Hey, I’m Michael Culp, and today I’m going to give you five tips to build your email list. But, before we get started, why should you think about building an email list?
It’s simple; according to Litmus, email marketing generates $36 for every $1 spent. So how’s that for ROI?
Now that you know your potential with email let’s get into the specifics.
1 – GIVE INCENTIVES
The number one way to build your email list is by creating an opt-in, a lead magnet, or a freebie. The idea is that you’re giving away something for free in exchange for someone’s email address.
Just a thought experiment, if a stranger went up to you in real life and asked for your email or phone number, you probably wouldn’t give it to them. But if that stranger walked up to you and said: “Hey, if you give me your email, I’ll give you a gift,” You’d probably say yes.
So, keep that in mind when you’re building your list. You want to offer a good incentive for someone to give their email address. It has to be appealing to them.
Your lead magnet or a freebie can be a pdf guide, a free video training, a cheat sheet, or a quiz; the options are many if you are creative. Regardless of your lead-magnet type, you should ensure that it’s something your audience wants.
2 – CHOOSE AN EMAIL MARKETING SOFTWARE
Once you’ve created your lead magnet, the next thing you need to do is to send it automatically. Just think, it would be a mess if you had to send the lead magnets one by one.
So, you need to choose an email marketing software to store your contacts and send your lead magnet automatically.
A very common email marketing software that a lot of people use, especially beginners who are on a budget, is Mailchimp. But there are also other great email marketing platforms like Convert Kit, Drip, Aweber, and Get Response.
3 – GET TRAFFIC
If no one sees your lead magnet, they will not opt-in to your list. So, the next step is to generate traffic to your offer. There are three main ways to get traffic: free traffic, paid traffic, and partnership traffic. Each has advantages and disadvantages.
Free traffic takes more time because you need to grow your audience, but you’re set once you have an audience. Youtube, SEO, and social media are all forms of free traffic.
Paid traffic is also great because you can create a lead magnet in the morning, put up an ad in the afternoon and wake up the next day with many new leads. The disadvantage is that you need money to invest upfront.
Partnership marketing is when you take advantage of other people’s audiences. You can do it by finding affiliate marketers to promote your offer through affiliate marketing. You can guest post on other people’s blogs. You can do it by reaching out to influencers and asking them to promote your request. The options are many if you are creative.
4 – TAKE ADVANTAGE OF INFLUENCER MARKETING
The power of influencer marketing is that it’s easy to influence people someone already influences. Therefore, influencer marketing focuses on using influencers to drive your message to the target market.
So, think about how you can provide value to an influencer and ask if they can share your lead magnet with their audience in exchange. With influencer marketing, you can achieve results very fast.
In the words of Joe Sanfilippo, Manager at Today’s Business:
“One great way to build your email list is to utilize influencer giveaways. For example, at my marketing agency, Today’s Business, we had 2x Super Bowl Champion Chris Hogan give away a signed football on his Instagram story. To enter the giveaway, you had to swipe up to a landing page and provide your email address. We acquired over 1,000 emails in one day with this tactic!”
5 – MAKE CTA’s IN YOUR CONTENT
You have your lead magnet, email marketing software, and distribution channel. Now you need to provide your audience with various options to opt-in. You do that by making calls to action throughout your content.
For example, if you’re using Youtube, you need to put your lead magnet in the description of the video if it’s relevant, and in the video, you can say that if they liked the content, they could download the resource that is in the description.
You can put a CTA at the end of each blog post on your website, offering your resource and inviting them to your mailing list. You can even use software that detects when people are about to leave your website to make a pop-up appear offering the lead magnet.
CONCLUSION
An email list is an important asset that most businesses need to have, and today you learned five tips to build an email list. To recap:
1 – Give Incentives.
2 – Choose an email marketing software.
3 – Get traffic.
4 – Take advantage of influencer marketing
5 – Make CTA’s in your content.
AUTHOR BIO
Michael Culp is a Business Master’s Student and founder at ambitionyard.com. He is a business enthusiast, and on his site, he teaches the best ways to make money online.
