How to build and manage an effective email list

In Poland, people tell a joke where a desperate guy prays in a church to turn his bad luck around and win the lottery. Suddenly the clouds open and the light of God shines onto the man and God says, “Son, help me out here, at least buy a lottery ticket.”

As someone trying to sell a digital product, these lottery tickets are your leads. Without working on securing leads, you cannot expect to win the lottery. Leads also require you to poke the customer multiple times before they go on to consider a purchase.

So how can you land leads in the first place? To help you get started, consider an email list. This article outlines what email lists are, their benefits, and strategies for building them.

What is an email list?

An email list is a collection of email addresses that individuals or businesses use to send messages, newsletters, updates, and promotional materials to a group of people. These lists are mainly used for email marketing, allowing for targeted and personalized communication.

While in the past those lists were gigantic and full of random people, in the current age of privacy and data protection, only people who expressed the will to join an email list hold a spot there.

Different types of email lists

There are several types of email lists, each serving different purposes:

Lead lists

These contain potential customers who have already expressed interest in your products or services. You gather this list from a landing page or dedicated free webinars on a problem that your product or service can address.

Customer lists

Here, the list represents people who have already purchased from you. You can use them for sending targeted upsell messages, cross-selling offers, and building brand loyalty. This can be achieved with exclusive discounts and offers, as well as advertising new options and features in the product or service.

Promotional lists

These are very similar to lead lists and contain people who have agreed to receive special offers and promotions. With such lists, you can drive additional sales and announce new products. Use these offering multiple different things to purchase, rather than a single product.

Promotional lists further divide into:

• Partner lists — Comprising individuals or businesses you’ve partnered with for marketing purposes, these lists help expand reach and drive traffic to websites or landing pages
• Event lists — These consist of individuals who have attended or expressed interest in your events, useful for event-related communications

Each type of email list is curated to fit specific marketing strategies and target audiences, ensuring that the right messages reach the right people at the right time.

Benefits of having an email list

Email lists offer a direct line of communication to customers. Here are some of the biggest advantages:

• Direct customer engagement — You build a list of people likely to be interested in whatever you are selling. That is way more effective than cold calling or social media call-outs. It can even be better than social media adverts’ targeting algorithms.
• Higher conversion rates — Emails can be tailored to lead subscribers through the sales funnel, resulting in higher conversion rates
• Cost-effectiveness — Email marketing is relatively inexpensive, offering a high return on investment (ROI) as it can reach a large audience at a low cost
• Measurable results — The effectiveness of email campaigns can be easily tracked through metrics like open rates, click-through rates, and conversion rates, allowing for data-driven decision-making
• Timely updates — You can keep subscribers informed about the latest products, services, and company news, as they happen! No need to rely on them visiting your blog or looking at your social media feeds
• Personalization — Tailoring emails to address the recipient by name or including content relevant to their interests can significantly increase engagement and customer satisfaction
• Segmentation — Dividing the email list into specific groups based on demographics, purchase history, or behavior allows for more targeted and relevant messaging

Unfortunately, the average rate of promotional emails being opened hovers around 3 percent. Even if your subscribers are interested and well-matched, your emails might still be ignored due to the high number of such spam/promotional emails everyone receives. Still, it’s the oldest and most effective technique in the Internet marketing playbook.

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Strategies for building an email list

Here are some tips and strategies to help you grow your email list:

Offer quality

Whatever your subscribers signed up for isn’t the end goal. If you don’t provide quality content through your emails, people will ignore you and unsubscribe. To reduce churn, fight to keep people signed up as much as you fought to gain them in the first place.

Create lead magnets

Offer a compelling lead magnet, such as a free ebook, webinar, or discount code, in exchange for email sign-ups. This incentive can significantly boost the number of subscribers. However, you risk having people sign up who only wanted the magnet, not the email, and thus, will make for very cold leads.

Place sign-up forms properly

Remember to place email list sign-up forms strategically on your website. Ensure they’re visible without being intrusive. Good places include the header, footer, or as a pop-up just before the visitor leaves the site.

Utilize social media

If you run successful social media accounts, use that to promote your email list. Share snippets of your email content and include a call-to-action (CTA) directing followers to sign up for more exclusive content:

Play the long game

A single social media post might not be enough. That said, through hard work and sharing content, you can foster relationships that encourage email subscriptions.

Referral programs

If you have a clear way to monetize your email list, you can implement a referral program that rewards current subscribers for bringing in new ones. This can create a viral effect, rapidly increasing your list size.

Best practices for managing an email list

Managing an email list effectively helps you maintain healthy relationships with your subscribers and ensure the success of your email marketing campaigns. To accomplish this, try to implement as many of the following principles as possible:

• Regular clean-up — Periodically remove inactive subscribers who haven’t engaged with your emails over a certain period. This helps improve your open rates and deliverability
• Re-engagement Campaigns (“churn busters”) — Before removing inactive subscribers, try to re-engage them with a special campaign. If they still don’t engage, it’s time to let them go
• Segmentation review — As you learn more about your subscribers, consider updating the user segments, so you can create as personalized content as possible
• Provide varied subscription options — You can try to beat churn by adding an option for subscribers to update their preferences or subscription frequency. This can reduce unsubscribes and ensure that they receive content they’re interested in
• Add double opt-in — Use a double opt-in process to ensure that subscribers genuinely want to receive your emails
• Avoid spam traps — Never purchase email lists, as they may contain spam traps or disinterested parties that can harm your sender’s reputation
• Keep up with compliance with regulations — Ensure that your email practices comply with regulations like GDPR and CAN-SPAM. Provide clear unsubscribe options and respect the subscriber’s privacy
• Monitor metrics carefully — Keep an eye on key metrics such as open rates, click-through rates, and bounce rates. These can indicate the health of your list and the effectiveness of your campaigns

By following these best practices, you can maintain a clean and engaged email list that supports your objectives while respecting your subscribers’ preferences and avoiding spam.

Key takeaways

You probably hear people say that email lists can be a waste of time to build. Hopefully this article shows you that email lists can be an effective marketing tool if you invest proper time, and resources, provide quality to your subscribers, and build a good healthy relationship with them, both on a personal and technical level.

Until next time!

Featured image source: IconScout

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