Thread: List Building Tips For An Email Marketing Campaign

Have a subscription signup on every page

People will be arriving at different pages on your website, so it’s important that you have a signup form for your email list on every page. While the most popular way to do this is to simply have a sidebar that says something along the line of “Subscribe to our newsletter”, I recommend including a bit more information to entice the visitor to sign up. Remember, people want to know what’s in it for them, so you should list a few benefits of signing up your email list.

Offer a free eBook in exchange for signing up

eBooks are one of the most powerful tools for adding subscribers to your email list. By offering a free eBook on a topic in exchange for an email address, you create an offer that’s irresistible. After all, who wouldn’t want to get a free downloadable book on a subject that interests them? The other reason this is effective is because it builds up a highly targeted list of interested consumers. The people who download your eBook will be those with similar interests, and they’ll be likelier to respond to your future email marketing messages.

Write highly informative, useful newsletters

The newsletter is the core of many email marketing campaigns. Just make sure your newsletter isn’t one long sales pitch. Instead, include informative articles that enhance the user-experience for your subscribers. This will keep them from opting out of your list, and it will help improve your credibility over time.

Ask for an email address on your PPC landing pages

PPC landing pages should almost always have a contact form as part of the conversion. This gives you a means for following up on those potentially interested in doing business with you.

Make registration easy

Don’t make people jump through hoops just to subscribe to your email list. Make the process as simple as possible. Have them enter their email address, and let them move forward. The more difficult you make it to subscribe, the fewer subscribers you’ll have.

Have a signup list at events you attend

If you attend any networking events or industry conferences, have a signup list with you at your table. Interested attendees can simply write down their email address to become members. Again, consider offering a giveaway in exchange for signing up.

Don’t buy email lists

Building up a strong email list can take time, so I can see why it’s tempting to take the shortcut of paying for an email list from a 3rd party. But don’t do it. First off, many of these email lists are from spammers who acquired the email addresses using spammy methods. But even if the lists were legitimately acquired through opt-ins, they’ll never be as targeted as they would be if you built the list yourself. Thus, your email marketing conversion rates will be lower.

Good luck
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Great stuff Martin. I love the networking stuff. If you talk to Paul he'll tell you I work a room, talk, listen and always ask for an email address then personally email when I get back, ask if they mind me dropping them into my academy for free coaching - I have never had somebody say no.

Then I ask them for their full postal address so that I can include them in my periodical snail mail newsletters that I send out. I certainly get more than 1:2 to do this.

Then as usual I just continue to build relationships.

Thanks again Martin

Kevin

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That's a great way to build relationships Kevin

Great post Martin! This is excellent information and I totally agree on not buying lists as your list becomes valuable the more you feed it. Giving value is the key!

Great post I love the ideal fo getting email list from almost any function. in general depending on the function, you will understand what niche they are interested in, GREAT IDEAL.

Thanks

This will tell you I'm not quite "with it" yet ... haven't thought of having a sign-up on each page! Simple but good....thanks!

cheers

Good post, great tips, I enjoyed reading it.

I can certainly agree with the never buying an email list advice!!

Cheers

One of the best ways to build an email list is to do add swaps with other marketers that are in the same niche as you. Most forums for IM will have at least some space dedicated to JV and JV add swaps.

Golden Rule when doing add swaps is "Never Lie about the size of your list" if you only have 20 people on it tell your add swap partner that. If you try to list swap and mislead others you will soon find it almost impossible to arrange an add swap with anyone.

A good tip is to always email your add swap partner after the swap and ask how they got on, this will build relationships with them, which may lead to future swaps with them.

Very good points. They are the steps I've used to build my subscriber list, except for PPC which I don't use.

Don't buy lists is very important, especially if you are looking for subscribers in the U.S. You can easily buy a bad list and wind up having the Federal Trade Commission looking into your operation for spamming. Definitely not where you want to be!

-Doug

Not only do I agree about the opt in forms on each page, I go a step farther with this: I have one blog that has an opt in form in the upper right hand corner of each page, but I have also added a form to the bottom of each post with the 'If you liked this post, enter your name and email address to be notified each time I post something new', and I do this with a tracking code in the autorsponder code so I know 'where' they signed up to that list.

I never considered placing the opt-in on every page. My site, like many others, has a page with an overview of additional articles for SEO purposes so these pages are ranked in Google. I'm on my way to place the opt-in form on there right now!

All good points. I especially like Ron's comment about having a tracking code on your opt in form. It is very important to track where your subscribers are coming from so you can tell what is working and what isn't. Unless you want to create a separate list for each page you will have to do this with tracking codes in the form.

I must say there are exceptions where I wouldn't put an opt in form. Mainly on sales letters, you don't want to give them too many options of what to do next. You want a single call to action. Of course it is a good idea to get them to opt in before you send them to your sales letter. It can actually help the conversion rate.

Great tips Eric
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It should Eric.

Take for instance our Academy page, every page, every article has very strategic onsite SEO and we have over 1500 pages including the members area.

It has to be Home Page +

Kevin