Last updated - January 9, 2023
Emails are well and truly one of the most important marketing channels for companies in the digital sphere. They’ve been around for decades and are still one of the most efficient and better ways to reach out to an audience. With habits changing (close to 81% of emails will be opened on mobile phones), emails have evolved but remain relevant. It is important for businesses to know how to build an email list.
As an e-commerce business, having a good list of email recipients to share your emails is crucial, as they are the ones who bring in your revenue. They will interact more than once with your brand and return, thus giving you a steady source of income or a substantial recurring amount. There are 3.9 billion emails, going to show how big the market is.
An important facet of making emails is to build a robust list that enables you to segregate your audience. Based on behavior, coupled with a strong email service provider, you’ll be able to hit your target audience with relevant emails at the right time, thus increasing the chances of a click and open.
If you’re still on the fence regarding the service provider you’d like to use, we’ve simplified it by comparing ConvertKit and Mailchimp which are two of the best. Also check out SendX if you are looking for something affordable. When it comes to list building, a reliable provider will ensure your emails are designed and structured well and help you filter out fake leads and uninterested ones, so do take time to research.
We’ve created a list of techniques that could help you get the sales you want, consistently over a long period, so take a look and choose the ones that work. Also, if you have suggestions for better techniques, do let us know in the comments below!
What is List Building?
How does one make a sale? By selling the right product at the right time. In today’s digitally dominated marketing world, a mix of great content and data can be the key to selling. Customers are always looking for something different that can attract their attention.
List building pertains to building a substantial list of customers who have a high affinity to buy through email marketing. These customers are in the market for a specific product, and this can be gauged via their online behavior. Building a list of relevant customers means you have a higher chance of selling to them and also ensuring they are recurring buyers over time.
While selling, list building is generally done by collecting email IDs of the visitors on your site. Once they enter the same, you collect it in a database and then analyze their behavior on the site – what are they browsing, how many products they are purchasing, how often do they stay on a page, etc. and this makes it simpler to segregate them.
Why Should You Own Your Audience?
Email marketing is one of the best ways you can get a return on investment. The numbers are pretty impactful – for every $1 you spend you can receive a return of up to $44 so that in itself is a 4,400% ROI!
Also, by reaching out over email, you are targeting your audience via a channel where they are always available. Social media marketing requires you to be dependent on the channel’s targeting capabilities that can change according to the trend at the moment.
Email marketing ensures your audience’s contact details are rigid and not dependent on other dynamic factors. It’s also a polite way to reach out to them and see if they’re interested in taking a transaction further. It’s an easier channel to sell, owing to the dynamism with which you can create emails and also a fun way to try out different materials until you find one that sells well.
Basic Prerequisites For Building An Engaging Email List
To create an engaging email list, you need to have a few prerequisites satisfied. These are a sort of checkbox for you to constantly mull over and remind yourself why you’re building the list to sell:
- Relevant Traffic – You will find it hard to sell a skateboard to a 60-year old, wouldn’t you? That’s why knowing your target audience is absolutely crucial in getting consistent sales. If you can zero-in on the best audience for your products and services, you’ll be able to not just sell, but remain at the top of your consumer’s mind with regards to your category.
- Optimized website – Imagine putting all that hard work to find out that your website isn’t optimized. It can lead to a lot of wasted money and effort, hampering your revenue. A good CRO or Conversion Rate Optimization ensures that your website is continuously attracting audiences on other media, so your leads can be captured effectively.
- Lead capturing tools – The final prerequisite is an excellent lead-capturing tool. It allows you to sell to your audience by completing the crucial first step – receiving their email IDs. Lead capturing tools make it easier for them to provide their Email IDs, and these can be done in many ways. These include pop-ups that appear once they spend a certain amount of time on your site, landing pages that provide discounts as soon as they enter your website and other forms they can fill out at their own pace.
Actionable Techniques To Start Owning Your Audience
Once you’ve got your prerequisites in place, it’s time to sell! Building a healthy email list that allows you to sell makes life so much easier and brings in that much-needed revenue to grow your business.
Here are five techniques you could use to grow:
Provide something of real value to the customer
When you’re collecting Email IDs, you need to tell your customers why you’re obtaining them. They are trusting you with their emails, so you need to give them something that is of real value. Spam or boring emails can be detrimental, so provide them with the information that they are truly there for.
In your initial selling days, building trust is an absolute must. You can provide them with freebies on the signing page, with lines such as – “Sign up now and get a free supplementary course or a coupon discount on your first purchase…”
This makes it easier for them to trust you and thus provide their email IDs for you to build your list with.
Personalize when possible
The great part about emailer automation is that it has made it simpler for you to directly use the recipient’s name for advertising your company and its products. Addressing your audience members by their name, i.e., personalizing your emails, leads to 41% click-through rates, so you should try using this technique.
Also, addressing them via names forms a certain personal connection with your audience, allowing you to advertise better. They will remember that you took the effort to address them personally, and this will lead to a higher chance of purchasing or interacting.
Allow subscribers to opt-out (or in)
By allowing your subscribers to opt-out of your email list, you give them the impression that you respect their subscription. Once they opt-in or out, you can then know for sure that they have a genuine interest in what you’re selling and thus add them to a list of “higher-affinity” buyers.
Opting-out or in is a common option because many customers don’t like being targeted with bombarding sales emails, so they need to know what they’re in for. With this option, they can choose whether or not to be a part of the exercise and make it simpler for you as well to build your list.
Use relevant software
There are plenty of software’s’ you can tap into to increase the quality and number of leads. This includes Qualaroo – a popular extension for websites. What it does is that it allows you to customize certain settings that lure the customer into providing their email. The software understood that people were interested in the content of a website, as they would search via keywords.
It gradually allows the user to subscribe by giving them the time to breathe on the site before asking their details. The tool is intuitive and understands when customers would like to enter details and only does so then. By using the tool, you can capture the right audience who are also interested in your content or products and proceed to sell better.
Confirm the subscription
Customers like it when they know what they’re opting into. When you allow a customer to log in to your site, you must also confirm their subscription. This will enable the customer to at least validate their credentials and know that you will be sending them certain content regularly.
From a selling perspective, it keeps them informed about your company and products. If they don’t remember signing-in, you’ll be in trouble because they will immediately opt-out. Ensure you send this confirmation email to continue growing your list.
Conclusion
Thus, finding out the right audience members and using their email IDs to build your list makes it simpler for you to sell. Customers with a higher affinity to purchase translate to better revenues, and this is all you need to grow a business on digital.
Also, it’s essential that you have a great email service provider as they are the ones responsible for doing all the automated work. We’ve got a list of some fantastic alternatives to Mailchimp, and you can use them to get started with your list building exercises. Give it some time, experiment, and you’ll begin seeing the results of your analytical and content work.
Good luck!
