8 Best Practices To Build an Email List of Itching-to-Buy Customers

There is no way today that marketing campaigns can be successfully accomplished without building good quality email lists. Every marketer wants to build an email list fast and also wonders how to build an email list for free.

Why build an email list anyway?

Email marketing keeps on bringing ROI for every dollar invested and is a proven effective method used in marketing strategy.

So, why do you need to build an email list with marketing campaigns? Email marketing campaigns are essentially important for savvy marketers to reach the right audience who wants to get relevant data and receive valuable content about discounts, good deals, product offers, etc. Email marketing can be also a tricky and challenging step to accomplish on your way to successful sales and profit increase.

Some essentials of why should you build an email list and why email marketing is an important strategy:

• Builds channels of communication with your customers;
• Creates gate content and engages followers who love your brand;
• Makes sales a lot easier offering merch to those who are loyal to your company.

Let’s talk about how to build an email list in 2020. Here are 8 best practices proven to be effective in building a good quality email list of potential and existing customers. Once you read through this blog post, you’ll build your email list faster and drive more revenues without a need of scraping emails off the old lists or websites.

#1. Craft your call-to-action with showing why a subscription to your email list is a good move

To craft your call-to-action and build an email list for free you need to personalize a website you use for a business trying to fill the specific needs of your potential customers. A good strategy and best way to build an email list here is sharing topics and valuable content with freshly signed visitors.

Also, let them know how often you will be sending emails around with notifications and announcements.

#2. Generate opt-in forms and drive more people into your email list

Still don’t have an opt-in form? Use WordPress to build an email list. Ask around and learn from other store owners who had them built with WordPress. Create a basic opt-in form with WordPress and then add it to your business website. One of the effective methods to use while creating a separate landing page is to let them know when they’ll receive certain content, e-book, or webinar material.

How to build an email list for marketing with opt-in forms?

Use eye-catching images, powerful headlines while generating your landing page, because those can do wonders for attracting visitors.

#3. Try and feature pop-ups for your email building strategy

Do you need to have a website to build an email list with popups? Absolutely! This is one of the most popular approaches that are used now by marketers who obviously know how to build an email list for marketing 2020. And despite the common opinion stating that some people think pop-ups are annoying, still, pop-ups work for building this email list strategy.

Using a popup to build an email list works just fine. 

If you’d set up your pop-ups to be shown at particular times or events, they will work like a magnet attracting leads. For example, set them to pop up after a certain amount of time or after a website visitor scrolled through a particular amount of pages. That way pop-ups won’t look as annoying as it could’ve been otherwise and you’ll have a greater chance to increase a signup rate.

Try OptiMonk – a free tool created for expanding email lists and building leads. This service offers different templates for the fastest and less painful process of creating pop-ups. These templates can also be customized to your needs and added to your business website just the way you want. A good thing, you won’t have to spend your time using difficult software or your money on design.

#4. Grow an email list with offering referral programs

Referral programs can do wonders in getting new contacts or even new customers. This method can be the fastest way to build an email list. How do I build an email list with referral programs, you may wonder? Using giveaways to build an email list also works. 

Use what you have while announcing giveaways to gain more of what you desire to have. Even such monster services as PayPal, Hotmail, Uber used referral programs at some point for their marketing tactics. As you know, they made it to the very top on the market right now.

How hard is it to build an email list with referrals?

Offer something of a certain value in exchange for a referral. This can be – no cost for shipping, good discounts for products they want, or free gifts. You may call referral programs bribery and you do bribe your subscribers in some ways. But this legitimate bribery still grows an email list by having new subscribers to share content you provided with their family and friends, or colleagues.

#5. Use a “not-so-obvious” strategy for your email list expansion

How can I build an email list without a freebie? By using a “not-so-obvious” strategy, which is one of the unconventional ways to build an email list. On the other hand, this is one of the legitimate ways to build an email list. 

Take the 404 (or Error) Page and be creative with customization for building an email list. Why build an email list with this? It can turn 404 error page into a generator of leads with the following methods:

• Customize your 404 page with a search bar, so the visitors would do quick searches from the “error” page;
• Use this 404 page for showcasing of brand’s personality or humor explaining what is going on with an “error”;
• Take your most popular blog posts or fresh merch on sale and link them to a 404 page;
• Have your 404 page translated into most popular foreign languages if have traffic from the non-English speaking countries coming to your website (Google Analytics is a useful tool for finding out about such traffic);
• Generate a basic contact form and have it incorporated into your 404 page (it is especially effective for websites or projects that are ready to go online).

Go online and search for some examples of this strategy used by other services. Get some inspiration from checking out how other businesses did this for leads generating methods.

#6. Use social media for getting more people subscribed to your email list

It is no secret that almost half of the world’s population use social media actively every day. Working with social media sites gives opportunities for an infinite number of different ways to find the right audience for your email marketing campaigns. Find some info online on how to build an email list using facebook fan page. You can be blessed with success after investing some efforts into your email building strategy because this is the most profitable way to build an email list. 

Here are some tips on how you can do it with no hassle whatsoever:

• Link on your website to your social profiles and use it as a great opportunity to lead visitors to a landing page with content available for downloading, discounts, product offers, etc.
• Use a plugin that allows you to share content on Twitter, links to an opt-in page, and stuff like that.
• Have your page on Facebook customized with a signup button and opt-in form.
• Offer giveaways and create social media contests to drive more people in.
• Now such free tools as Facebook Ads can be used for list building. If you use proper targeting, a kick-ass landing page, enticing copy, such a service as Facebook Ads can speed up your email building process and turbocharge your efforts.

Try not to stick to just one method, but try different approaches to see which work more effectively. Due to the fast-changing nature of all social media out there, you just need to keep on experimenting and generate new techniques time after time.

#7. Generate downloads and win new email list subscribers all-around

How can my members build an email list?

Build downloadable resources and use them as tools for providing valuable and interesting content. These downloads can also be a useful source of informational prospects that will help your shoppers to get more info and be more familiar with the merchandise you offer. Put downloads you generate behind your opt-in forms and expand your list by qualifying newcomers who just signed in.

Basically, this method allows recognizing those who are interested in the brand’s products. Let’s face it, usually, most people don’t feel like spending their time messing around with forms they need to fill in. Unless they are really interested in getting access to either a particular content and products that they need.

Try the following resources and pick something that works for you:

• Video series
• eBooks that can be downloaded
• Archives of content (as an example, check out the Scribe Library)
• Downloads in audio format
• Free templates

Just a hint: you can try this method with your checkout service on the website. For example, have an email field built into the checkout page and make a suggestion to subscribe to your email list for receiving first dibs on fresh merch, sales, and discounts.  Make sure that a checkout process will stay simple – don’t be too pushy asking customers to subscribe to your email list.

#8. Take your email marketing up to the next level with email marketing platforms

How to build an email list without a website?

Here are some best services to build an email list of businesses to market to customers. These useful email marketing platforms can provide you with the amplification of your efforts in the email building process.

Pick the one you like or try all of them to see which one works for you:

• MailChimp – an all-in-one marketing platform that’s been in business for over 18 years now. This platform makes email list building, segmenting, advertising, customization, as well as for analytics. These methods are the best ways to quickly build an email list.
• Campaign Monitor – the largest platform in the email marketing space. This platform creates smarter segments for result improvement. It can personalize customer journeys building almost human-like approaches to email marketing.
• iContact – looks appealing to marketing specialists due to prices that are lower compared to other platforms. Since the average cost to build an email list is pretty decent with this platform, this service is useful to newbies in marketing or to those who are just starting out. You’ll get access to such features as audience management, automation, segmentation, reporting, and learn how to build an email list for your company.
• .ActiveCampaign – all-in-one marketing platform with a strong focus on automation. With this platform, you’ll go deep into advanced reporting, automation goals generation, creating complex drip campaigns, etc.
• GetResponse – a reliable email marketing software that can provide you with 99% email deliverability, customization, automation, and responsiveness.