One of the most important aspects of email marketing of course is building your list. The “build list” goal is therefore something that companies and organizations of all shapes and size share, and it’s crucial to your success that you learn the right way to go about getting this done. The good news is that with the right knowledge and preparation, you can succeed with this and all aspects of your email marketing program.
First and foremost, when you’re ready to build a list, you must remember the protocols of permission marketing. What this basically means is that all of the names, addresses and other information you collect is collected with the expressed permission of the individual. This has many important consequences ranging from legality concerns to the effectiveness of your campaign.
While it’s tempting with email marketing to have the biggest list as possible, whether by purchasing a list of names or gathering them randomly from other sources or any other means, it’s simply not going to produce results. These people will have no clue who you are, what you’re about or why they should care. Your messages will be falling on deaf ears, and more often than not you’ll either be deleted immediately or sent to the SPAM box.
Not only does this fail to achieve anything positive, it will also negatively impact all of your campaigns and your overall deliverability rates. Once you start getting tagged excessively with SPAM in your recipient’s inboxes, your reputation suffers and you end up with worse performance across all of your messages. You could even eventually end up blacklisted by the ISPs delivering your emails.
So when it’s build list time, you have to actually collect this information individually and with permission. How can you go about achieving this as successfully as possible? The truth is that as long as you have permission, everything is fair game and you can do just about anything to build your email marketing list.
One of the most common methods for seeing great results is placing a signup form on your website. This will enable all of your visitors to sign up to your list, reaching out to a far wider audience than you would be able to otherwise. There are several important factors with this though, including the form’s placement and integration.
In terms of placement, the sign up form should be at the top of the page and in a prominent location. This is known as above the fold, which means users don’t have to scroll down to see what’s there, it’s what is shown immediately at the top of the browser. The sign up form should also be visible on all pages of your site, as opposed to being stuffed away in the dark corner of one specific sign up page.
Design the form to blend in appropriately with the rest of your site if possible, and remember not to ask too many questions in order for people to register. You want the process to be easy and straightforward, and tests show that with each additional piece of information you ask for, you see decreased results in terms of how many people actually follow through. So make it as basic and straightforward as possible in this regard.
When you really want to check that build list goal off though, do more than just placing a sign up button for your email marketing campaigns on your site. Make people an offer, give them some kind of incentive in order to entice them to sign up. It doesn’t matter what you offer, just offer visitors something they will find of value and make use of. It can be a free eBook or mini report or guide of some kind. It can be access to special subscriber only sales, deals and coupons, or simply exclusive weekly tips and updates or anything else.
Finally, don’t forget that you can grow your email marketing efforts in the offline world as well. Any situation where you interact with clients, prospects, colleagues or any other potentially interested parties is a situation where you can help to build a list. For example, if you have a physical store, place a signup form at the cash register. If you attend conferences and community events, ask for business cards or have a form with you there as well.
This was a basic overview of how to succeed with that build list goal that all businesses and organizations share for email marketing. Remember, it’s all about permission marketing, so be sure to collect your information ethically and appropriately. Use an incentivized sign up form on your website, in a prominent location, and consider going offline as well.
