The best time to build and grow your email subscriber list is NOW.
If you’re new to email list building, or if it’s something you haven’t given much thought to, don’t feel intimidated. An email list is critical to growing any business and it is something that will continue to be around for years to come. It is a collection of email addresses that a business or individual gathers from customers, clients, prospects, or website visitors. These email addresses are used to send targeted and personalized marketing messages, newsletters, promotions, or updates about your business. No matter where you are in your marketing strategy, there’s never a wrong time to start growing this list. So, let’s get started.
Too many times, business owners underestimate the power of building and growing their email subscriber list.
Every single brand starts with a list of 0 and grows from there.
Unlike social media, where the rules of engagement are constantly changing with algorithm updates, your email list is something you can control. It offers direct access to your engaged audience. Your email subscriber list is something you own, which gives you the ability to communicate with your subscribers whenever and however you want. And you can do this without having to pay for advertising or without going through a 3rd party. Buying an email list is never a good idea. Doing this will not guarantee the validity of those contacts, regardless of what they tell you. The main purpose of building an email list is to increase the number of potential leads to help convert them into loyal customers.
The best way to build and grow your email subscriber list is gradual and over time.
When it comes to email marketing, slow and steady definitely wins the race. And consistency is KEY. Like many things in life, growing an email list requires consistency. It’s never a one and done marketing strategy. There’s no point in building an email list if you’re not going to share content consistently and make it valuable. People are busy and their attention spans are low, so be sure the content you are sending is worthwhile. Consistently sharing valuable content and resources is one the easiest ways to build and grow your email subscriber list. It also helps to promote your business. It’s important to take an “always be promoting” attitude. Promoting your business is the best way to get your target audience to subscribe.
Email lists play a crucial role in email marketing as they allow you to:
- Build and maintain relationships with your audience.
- Drive customer engagement
- Increase sales and/or conversions
Your lists can be segmented based on various factors of your target audience such as demographics, interests, or purchasing behavior to tailor the content to specific groups. This results in more relevant and effective marketing campaigns. Email lists decline over time. People change their email address, change jobs, get locked out of their account, or ultimately just stop opening their emails. This is why it is SO important to always be growing your email list. That way, you’re consistently adding new subscribers to replace the ones you lose.
Your email list is your most valuable asset.
Let’s dive a little deeper into the reasons why businesses SHOULD BUILD and grow their email subscriber list.
- Cost-effective marketing: Once you’ve built your list, the cost of sending emails is minimal compared to the increasing cost of digital ads. This helps you reach a wide audience without breaking the bank. Cost-effective marketing is a way to achieve desired results while using the least amount of money. It’s not just about finding cheap marketing strategies, but rather maximizing the return on investment (ROI) and email marketing is a great way to do that.
- Personalized communication: Personalized communication is a strategy that involves tailoring messaging or interactions to a specific individual or group based on their preferences. Unlike ads, emails allow you to tailor messages based on your audience’s interests, demographics, and behavior. The goal is to make the recipient feel special and important, and to create a more meaningful and relevant experience. You can also automate emails to be sent at specific times, driving higher engagement rates.
- Complete ownership of your audience: When you have ownership of your audience, you can build relationships on your own terms, through a platform you control. Algorithms can limit your reach on social media, but when you build and grow your email subscriber list it ensures mostly unrestricted access. You can control content distribution, so your messages aren’t lost or filtered out by a third-party platform. You can also control the content, own the data, build a loyal audience, and communicate directly.
- Better targeting capabilities: With emails, you can create target campaigns, such as special offers to your most loyal clients and customers. This precision ensures that your messages reach the right people, increasing the chance of conversion.
- Stronger customer relationship: You can build trust and keep your brand top-of-mind through regular email communication. When your email marketing delivers value through informative content, exclusive offers, and timely updates, it creates positive and ongoing dialogue with customers. Strong customer relationships are important for businesses, especially product or service providers, and can lead to increased sales.
So now that we know the why, let’s talk about the how.
Convincing your audience and viewers to give you their email address during their first visit to your site is easier than convincing them to make a purchase. To build and grow your email subscriber list and generate sales, you need to focus on these three priorities: quality, relevance, and quantity.
- Quality: Get accurate and true information from real people. Like mentioned before, do NOT buy email lists. Bots, spam accounts, and abandoned email addresses do not make purchases.
- Relevance: It’s hard enough to convert prospects who already want what you’re selling. When you look to build and grow your email subscriber list, only target people who are genuinely interested in your products or services. Otherwise, you’ll see leads unsubscribe as quickly as they joined.
- Quantity: Once you’ve checked off the first two priorities, you can start focusing on growing your email list and expanding your reach to include a new and/or wider audience.
Here are some “How To’s” to build an email list for your business.
Add a signup button to your social media platforms.
People follow brands on social media for many reasons, including to stay up to date on new products. By adding an option on your Facebook, Instagram, and other social media accounts to sign up for email updates, you can give your followers or your target audience another way to stay in the know while pulling them into more personalized email nurturing campaigns.
Most social media platforms support buttons or forms, enabling you to add a simple email signup option to your page. For example, you could include a CTA (call-to-action) button on your Facebook page to encourage your audience to sign up. Or you can add a link to the email subscription page of your website on your Instagram story.
Include a newsletter signup option at checkout.
Many business owners neglect their checkout page as a marketing tool; after all they’ve already secured the customer. Yet the buyer’s customer journey doesn’t end with a single transaction. Many customers opt to complete their purchase without creating an account limiting your future interactions to messages about their transaction. By encouraging users to sign up for your email list at checkout, you can turn a single transaction into a loyal and repeat customer.
Adding a checkout email subscription signup option can be as simple as including a checkbox under the field customers are using to provide an email for their order confirmation. Be specific about the value buyers will receive, whether it’s email-exclusive discounts, how-to content, or updates about new products. You can also include an email subscription pop up on your purchase confirmation screen to take your checkout CTA to the next level.
Include an opt-in form on your site’s navigation bar.
One key to build and grow your email subscriber list is giving visitors ample chances. That’s why in addition to a homepage or product or service page, you should consider adding an email signup form across the page on your website. Most website platforms enable you to place these forms in locations where visitors look for additional information about your business, including the margins and navigation bar.
Building an email list is the best way to build a relationship with potential customers in an intimate way. You’re not just a status update that’s there and gone; you’re right in someone’s inbox, where they receive other important information. Along with that, it provides a direct communication channel, allowing senders to reach their audience with targeted information. Email lists are valuable tools for building and maintaining connections, fostering engagement, and keeping subscribers informed about relevant news, products and services.
