This guide gives you proven strategies for capturing emails on your website to build a strong email list.
While social media and text messaging have grown in popularity over the years, email still reigns supreme, representing the most convenient and profitable communication channel for any business.
What You’ll Learn:
- What is an Email List?
- Why is Email Marketing Effective?
- Getting Started: How to Collect Emails on Your Website
- How to Use Your Email List for Marketing
What is an Email List?
If you’ve ever subscribed to a newsletter in order to receive weekly emails, then you’ve been added to the mailing list of that specific website.
Essentially, an email list consists of a collection of email addresses that is used by either an individual or an organization to send marketing material to multiple recipients. These users have voluntarily signed up on your website to receive regular updates from your business in a newsletter or special announcement format.
In the simplest terms, an email list refers to the total number of subscribers you have.
Why is Email Marketing Effective?
Let’s let the numbers speak for themselves.
- Nearly 90% of business professionals prefer to use email as a communication medium over anything else.
- According to the Direct Marketing Association, email marketing on average sees a staggering 4,300% return on investment for businesses across the U.S.
- 73% of millennials prefer communication from organizations to come via email.
- 99% of consumers check their email daily.
- 59% of buyers say that marketing emails affect their purchasing decisions.
- Nearly 60% of marketers claim that email is their biggest source of ROI (return on investment).
It’s safe to say that email marketing has many unique advantages over other forms of modern media.
First, it’s one of the easiest ways to reach your customers without having to invest in new technology or software. Each person on your list will receive your email the same way that they would receive a letter in the mail. Email is direct, meaning that there is no need to spend time sifting through pieces of content in your newsfeed to find more information.
Second, email has become a necessity. Most of us can go days or even weeks without checking our social media or video chatting with friends and loved ones. But, we definitely can’t go hours without checking our email.
Third, it’s customizable and can be easily integrated into other marketing tactics. You can create an email around any subject and enhance the campaign with all bells and whistles needed to get the job done.
Fourth, it allows for better targeting. By segmenting your list based on location, interests, etc., you have a better chance of reaching the right people. For example, if you are launching a product in select locations, then email is the ideal solution for reaching subscribers in that specific location.
And lastly, it’s inexpensive. Email marketing allows business owners to reach a large swath of consumers at a rate of just a few cents per message. For smaller businesses, this is a much better alternative than traditional marketing channels like television, radio, or direct mail.
Getting Started: How to Collect Emails on Your Website
While building an email list may sound easy, the reality is you can’t create one from scratch if you don’t have a few other things in place first.
For one, you need to understand your audience.
Who are you targeting? Why are you targeting them? How will they benefit from your product or service? Before you even consider crafting your email list, it’s helpful to have an idea of who these people are.
One way to start is by creating a marketing persona, or a representation of your ideal customer.
Additionally, make sure you have a reliable email service provider that specializes in email delivery. You want to select one that can ensure that your emails won’t be marked as spam and that they’ll successfully reach the inbox of all your subscribers. Here are a few to consider:
Constant Contact
A fan favorite among businesses big and small, Constant Contact is one of the fastest-growing email marketing service providers around. Not only is it user-friendly, but the platform easily lets you send emails, manage subscribers, track analytics, target subscribers, and split test your campaigns.
Mailchimp
Mailchimp is chalk-full of incredible features. Whether you’re a blogger, eCommerce store owner, or a large corporation, Mailchimp can effortlessly connect to your site. Plus, you can choose from plenty of templates spanning landing pages, email campaigns, signup forms, and Facebook ads.
Drip
Drip offers an extensive range of tools to make marketing automation and personalization as easy as possible. They even offer integration for popular website builders including WordPress and WooCommerce. That way, you can easily capture more leads by adding signup forms to your website.
How to Use Your Email List for Marketing
Most people who visit your site are not ready to make a purchase right off the bat. In fact, 92% of consumers aren’t ready to buy anything their first time visiting an online retailer. Typically, it’s only during later visits that people begin to trust your brand and eventually become customers.
Since many first-time visitors may be on the fence when browsing your site, you need to find a way to remarket to these people so you can build credibility and therefore, increase the odds of them returning to make a purchase.
One of the best ways to accomplish this is to gather email addresses from website visitors.
If you want to build a solid email list, how are you going to go about collecting email addresses?
More importantly, how will you collect the right email addresses? People that will be future customers and not just contacts?
Here are some of the most common and creative methods you can use to grow your email list.
Launch Popups
When it comes to collecting email addresses, popups are probably the most popular options out there. It’s likely that you’ve encountered them at some point as you wait for a page to load on a site. Their ubiquity across the internet can be attributed mainly to two things—how little effort it takes to set them up and how effective they are.
Create a Blog
This seems like a no-brainer, but blogs are definitely not to be overlooked in your email marketing strategy. In addition to helping you increase your ranking on search engines like Google, blogs allow you to collect blog subscribers that you can then convert to customers by building actionable email campaigns that cater to that audience.
Build Landing Pages
When correctly optimized, a landing page can result in the highest quality email list. You want the user to be tempted enough to sign up for your product or service. After all, a landing page is where you can showcase everything your business has to offer.
Host Webinars
Hosting conferences and seminars can be costly. Plus, not everyone is able to attend an event in person. With webinars, users get to hear you, see you, and interact with you all without having to leave the comfort of their own home. The best part? People usually register for webinars via email, which means your listeners will likely be contacted afterward.
Extend Special Offers or Giveaways
Whether it’s a giveaway or sale, promotions always seem to attract new visitors. Holidays like Mother’s Day, the Fourth of July, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas are ideal times to create social media campaigns that will entice a lot of valuable prospects to sign up for your product or service.
Offer Gated Content
Gated content is a pillar of effective marketing. One surefire way to collect existing customer information and new leads is through useful content like eBooks, whitepapers, and guides that aren’t offered anywhere else on your site. When this content requires that visitors leave their email address, it increases the perception of value.
Ask Subscribers for Feedback
When it comes to how to get an email list, it’s important to keep reviews top of mind. People are typically willing to offer feedback on information that is relevant to them. Certain pages within your site should include a form that directly addresses visitors and asks them what specific questions they might have about your business. Offering a live chat tool that invites questions and email addresses from users who have remained on a certain page for a period of time could also prove to be useful.
Tying it All Together
As you can see, there are various ways you can get an email list for marketing your business. And it turns out that much of your email marketing’s success depends on managing this email list effectively and strategically.
By using the ever-growing list of tactics and innovative methods mentioned above, we have no doubt that you can grow your email list by leaps and bounds.
But keep in mind—it is not just about growing your list. It’s about engaging your subscribers and forging a long-lasting relationship with the people on that list.
