How to Build an Email List Online and Off
The importance of learning how to build an email list in
order to market your business cannot be emphasized enough. However, the process
of doing so can seem daunting. How do you get customers to subscribe to your
list? What if your business is primarily offline? There’s no need to fear! By
using specific strategies for both online and offline email list generation
everyone can build their email subscriptions without too much investment in
terms of time or money.
How to build an email
list on your website
Your company’s website is your first and best asset in
building an email list and it all starts with getting good email management
software such as Constant Contact, Mail Chimp, or GetResponse. These programs
will automatically generate HTML code for you to embed in your site that will
lead users to a sign-up form for your newsletter, but that’s just the start.
You must also consider how to get them to actually do this:
·
Placement:
Where you put the signup form is important. It should be prominent. It should
be on your main page as well as on several, if not all, auxiliary pages. It
should also be at the top of the page, eliminating the need to scroll down to
see it.
·
Incentive:
Having a sign-up form is one thing, making people want to sign up with it is another. Therefore, give them something
for taking the time out to give you information. This is content marketing at
its finest. Provide a white paper, coupon, contest, or special promotion to
newsletter subscribers.
How to build an email
list offline
For businesses with brick-and-mortar operations, much of
their client contact may come offline; but online presence is still important. In
fact, face-to-face contact simply provides additional opportunities to gather
email information. Here’s two great ideas:
·
Register
at checkout: Many retailers ask customers to digitally or manually enter
email information when they check out at their register. Like online
registration, many customers will respond to these prompts in exchange for the
promise of “valuable coupons” for their next visit.
·
Advertise
your online presence: In addition to asking for customers’ online
information, provide your own. In-person customers may not know of your website
or newsletter, so make sure your web address is prominently displayed on all
printed material.
Learning how to build an email list can seem tough at first.
Companies that are new to online relationship management may be overwhelmed and
startups may not know where to focus. The good news is that opportunities to
gather email addresses present themselves all the time, both online and
offline, and leveraging these opportunities is all one needs to do.
