hear about the importance of building an email list – because the money is in the list.
This is true, as long as you focus on building it with quality subscribers and deliver to them exactly what you promised to them at the time of opting into your list. A large list is useless unless you are in-boxing your recipients and achieving a high open rate.
There are countless options when it comes to selecting an email service provider. Here are some options for those looking to get started and need an email marketing platform — or to switch over to a better performing (in-boxing) solution:
- Market Hero (**Recommended**)
- Drip
- Constant Contact
- Mailchimp
- AWeber
- Active Campaign
- Infusionsoft
- GetResponse
- ZoHo Campaigns
- Pardot
- HubSpot
- ClickFunnels
- Ontraport
- Benchmark
- iContact
Below you will find some tips from experienced email list builders. They have all successfully built highly targeted lists of more than 50,000 subscribers. These are their suggestions to help you find success with email marketing and build a highly profitable email list for your business.
Give your subscribers a reason to join your list.
“At the risk of sounding trite, to grow a big email list, you need to give people a reason to want to sign up for your email. Sometimes, at the far end of the content-quality perspective, that could mean you simply write really awesome articles, and people naturally want to read them right away. That’s the case with a blog like WaitButWhy.
On the other side of the spectrum, you have a purer form of value transfer. This is the case with most e-commerce sites who give you a discount on your order if you sign up for their list. Unfortunately, there’s not a one-size-fits-all answer here, other than the fact that you should deeply know your audience and their motivations, and then fit an offer or exchange of value that maps to those motivations and makes them want to sign up.” — Alex Birkett, Sr Growth Marketer at HubSpot
Create lead magnets that are impossible to pass up.
Rather than just throwing up a generic opt-in form and asking people to join your email list (they won’t), you need to create a lead magnet that is impossible for them to pass up. What you offer will depend on your industry, how much information you are asking for and who your target email lead is.
It’s important to give them a good reason to say “yes” when they come across your offer.
If you are just asking for an email address and no other personal information you can get away with eBooks, downloadable case studies, access to gated content, etc. But, if you are collecting long-form leads you are going to have to increase the perceived value in order to entice prospects. Put yourself in the shoes of your target and ask, “What would I consider to be value impossible to turn away if all I had to do was hand over my email address?”
Use offer-specific landing pages to capture emails.
Most websites have email opt-in forms placed in different areas, from within their blog content to sitting idle in their sidebar. Sure, you might attract some subscribers this way, but for better results you should create offer-specific landing pages.
Assume you are giving away a downloadable case study — you would want to direct your traffic to a landing page that described the value you are giving away, with all other distractions removed. You want your visitors to see the offer and give it their complete focus. You can even take it a step further and remove your navigation menus on your offer pages, which gives visitors two options — opt-in or leave.
It’s also important you use visuals, even if it’s just a mock-up cover of an eBook or case study. You will experience a much higher conversion rate using a visual of the offer than if you just explained it using text.
Prioritize your list building and be extremely aggressive.
“We’ve marketed to email lists to over 300,000 people. Here’s a few tips which we used to gain those subscribers:
To be successful in building an email list you need to prioritize gathering emails over everything and pursue that goal aggressively. As an e-commerce company it can sometimes be hard to sacrifice sales for something else, but when it comes to building your emails, this is something you have to do. You just need to be safe in the knowledge that any revenue you may miss out on at first, you’ll more than make up on through emails later. It’s a long-term investment.
Use every tool you have — your website, social media, blog — everything. On-site, entry pop-ups are an excellent way to grab attention. Add a little incentive (such as a small discount) to a pop-up with a sign-up form, and you’ll immediately start to see your subscribers start to stack up.
This same method can be used on your blog, with gated content that can be accessed only to email subscribers. Create a mini-funnel by writing entry-level blogs to attract people, and then offering more in-depth content to those who sign up.
Building an email list is all about cross-promotion, drive all sources of traffic towards your email and later you can use your emails to promote everything else.” — Jordan Harling, Chief Digital Strategist at Blinds Direct
Image: PEXELS
