Why Generate Your Own Email Marketing List?

Generating your own email marketing list will not only ensure you are complying with the Australian Spam Laws, it will:

• make you appear less annoying
• protect your online reputation
• present new opportunities to grow your list through genuine relationships with real contacts
• lead to stronger business growth.

Your email marketing database will degrade about 23% every year. Email addresses change, people change interests, people abandon their old generic email address, sadly pass away, move, retire, change careers and the list goes on.  So, it is important to keep attracting new fresh contacts to your email marketing campaigns so your database and reach keeps growing.

25 Creative Ways to Build an Amazing Email List

1. Make your content AMAZING! – People will stay subscribed and share your emails if they are entertained. They may even look forward to your emails.
2. Encourage subscribers to share and forward your emails – By law you must include an Unsubscribe link in your email. So, why not include a SUBSCRIBE link too so people who receive forwarded emails can easily opt-in as well.
3. Segment your email list – Make sure the content each contact receives best reflects their interests and buying behaviour. Segmenting your list in your email marketing platform will give you this super power. And offering multiple opt-in lists catering to specific areas of interest will increase the likelihood visitors will subscribe to at least one of them.
4. Reinvigorate your list – More than 60% of your list will get stale. So send out an engaging opt-in message to your older and quieter contacts encouraging them to re-opt-in. Promise to remove all contacts who do not respond, and your marketing list stats just improved remarkably.
5. Hyperlink your email signature – Use this technique to take people to a landing page where they can sign-up for your newsletter.
6. Create a free online tool or resource – The internet was born to make people’s lives easier. So, offering free online training or tools can lead to consistent audience growth.
7. Offer “Bonus” content – Start with a blog post offering a beginner advice on a subject. Then offer “bonus” content with more advanced tips if they submit their email address via a landing page.
8. Push your offers out via Social Media – Offer a free eBook or resource that requires an email address to redeem.
9. Add an Opt-in button to your Facebook Campaign – watch your email marketing list grow exponentially when combined with a good “Like my Page” Facebook campaign.
10. Push your eDM campaigns via social media – Most email marketing platforms will integrate with Facebook and Instagram. Posting your eDM campaign link to both platforms will give non email subscribers an opportunity to get to know you and to choose to subscribe to your communications list.
11. Ask for feedback on your Website pages – Most websites use a single Contact Us form. Ask your website visitors to give you feedback or respond to poll questions on your website pages.
12. Keep your forms short and sweet – Although it’s tempting to find out as much as you can about your subscribers, do not ask to meet their parents on your first date. Scaring people off is the biggest hurdle for new list builders. Don’t be greedy. Giving over their email address is a big step for most people. So reduce your forms to just two or three fields. You can collect more information from them down the track.
13. Keep it simple – Don’t expect people to fish around on your website for offers. Keep your offers up front. The more subscribers can do while in the open email, the better results you will get.
14. Create gated assets – Give people a reason to give you their email address and permission to send them emails. Run webinars, offer eBooks and step-by-step guides or templates. Offer quality lead magnets that people find valuable enough to hand over their email address.
15. Create tools – If you don’t have time to write an eBook, create tools instead, so your website visitors will trade you their email address to gain access. You can then continue to build the relationship by asking them what they thought of the tool you gave them.
16. Guest Blog on other websites – You already know about blogging for your website. But guest blogging on other websites with a call to action that will let readers subscribe to your website’s blog or email newsletter is another way to find new people.
17. Always add customer reviews on your website and landing pages – Social proof goes a long way to creating a trusting relationship with new contacts and subscribers, and adds genuine value for people who are sitting on the fence about handing over their email address. So be sure to add your wonderful reviews to your website.
18. Collect email addresses at a Trade Show – Offline events are a great resource for creating growth for your business and database. Offering a competition form, or an eBook link is a great way to get people to give you their email address, and it shows they have a genuine interest in your business, product or service.
19. Promote gated assets on marketing channels – Let the world know about your assets by promoting them on social media, Google ads and email. If your blog gets 100 views per month, and your visitor-to-lead conversion rate on the blog is 2%, that means you get 2 leads per month from a single blog post.  Now, what if you wrote 20 blogs per month? You would get 40 leads per month. See how it works?
20. Create new and interesting email marketing campaigns – People forward emails to colleagues and friends, so email marketing can legally expand your contact database, especially with your most useful assets. It’s always a good idea to run re-engagement campaigns to those contacts who have gone stale. This will clean your list and prevent the kind of spam and IP issues spoken about in a previous blog.  Old contacts may have forgotten about you, and to reawaken them could actually lead to more sales.
21. Always include sharing buttons on your emails – sharing buttons can work far better for growing your list than social media buttons, because it allows contacts to share your email to their own network via social media and email. So instead of just including a link why not make it a more interactive and noticeable button
22. Add QR codes to physical displays and display ads – QR codes are a great way to take people from a physical marketing tool to information on your website. And, you can collect their email address as their token to pass through.
23. Host an online webinar – Webinars are a perfect way to talk about your business, products and industry. People usually register via email, and because they are interested in your webinar topic, are usually open to being contacted afterwards.
24. Collect emails in store – Offering your regular customers VIP status and discounts is a great way to increase your email marketing database. Loyalty clubs help you to build your email marketing list from people who are already established customers. And, by offering them a discount for loyalty, you are offering them a reason to spend in your store again in the future.
25. Host a co-marketing offer – Collaborating with another business that compliments your own products or services is a great way to grow your email marketing list without worrying about the usual competitive issues. You compliment each other, so your contacts are happy to build a relationship with each of you because your collaboration makes their lives easier too.

Master Rule #6:

Our final rule for our blog series on email marketing and this relates more to growth than following the law….is to always create content of value that is shareable!