12 Steps To Build An Effective E-mail List

Let more and more crusaders know about you, your brand and your juicy insights. Nailing the toughest question!

If you’re a business which is at a pivotal point of growth and expansion, you’d know the relevance of an ever-expanding e-mail list. Your subscribers are your most loyal set of audience. They are your mini fans who have the greatest potential to check out your offerings and give you an immediate feedback. Needless to say, they are your priority audience. However, the question which most of us struggle with is how to build up a list you’d send out your most creative, your most inspiring mailers to.

Here’s what we’ve learned:

1. Simply ask them in person

To connect with your audience virtually, you need to tap them in when they visit you in person. This is one of the most basic ways to build your e-mail list. Let them know the benefits of being added to your list — perhaps, offers, discounts and quality content for their benefit. Maintain this list periodically and keep gauging the new additions. It will also benefit you to know which of your customers are responding to your online offers in physical space and how you can make them better.

2. Add a Signup popup on your website

An inevitable pop up on your website is your first step towards building your e-mail list. “Sign up to get 15% discount” or “Sign up to avail our first purchase offer” is a great way to lure your website visitors in submitting their e-mail ids. For content specific websites, you can add an email pop-up urging them to subscribe to “Read More” perhaps. This not just builds your e-mail list but also give you an idea about effective engagement with your audience.

3. Make your content gated

We suggest you to gate some of your content to draw in submissions of email ids. Gated content becomes your exclusive piece which your readers can access only once they become a part of your mailing list. This not only serves the purpose of building your list but also gives your content a premium exclusivity. Use OptinMonster’s Content Lock feature to gate your content.

4. Use contests and giveaways on social media

Social media traction serves the highest benefit when it transfers the traffic to your website. This is why when you host contests and giveaways on your social media platforms, make sure you make submission of their email ids mandatory.

5. Put up a Sign-up form on your Facebook page

If your audience loves you on Facebook, chances are they’ll love to hear from you in your inboxes too. However, if they don’t see an option to join your newsletter, how would you ever take your relationship to the next level?

Use this app to create an option for your audience to “Join your Newsletter”.

6. Collect through Guest wifi

Guest Wi-Fis are an excellent way to gain email ids and build up your mailing list. With the help of wifi management providers you can get your customers to provide their email ids as soon as they connect to your free wifi.

“One of the first things we did was to start collecting email addresses through free wifi” explains Manoj Yadav, head of Operations at myHQ. “Whenever someone visits our space and access our free wifi, they get a popup to enter their phone number and email id to avail access. This has definitely been one of the major sources for our mailer list and so far has formed a major chunk of our subscribers.”

7. Use webinars to gather email ids

Webinars and Google Hangouts are an amazing way to not just get into a live chat with your audience but also to gain their e-mail ids for future interactions. Know that people coming through this channel will have a high value to your brand because they have engaged live with you already.

8. Use Social Media ads

If you’re running a business in this time and age, social media promotions must have become a key marketing tool for you by now. This is why when you run ads on Facebook,Instagram or Twitter, you can land your audience to your email sign up page, instead of your website or social media page. This will establish a long term relationship with your facebook audience who are actually interested to know what your brand is upto.

9. Use events, conferences and tradeshows

Use these pivotal moments both offline as well as online to build up your email list. When they register themselves for the event, make sure you get it done through their e-mail ids. Don’t shy away to use conference and tradeshows to collect your audience’s e-mail ids. Let them know of its benefits and how it’ll enable you to reach out to them for more such events.

10. Use answers on Quora, Facebook and forum groups

Keep engaging on groups and forums on internet to keep your brand’s visibility. When you drop your answers to questions related to your industry niche, end the answer by enticing your readers to sign up for more such juicy information/offers through a link landing to your subscribe page.

11. Use your employee’s e-mail id

Your employees interact with a lot of your clients, prospective sources as well as collaborators. Consider adding a link to Signup to your employee’s signature and see your list expand with worthful subscribers. Of course, these are the people who are most interested to know more about you.

11. Give your mails the “exclusive” factor

When you promote your latest launches, news, content as well as offers, let your audience know that those who are subscribed to your mails are the first ones to receive them.

Try curating ‘exclusive’ content in the form of e-books, resources, tools and PDFs to entice your mailing list- which is indirectly your most loyal audience.