How to Build an Email List

How to Build an Email List: 14 Proven Tactics

Table of Contents

· Choose an email marketing platform

· Give people incentives

· Create popups for your website

· Craft CTAs for website/landing pages

· Create a high-converting landing page

· Leverage social media

· Run a viral contest

· Manually reach out to personal contacts

· Create a referral program

· Host a giveaway

· Use a scroll box

· Experiment with other popup forms

· Add signup link in email signature

· Utilize offline methods

1. Choose a Trustworthy Email Marketing Platform

The first step to building an email list is to select an email marketing platform.

At first, sending basic email campaigns and managing your first contacts may be feasible through platforms like Gmail and Outlook.

But to efficiently manage and organize your growing email list as well as send automated email campaigns, you need a reliable email marketing tool.

This will help you keep track of customer information such as preferences and behavior. It also makes it easier to integrate email with other digital marketing channels (e.g. SMS, WhatsApp, chat).

For example, Brevo offers core email marketing tools including signup forms and a Drag & Drop email builder. You also get unlimited contacts, which are easily synced with Brevo’s native CRM.

Choosing to invest in a robust email marketing platform will help you not only save precious time while building your email list from scratch but also capitalize on the full potential of email marketing right from the start.

2. Give People Incentives to Sign Up

Every successful list-building tactic starts with creating something your customer values. Without a high-quality lead magnet, there’s no lead generation. 

What’s something your customers want?

And, how does it tie into what you’re selling?

Maybe it’s a template for how to do something with your product or a timesaving checklist that will save your reader headaches. 

Naturally, people won’t provide you with their email addresses for nothing. So, creating a simple email signup form saying “Sign up to our email list to receive our latest great content” will probably see low conversion rates.

One of the best ways to capture someone’s email is to create a lead magnet that entices them to sign up. Some ideas include:

·   A free eBook

·   A checklist summarizing steps from a blog post

·   A PDF version of a blog post or case study

·   A coupon

·   A webinar registration

·   A template or worksheet

·   A free course or email series

All of these offers give the visitor an incentive to sign up using their email address. Depending on your target audience and their needs, you can create lead magnets that will work best.

3. Create Pop-Ups for Your Website

To grow your email list, trigger an email signup form to pop up just before visitors exit your website. That’s because pop-up windows are often effective for building lists and increasing conversion rates.

There are various ways to utilize pop-ups.

For example, you can create a “surprise” pop-up box that appears after the user has spent some time on the page or alternatively has scrolled and interacted with the page. This can offer a discount for their first purchase, for instance.

4. Craft CTAs for Your Website/Landing Page

A call to action (CTA) is a prompt on a website that tells the user to take some specified action. A call to action is typically written as a command or action phrase, such as 'Sign Up' or 'Buy Now' and generally takes the form of a button or hyperlink.

For example, suppose you have created a beginner’s guide on buyer personas and you have substantial traffic.

In that case, it’s more than a must to entice (promises) people to subscribe to your email newsletter by creating a CTA like “Get these 4 BONUS Buyer Persona examples and increase your sales today!”

Start with a verb (“buy”) and follow with an adverb (“now”) or a subject (“ebook”) or both. Here are two call to action examples to the above statement: “Buy Now” or “Download this ebook now.”

Even if you don’t have a ton of resources to create such high-quality material, as long as you provide value to your audience, people are going to appreciate it.

 And, of course, they won’t feel “forced” to subscribe to your newsletter.

Estimated percentage of new subscribers: 15-20%

5. Create a High-Converting Landing Page

High-converting landing pages are a type of web page designed to encourage visitors to take a specific action, such as signing up for a newsletter or making a purchase. These pages are optimized for conversion rates, designed to maximize the number of visitors who take the desired action

When building your email list from scratch, it’s smart to utilize other ways apart from your homepage. In this case, by creating one or more landing pages that are directly linked to your LinkedIn ads, Facebook ads, etc.

Let’s say you want to offer free shipping, an exclusive offer, or a limited-time sale. It’s far better to direct users to a dedicated landing page than send them to your homepage and risk them getting lost.

Generally, to create a high-converting landing page, you need three key elements:

· A strong headline emphasizing the benefits that the users get

· Enticing copy to capture their attention

· A powerful image to accompany the message

Estimated percentage of new subscribers: 50%

6. Leverage Your Social Media Accounts

Social media are a strong aid that can help propel the building of your email list. If your business is doing social media marketing apart from email marketing, then it’s a necessity to leverage this channel.

Leveraging social media allows brands to use the power of social networking sites to reach their customers better. This approach helps companies be a part of the online conversation and engage and inform consumers.

If your objective is to drive website traffic, leverage social media platforms to promote your blog posts, landing pages, or product pages. Sharing compelling snippets of your content and providing a clear call-to-action can entice your audience to click through and explore your website further.3

Social media can be utilized to help with advertising. It’s a good idea to run ad campaigns offering exclusive discounts and coupons for people that sign up on your list.

Facebook also offers the chance to run Lead Ads, which allow in-platform form submission that minimizes friction. Such ads are mobile-friendly and don’t require the creation of a landing page.

Estimated percentage of new subscribers: 15%

7. Run a Viral Contest

A Viral Registration Contest is more than just a giveaway, it's a powerful viral marketing vehicle. Motivate fans to follow you on social media and tell their friends about your event, by offering enticing prizes.

A viral contest is a contest that encourages people to share it in exchange for bonus entries. For example, you may provide 25 bonus entries for each referral that then signs up to the contest. In order to sign up, the person has to enter their email, which makes this a great list building technique.

This option is a great one to start out with because it encourages participants to do your marketing for you and entices people to sign up.

Estimated percentage of new subscribers: 35%

8. Manually Reach Out To Your Personal Contacts

Another idea regarding how to build your email list is to reach out to your personal contacts. There are likely at least a few people on your contact list that would be interested in signing up. Send an email to let them know that you are creating an email list and explain why it will be beneficial for them to sign up.

You can also encourage them to share the news with their own contact list.

You can do the same thing if you have a user base for your product but don’t have an email list for promoting content.

Reach out to your users, asking if they would also like to receive your emails regarding your latest and greatest content.

Estimated percentage of new subscribers: 80%

9. Create a Referral Program for New Signups

Nothing can be more impactful in growing your email list fast than having your own customers spread the word about you and your brand.

A direct recommendation from friends is a sure way to convince people to join your list, let alone trust your brand and purchase from you.

Therefore, it’s essential to craft and establish a referral program for new subscribers. People naturally want to make their friends happy, so you need to give them the chance to do so.

What’s more, you’ll be giving them a good reason for doing so. Of course, by providing additional incentives for them. And that’s the most basic rule in marketing, namely providing more value!

Discounts, special offers, redeemable store points all work well. The secret of hacking your way into a bigger and more engaged email list is to make people who like what you’re doing a part of the process and your growth.

Referral programs are among the most popular tools used in eCommerce to build a strong and loyal subscriber base.

Fortunately, there are various tools out there that make the whole process straightforward and user-friendly while eliminating the need for advanced knowledge. Such tools include ReferralCandy, Tapfiliate, and Partnerstack, to name but a few.

Estimated percentage of new subscribers: 30%

10. Host a Giveaway

Giveaways are yet another powerful tactic that most eCommerce stores leverage nowadays to acquire new email subscribers. The reason behind their efficiency is that news of the giveaway spread fast and you can collect tons of email contacts in a short period of time.

This is especially true when you’re utilizing social media channels, such as Facebook or Instagram, which are not only popular but also reasonable in terms of advertising costs.

There is one essential rule you need to follow when creating your giveaway. The prize that you’re giving away has to be relevant and directly aimed at your target audience.

In this way, you’re not just getting more subscribers to your email list. You’re acquiring qualified leads, which are essential to the growth of your business.

To give you an example, if your audience is interested in tech products, then your giveaway should feature a relevant prize rather than a car, let’s say. The example below is created through Gleam.

There are various other giveaway tools or WordPress plugins that you can use to create cool giveaways, such as Rafflecopter and Woobox. Another way of running sweepstakes is  FindKeepLove.

FindKeep.Love is a full-service co-sponsored sweepstake facilitation service, FindKeep.Love contributes to the traffic and reach of your campaign, which is a major differentiating factor from the sweepstakes software on the market.

Last but not least, giveaways have the additional benefit of increasing brand awareness. There is no harm in luring in new potential customers while growing your list at the same time.

Estimated percentage of new subscribers: 30%

11. Use a Scroll box

Presenting your audience with a call-to-action at the right time is of utmost importance. This is why scroll boxes are necessary for lead generation.

Depending on the content of the page, a popup triggered when website visitors reach a certain point can be a subtle yet effective way to capture their email address. It all comes down to determining when users are likely to be ready to convert.

This “right time” can be identified by business owners through A/B testing, based on the visitors’ on-page behavior.

Estimated percentage of new subscribers: 10%

12. Experiment with Pop-Up Forms (Exit-Intent, Inline, Full-Page)

We’ve talked about some of the triggered pop-up forms, but there are more options for you to utilize and experiment with.

There are also hundreds of pop-up examples out there to draw inspiration from!

First of all, you must consider using exit intent subscription forms, which essentially appear before website visitors when they “sense” their intention to leave the page. They are helpful to have as they can bring signups that might otherwise be lost.

To maximize their effectiveness, be sure to craft engaging copy. Here is an example from BigCommerce.

Next, try out some attention-capturing alternatives, such as inline forms or full-page ones. Inline forms have the ability to blend perfectly with the rest of the page’s content while at the same time grabbing attention. Check out the example from HappySocks.

This is a discreet yet intriguing way to encourage new subscriptions without interfering with the user’s experience.

On the other hand, if you want to make sure you have the visitor’s attention, you can leverage the power of a full-page one. Make a strong value proposition and it won’t go unnoticed.

Estimated percentage of new subscribers: 10-15%

13. Encourage Signups through Your Email Signature

Another practical tactic to boost the growth of your email list is to include a newsletter signup link in your email signature.

It requires minimum effort, it’s easy to set up, and of course, it’s perfect if you’re growing your list from scratch.

Think of it like this. You and the other company employees communicate daily with various other people through email. By having a signup link in your email signature, you give people the chance to explore your company in more depth.

Of course, if those interactions are successful and fruitful, the chances are that those sent emails may attract more new subscribers.

Estimated percentage of new subscribers: 5%

14. Complement List Building with Offline Methods

Pop-ups, sidebars, landing pages all work great. But it would be a waste not to leverage the available offline methods to grow your list.

First of all, if you have physical stores, be sure to leave your business cards on the counter or booth.

Additionally, encourage people to leave their own business cards for an effortless email signup experience. However, this means you’ll have to manually do the work afterward and send a double opt-in email.

Finally, if you’re participating in events or fairs, be sure to have a registration list having a box for email addresses so that you can collect them.

Estimated percentage of new subscribers: 7-8%

Introduction to email marketing 1

Creating effective email campaigns 3