Building a Solid Email List
Multiple factors contribute to a successful email marketing strategy, but the first step to gaining any traction with your campaigns is to build a solid email subscriber list. Skilled marketers and seasoned sales representatives will agree that the money is in the quality of your list. Are the subscribers fresh leads? Recurring customers? Buyers, who are ready to take the next step? All of these characteristics play a role in your company's sales and success with each email message.
Our list building strategies listed below focuses on ways to get more subscribers including tips on how to nurture them. Unlike other marketing blogs and guides, we are sharing our 10 best-kept secrets to grow your business and make email marketing your most profitable channel.
First Thing Firsts - Don’t Buy Lists
Though it may be tempting, the emails that you purchase from a third party vendor will not hold the same value of growing your own organic list. Whether you buy subscribers, rent a file, or purchase contact information in bulk, it will end with the same hard bounces, unsubscribes, and lack of engagement. Consumers demand personalization, especially if they're receiving emails to their personal devices.
As a small business, you may be thinking “but how do I get people on my email list?” You may want to take on digital marketing at full speed, but we recommend that you avoid buying subscribers altogether. When you pay for email addresses, you’re not getting any information on what that person likes, what types of products/services they’re searching for, and - most importantly - you’re not told if they’re familiar with your brand.
Each of these elements contributes to an effective and nurturing email marketing strategy. As your new customers are learning about your brand, you want to cater to their interests as much as possible. Segmenting your lists based on how they found you will help you push them to another purchase.
Tip #1: Don’t buy subscribers or rent lists to gain extra email subscribers.
Utilize Free Website Tools & Features
Many marketing agencies will avoid using the word "free" when describing your options, but it's vital that you recognize and implement all resources that you can as you start to build a subscriber list. If you created your website on an open source CMS, these are the free tools you can enable on your site to engage and get more subscribers.
Form Builders
Historically, lightbox forms (also known as popup forms), have helped businesses grow their marketing list. If designed to enhance a user’s experience and to support their journey throughout each page, you can expect to see more sign-ups come through. Additionally, with FireDrum’s free MailMunch Form integration, you can skip the custom coding to make lightbox forms appear on your website. MailMunch has a variety of easy-to-build layouts that you can integrate with a few swift motions. Learn more about the types of forms you can utilize in our blog “Your Guide to Designing Popup Forms."
Tip #2: Add lightbox forms
(Also known as popup forms), throughout various parts of the website to increase your subscribers.)
Placing forms in areas that support your user’s journeys and actions will lead them to the next step - signing up to receive updates and promotions from your team. During this time, you’ll be able to build your brand’s credibility and relationship with each client.
Do you run promotions regularly, or host special events at your store? Consider adding WuFoo Forms to your website. WuFoo is a free online form builder that can be customized to collect additional data about your customers (birthdates, anniversaries, locations, etc.) and can even be set-up to collect Stripe payments. All of this information can easily be imported into your FireDrum Email Marketing account.
Tip #3: Customize your sign-up forms to collect relevant information about your customers, allowing you to nurture their interests.
Types of information worth collecting
- Important Dates: If you request specific dates from your subscribers when they sign-up (think birthdays, anniversaries, sign-up dates, and other milestones), you can push personalized campaigns around big events. Show your customers you care while gently pushing them to make a purchase. If you don’t sell products online, consider designing and sending an email that promotes your users to visit your store, restaurant, or event center.
- Location Information: As a small business, you may want to promote your products/services in a specific area or customize campaigns to cater to a certain level of income. With the location information you request in your sign-up form, you can organize each type of users into relevant lists. This specification will promote more engagement.
Tip #4: If your business is membership or subscription based, adding a “subscribe now” option on your purchase forms can increase your mailing list exponentially.
Your customers have already determined they want to become a member of your brand, but they’ll feel more confident in your products/services and become a life-long member if you nurture them with supportive emails and exclusive offerings.
Opt-In CTA’s at the End of Articles
Utilizing the same free-form builders listed above or by creating a custom HTML form link through our platform, you can call-out your newsletters at the end of each newsworthy article. Users who found your post, engaged with your content, and navigated through the rest of the post have already determined that they like your brand. Highlighting your mailing list at the end of the article is the perfect time to start nurturing them down the funnel.
Tip #5: Add “subscribe now” forms or bold CTA’s leading to a sign-up page after newsworthy articles and blog posts.
Although you may already have a form configured in your footer, adding a form or call-to-action that stands out underneath each article will promote more sign-ups.
A/B Landing Pages
Configuring A/B landing pages may take time depending on what you decide to change from version A, but there are a variety of free tools you can use to enable this feature. Our favorites are listed below.
- https://wordpress.org/plugins/elementor/ and https://instapage.com/ - Create A/B pages with these Free WordPress plugins.
- https://vwo.com/ab-split-test-duration/ and https://www.optimizely.com/ - Track and analyze A/B test interactions with these two tools.
By launching several A/B campaigns for your main landing pages, you can gain valuable insight into how your customers interact with your brand. Test everything from the colors of your buttons to titles and form layout to determine what design promotes the most sign-ups.
Tip #6: A/B test your top landing pages to determine what design promotes the most subscriber sign-ups.
Take Advantage of Information You’ve Already Have on Hand
As a growing business, make sure you’re optimizing and exhausting all channels that involve collecting your customer’s information. You may have to brainstorm ways you already collect customer data with your team, but we’ve listed our top tips for email acquisition below. Health, medical, law, and financial companies may have limitations to accessing and using their customer’s data.
Export Emails from your POS System
If you use a POS system like Square Up, Clover, WooCommerce, or Quickbooks, you can easily access and export information from customers who have previously made a purchase. Once you export these emails into FireDrum's email marketing platform or your choice ESP, create and send a personalized "win-back" campaign. We consider this type of email to be a win-back campaign since it's addressed to someone who didn't directly subscribe to your newsletter.
In your first email, make sure to remind your users that they’ve made a purchase from your company before and highlight reasons why they should make another visit to your store or your online shop.
Add Contacts from your Previous Conversations
We understand - life gets busy. Thankfully, however, email and text history is automatically stored making it easy to revisit old conversations and extract customer emails. Like emails that you may capture from exporting your POS list, you will want to create a win-back campaign that explains how you obtained the customer's emails and reasons why these customers should revisit the store and stay subscribed to your email newsletter.
Tip #7: Export emails from your POS system and previous conversations.
Remind subscribers how they're connected to your brand. Encouraging them to make another visit through a win-back campaign will prove useful.
Offer Free & Exclusive Stuff
Reports from small businesses around the world and email marketing providers show that incentive-based sign-ups take the win 60% of the time. Whether you’re offering a discount when someone subscribes before checkout in-store, of you’re offering free shipping after an online sign-up, continue to push these incentives to get more subscribers.
Depending on your industry and the product or service at hand, your type of incentive may vary. Several ideas are listed below.
- World Market’s 15% off slide-in coupon for your first purchase. After you complete your order, a 10% coupon your next order is automatically sent out.
- West Elm’s 15% off timed coupon for your first online order.
- Fossil’s 25% off exit-intent coupon for your first online or in-store order.
The decision to subscribe to your email newsletter based on an incentive shares a valuable detail - price is an essential factor. To keep these incentive-driven users engaged and investing in your products or services, make sure to send them exclusive offers and a new coupon at least once per month.
Ready to get started?
Tip #8: Push incentives to get more subscribers and offer regular deals that new customers can’t refuse.
To nurture your relationship with these incentive-driven users, continue to provide similar incentives and exclusive membership deals as your relationships continue.
Get the Most Out of Your Social Media Channels
Investing your time into social media can be draining, but will prove highly beneficial as you work to grow your email marketing list. Social platforms can and should be used as lead generation platforms, harvesting and cultivating interested buyers and existing customers.
Increase Email Subscribers Through Contests and Surveys
Creativity is crucial when it comes to engaging your audience. When you're publishing new content, make sure it's eye-capturing. Running an online contest where users have to click a few buttons to submit their answer and email address is highly interactive, increasing the likelihood of a positive experience and exchange of information. If you're unable to provide a contest reward, consider configuring a survey to get your social media readers interested.
Tip #9: When it comes to social media, get creative and incorporate interactive posts that lead back to an email subscribe form.
Offer an Exclusive Discount for Social Media Users
A simple yet commonly ignored list building technique is channel-exclusive offers. Create buzz on all of your networks by posting exclusive coupons, promotional offers, and discount codes specific to that platform. Setting guidelines and exclusions for each platform is optional.
Connect Through Social Sharing
Don’t miss out on cross-posting opportunities by failing to put links on your social media platform, back to your email newsletters, and visa
Tip #10: Cultivate your social media users and email marketing users by cross-posting your company’s newsletters and offering channel-specific discounts and deals.
With your email marketing subscribers slowly increasing and social media base growing, you can double your engagement and increase sales by combining the efforts from both marketing channels.
Start New Subscribers with a Welcome Drip
To get your new subscribers started on the right path, it’s essential that you craft a welcome drip designed to convert. When drafting your campaign, remember that awareness, education, and clearly outlined paths for action will reside well with your customers who strive for that personalized experience.
Email #1 - Awareness
Within 24-hours of a new sign-up, your customers should receive a branded welcome email that includes the following pieces of content.
- Company name, logo, and introductory paragraph. Who are you? What’s your mission? How will you make John Doe’s life better?
- Sending details and featured products or services. How often do you plan to send John Doe an email? What is it important that he continues to read your emails? What can John Doe expect with each email? What are your main service offerings, or products that interested John Doe in the first place?
- Benefits of your brand. Do you offer exclusive deals to email subscribers? If not, what other benefits can you highlight
about your email campaigns?
The goal with this first email is to make sure your new customers are aware of your brand, your intentions with these emails, and other benefits that come along with subscribing to your newsletter.
Email #2 - Education
3-days post welcome email, another message should be sent out to your customers, educating them about your service or product offerings. Dive deep into the details relevant to why your brand is different from your competitors. If you only offer 1 to 5 core services, expand on each of those individually, describing the features, benefits, and details regarding what you have to offer. If you run a retail store, feature top product categories.
Email #3 - Action
4-days after you send the educational email, follow up with an action-driven drip email. Encourage your subscribers to take the next step to contact you, or offer an irresistible deal or discount that will push them to take the “next step.” At this point, your subscribers should feel confident in your brand and powered with the right information to make an informed purchase.
Ready to get started?
Grow Your Business, Increase Your Subscribers, and Nurture Your Customers to Make More Purchases with FireDrum
By following best practices and sticking closely to our email acquisition tips, you should expect to see exponential growth in email subscribers, in-store visits, and/or online purchases. If you have additional questions, ideas, or concerns regarding growing your company's subscriber list, reach out to our email specialists for help. Are you ready to start building your first welcome drip marketing campaign? Sign up for a free FireDrum Email Marketing account, today. We make automated emails and lead nurturing easy for you and your team.
Tip #1 - Don’t buy subscribers or rent lists to gain extra email subscribers.
Tip #2: Add lightbox forms (also known as popup forms), throughout various parts of the website to increase your subscribers.
Tip #3: Customize your sign-up forms to collect relevant information about your customers, allowing you to nurture their interests.
Tip #4: If your business is membership or subscription based, adding a “subscribe now” option on your purchase forms can increase your mailing list exponentially.
Tip #5: Add “subscribe now” forms or bold CTA’s leading to a sign-up page after newsworthy articles and blog posts.
Tip #6: A/B test your top landing pages to determine what design promotes the most subscriber sign-ups.
Tip #7: Export emails from your POS system and previous conversations.
Tip #8: Push incentives to get more subscribers and offer incentives that new customers can’t refuse.
Tip #9: When it comes to social media, get creative and incorporate interactive posts that lead back to an email subscribe form.
Tip #10: Cultivate your social media users and email marketing users by cross-posting your company’s newsletters and offering channel-specific discounts and deals
