How to Grow your Email List

Posted in Email Marketing | 10 comments

Email marketing, arguably one of the most popular forms of online marketing, generally results in the best leads and greatest amount of returns/sales. Identifying targeted markets for email campaigns and sending out engaging content can increase your sales and establish a larger customer base.

Permission-based email lists are the best bet for your company. Think about how annoyed you are by all that spam and unsolicited email you get every day. Make sure people have requested information from you before you start sending them marketing emails. Growing an email mailing list can be difficult and expensive. You may have to weigh benefits against cost. Here are some options once you decide your business needs to grow its email list.

Online Giveaways

An online giveaway may encourage users to give you their email addresses. Giveaways can be a DVD, a poster, a 20% discount, an eBook, a whitepaper, or something else that offers value to your potential customers. Quite often it only takes a small item to capture contact information. The more valuable the item, however, the more emails you will probably collect.

Create an Online Newsletter

Create an online newsletter that shares information about your company. Have subscribers sign-up with email addresses. Include helpful tips, blog posts, links to resources and possibly targeted ads in your newsletter.

Host Online Webinars or Events

Create a webinar and allow people access if they enter their email address. Depending on the content and marketing of your webinars, many users could tune in. Give value to get value and possibly collect the contact information for hundreds of potential customers.

QR Codes

QR codes in print advertising can work as an email opt-in for certain promotions. This is a really simple email opt-in for your customers. They only need to scan the code with their phone; this is becoming very popular. With these emails you will be able to offer targeted content and promotions right to their mobile devices.

Collect emails from Trade Shows and Networking Events

Trade shows and networking events are great opportunities to collect email addresses – network and exchange business cards with as many people as possible. Your personal or virtual assistant can transcribe these emails into your system or you can use online work-for-hire systems to do the data entry relatively inexpensively. Collecting these emails helps you build your email list using offline sources.

There are a number of ways to build a good email list. Use these options, and more, to grow your list and target a larger market for your products and promotions. Remember, email lists require consistent maintenance. Individuals change emails quite often; it is not unusual for 25% of an email list to be outdated in less than a year. Keeping a list updated and constantly growing will ensure you can use email marketing to its fullest potential.

Need help with your email marketing strategy? Contact Pamela Finnesand, The Business Maximizer, today for your complimentary Business Breakthrough Strategy Session!