Email marketing is one of the most proven and effective ways to market your business. No other channel allows you to reach highly targeted audiences at such a low cost. There are several best practices to follow when trying to increase the success rate of your campaigns, but it all starts with building high-quality email lists.
Building high-quality lists takes dedication and effort, but when approached strategically and ethically, they can be a significant asset to your organization.
Don't Purchase Lists - It can be tempting to quickly and easily increase the size of your email list, but this strategy may do more harm than it's worth. When purchased, the quality of the leads are unknown, which could reduce the success rate of your campaigns. More importantly, there's a higher chance of being reported as spam, which hurts your email deliverability reputation and increases the possibility of future emails ending up in junk folders. Organic growth is the best strategy when it comes to email marketing.
Allow People To Sign Up On Your Website - This is the easiest way to grow your email list because your website is working for you 24/7. Make sure it markets your products and services efficiently and includes calls to action that allow people to sign up for updates/offers/etc. If you don't currently collect emails from your website, you need to do so immediately. The longer you wait, the more opportunities you miss.
Websites often present sign-up opportunities following specific actions, like purchasing a product or submitting a contact form. Make sure you have a dedicated landing page where visitors can sign up as well. Use the landing page URL in your sign up campaigns from other marketing channels such as social media, advertisements, etc.
Collect Emails At The Point Of Sale - We've worked with brick and mortar companies that do a great job collecting emails from customers at the point of sale. When going this route, make sure your employees can adequately communicate the benefits of signing up. If your POS system doesn't accept email addresses, there's nothing wrong with the old signup sheet at the register. Existing customers are ideal subscribers who are more likely to have lasting relationships with your business.
Gather Contact Info At Events - When participating in industry events where you have a booth or presentation area, it's worth putting together a mini-campaign to collect email addresses while there. The attendees are your target audience, so don't miss the opportunity to add them to your engagement campaigns.
Remember that the quality of your list directly affects the success of your campaigns, so don't take shortcuts when it comes to growth. There are many approaches that business owners can strategically and ethically implement to grow email lists.
