Email marketing is an integral part of modern business strategies. Many emphasize its cost efficiency and effects on traffic generation or customer retention. Yet, email marketing can be effective only if the company has a quality email list.
To start with, email address building is the first step the marketers do not to mention that its quality defines the deliverability of the messages. Thus, the question, “How to grow an email list,” seems evident, reflecting the marketing departments’ need for reach and engagement.
Nowadays, digital marketing technologies offer automation and advanced features on social media that salespeople can use to create the list. Except for it, one can rely on proven methods involving landing pages, blogs, and content to improve the marketing strategy.
It does not matter whether you are building your first email list or you are an email marketing guru. This post can give you some insights into email list generation.
Read on to know more about its elements and discover the email list-building strategies that can contribute to your business.
Building an Email Marketing List: What Do You Need
To start with, building an email marketing list is not as easy as it seems. One should have specific tools or places for attracting prospects and getting their emails.
However, some people believe that there is a simple way – buying an email list. For sure, it sounds like a fast and cheap solution. And actually, it is. However, such a move would cost a lot in terms of your reputation, domain rating, and spam rate. It is the least sustainable option you would want to use.
What can marketers use to get more credible email lists?
- Landing page or blog. Both of the places are crucial for engagement, thus, getting an email from a customer. The landing page is where a marketer offers products or services to the prospect. In the blog section, you can provide value, recommendations, or advice. Everything depends on whether you would make the prospect interested enough.
- Social Media. Brands usually use social media to increase brand awareness and do social selling. There, they engage and communicate with prospects as well as get information about them. At the same time, some of them have promotion tools for targeting and implementing email-building strategies.
- Web or mobile apps. Another way is to create a webspace or mobile app to communicate your message and ask for the emails. It can refer to an AR experience or an entertaining app. The goal is to make sure that this experience is worth giving their emails.
However, using these platforms can not be enough. You should know of specific strategies and tricks that will allow you email list generation.
Best Email List Building Strategies
As you already know, building an email list depends on engagement with the prospects. Thus, the email list-building tactics may relate to CTAs, pop-ups, quizzes, lead magnets, or promotions. Each of them contemplates asking for an email via the form.
At the same time, there are also automation tools that allow getting emails only by having a customer’s social media page. They are common in the B2B niche and lead generation business.
Here are some of the effective strategies for creating a new list from scratch:
Opt-in strategies: Lead magnets and appealing CTAs
The most common email-building tactic is the use of lead magnets. One can see how marketing brands use them for growing their email list. Imagine you google “How to start a tech blog,” click the first link and see helpful content.
Next, suppose it is a blog of a product or service company. In that case, the marketers are likely to offer you a “Guide on Starting Your Tech Blog” or design a convincing CTA saying, “Leave your email to subscribe to our newsletter and get more insights.”
This is how opt-in tactics work. Marketers offer something valuable or interesting in exchange for an email.
If you consider B2C brands, they are likely to offer the promo codes from the next purchase for those who register on their websites or leave their email in the form.
Pop-up list building technique
Many consider a pop-up to be a very annoying thing as it avoids the customer browsing the website. However, it seems to work; otherwise, the marketers would have stopped using it. Everything depends on the message, CTA, and the time of the pop-up.
One of the email list-building tactics is to show the pop-up with a CTA offering more content. The best time is to show in the middle or at the end of the post the customer is scrolling.
Why? Interested customers are more likely to give their email if your CTA is relevant to their request.
Thus, you will need to know more about your customers and have high-quality content to attract them. Importantly, you will need to develop a content marketing strategy first to appear in Google, share it on social media, or use paid promotion.
Building email list with social media
Well, many business actors use social media to establish their image. When you do that and have a credible image, you can use social media for sharing content and lead magnets. It is the most common technique to use. You can create pages with quizzes, promotions, or essential guides. What for?
By targeting, you can approach customers with the ads and offer them value. The quizzes can entertain, while promotions or giveaways are likely to become viral and appeal to the reader via gifts.
The guides, recommendations, or catalogs can be your lead magnets, allowing the users to get something new.
Advanced Email List Building Tactics Used By B2B Marketers
Notably, there are some advanced techniques that some B2B businesses use on LinkedIn. The first one refers to applying email scrapers while networking and making a lot of connections.
The more connections you have, the more access you would have to other pages. Next, you can scrape LinkedIn emails of the contacts in your network. Notably, this technique works as well when you search on LinkedIn.
Yet, remember that such tools work with corporate emails and are taken without prior consent. Thus, make sure that people know who you are, comment on the posts, write messages, and avoid being pushy. If you do it weekly, it can result in building an email list with high-quality leads in some months.
Among email list-building strategies, there is one that for sure takes even more effort. Yet, it is likely to bring interested potential customers. What is it about?
The tactic contemplates organizing a digital event, like a webinar or a short course. To make it work, you should ensure that it would be exciting and relevant to the audience. There, you have two options. The first is to make a free event but ask for an email to send a link to the stream.
The second option can result in fewer subscribers. However, they would be highly excited about your content. It involves getting an email in exchange for event materials, additional statistics, or insights. Moreover, for the B2C industry, the same can work but with exclusive materials, personalized offers, or merchandise.
Summing Up
Email list-building strategies can be tedious and time-consuming. It refers to designing a form, CTA, pop-ups, content, and visuals. Moreover, if you decide to do it in a more complex but effective way, it will involve even more preparation.
Of course, some email list generation tools can help you. Yet, the answer to the “How to grow an email list” question is not easy. The more you research and understand your audience, the greater the results would be.
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Sarah Durrani 
