5 Proven Email List Building Tips For Small Businesses
Numerous studies have confirmed that email beats out every other form of online marketing in terms of ROI.
According to the Direct Marketing Association, email has an ROI of $40 for every $1 spent. Organic search nor paid advertising cannot make such a claim.
Email list building is a proven method for growing small businesses for the following reasons:
- It is an inexpensive but effective strategy to grow your small business
- It allows you to Inform your audience using a medium that almost everyone checks daily
- It provides a low cost medium to deliver a personalized message to a targeted audience
- It helps you convert prospects into customers and grow your revenue
Here are 5 proven email list building tips every small business should consider:
Provide lead magnets using compelling content
Lead magnets provide potential customers with a valuable offer in exchange for information (usually their name and email address). Examples of lead magnets are discount coupons, free ebooks, whitepapers, video training or podcasts. By providing someone you believe they will value, you increase the chance of a higher click-through rate (CTR).Promotions and contests
Everyone likes to win something in a contest, especially when entry in nothing more than a decision to share an email address. The better you know your audience, the easier it will be to decide on what will motivate them. For example, if you sell auto parts, an auto enthusiast may provide their email address to win a free car cover in which they need to correctly identify the model year of rare cars in a photo gallery.Free Trial Offers
Another offer many service businesses use is the free trial. Giving away a trial service for a short period of time is a great way to introduce your service to a potential customer (allowing them to “kick the tires”) before making a commitment to purchase.High-Converting Landing Pages and Popups
Landing pages on pages on a website designed to capture visitor information like name and email address via a Call-To-Action (“CTA”) like one of the above tactics mentioned earlier in this article. A lot of thought should be given to the design of the CTA and associated landing page to ensure it is enticing and simple for a visitor to see, acknowledge as valuable, and then clickthrough.
Popups have garnered a negative reputation for being intrusive, but websites use them for a very simple reason: Pop-ups have a very high conversion rate. We have all visited websites which pummel the visitor with so many popups that they exit the page out of sheer frustration or annoyance. However, as long as they are cleverly designed and not overused or abused, they can be very effective in converting a visitor to the next stage of the sales funnel.
Add social media sharing options in your emails
Adding links to your social media accounts like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and Pinterest is a smart move as social media is an extremely valuable tool for promoting your marketing content. Using social media sharing will give you tremendous exposure to many more potential customers beyond your email list.
In addition, using topic-relevant hashtags on Twitter to further broaden your reach to others with similar interests.
Remember, the objective here is much more than just building and growing an email list. It’s about building a relationship with the people on your list.
The money isn’t in the list as much as it is in the relationship that you have with those people. So many small businesses build a mailing list and then ignore it. You must build a list and cultivate it with high-value emails, exclusive offers, valuable and relevant information. Then personalize it and begin the process of building trust, authority and credibility with your targeted audience.
