According to DigitalStrike, the ROI of email marketing is around 122%. It’s four times higher than other forms of digital marketing.
In other words, if you’re not leveraging email marketing, you’re missing out.
But you need to perform email marketing the right way. That means you must build and grow a high-quality email marketing list for the best results. With a good email list, you can establish and nurture relationships with potential customers with your personalized, targeted emails.
So how do you build and grow your email marketing list? Here are three tips to follow.
1. Design Appealing Lead Magnets
You can’t expect people to sign up for your email list just because. You need to give them an incentive to do so. That’s where a lead magnet comes in. Some popular lead magnet options include eBooks, guides, templates, case studies, white papers, checklists, reports, or even free courses.
But for your lead magnet to work, it needs to be valuable in the eyes of potential customers. This is why you need to know your audience before creating your lead magnet. Go back to your audience persona— a fictional representation of your ideal audience—which you should have created when starting your business.
Here’s an example of one.
Your persona will tell you your audience’s pain points, demographics, interests, and preferences. You can decide what your lead magnet should be based on what you find.
But that’s not the only thing you need to consider. Your lead magnet should also align with the products you’re selling. Think about it. Your goal in creating an email list is to nurture your relationships with potential customers (subscribers).
There are two ways to have an email list – building it or buying an email list. The first option usually yields more quality while the latter can be faster in the short run. Regardless, you always need to make sure you have the consent of those people to send them emails. A low quality list of emails will hurt (or kill) your deliverability
In this context, uying an email list might seem like a quick way to expand your audience, it’s crucial that these purchased contacts have a demonstrated interest in your product category to ensure relevance and engagement. So all your emails would be for nothing if there isn’t any chance these subscribers will be interested in your product in the first place. Ensuring alignment between your lead magnet, product offerings, and the interests of your email list, whether built organically or acquired, is key to nurturing effective customer relationships.
So, don’t offer your subscribers an Amazon gift card if you’re selling marketing software. You can instead offer them an eBook with valuable content on topics like SEO strategies or social media marketing. People who are more likely interested in these topics are, after all, marketers. These are the same people who are more likely to buy your marketing software, too.
Further, ensure you craft a catchy title highlighting your lead magnet’s offer. A great title will help increase the engagement your pop-up gets and may even increase the perceived value of your offer. If you promote your lead magnet on social media, you might even get Instagram likes, Facebook shares, or retweets.
2. Use a Clear CTA in Strategic Places for Your Lead Magnets
You need them to build your email marketing list. It won’t matter if your lead magnet is appealing in the eyes of your target subscribers. If you don’t have a clear call-to-action, you still won’t get them to sign up. Calls-to-Action (CTAs) tell your users the next step to take when they see your lead magnet.
However, you shouldn’t just use any word that comes to mind as your CTA. To effectively build your email marketing list, your CTAs must be clear and personalized.
Use concise language and compelling verbs to avoid ambiguity about the action you want users to take. Avoid common words like “sign up” or “subscribe.” Instead, get creative with CTA copy like “Access our exclusive offer,” “Yes, I want it!” and “Just for you.”
To personalize your CTAs, use personal pronouns like “your” or “my.” This helps consumers feel included. So if, say, you’re promoting your book as your lead magnet, your CTA copy choice can be “send me my copy.”
The other major factor you must consider is your CTA’s placement. How well your CTA performs is dependent on where you place it. If it’s on a landing page, place the CTA button above the fold, as shown below. This way, people will immediately see your call to action.
You can strategically integrate your CTAs into your blog content as well. That’s either right beneath the content it’s related to, on the sides, close to the top, or even at the bottom of your blog. Just make sure you don’t disrupt the reading experience.With strategically crafted and positioned CTAs, you can get people to avail of your lead magnet offer and give their emails. But your job doesn’t end once you have your email list. Ensure you still verify the addresses you get with an email lookup tool before sending out your marketing messages. You want to make sure your emails reach your intended recipients in the first place.
3. Run Referral Programs
Let’s say you’ve enlisted your first email subscribers. Congratulations! Now it’s time to grow that number. After all, more subscribers can translate to more paying customers.
How do you grow that subscriber number? Enter referral programs.
Referral programs are a common B2B marketing strategy. However, most companies don’t realize the strategy can also help with building their email lists.
This strategy leverages your current subscribers. You offer incentives, like exclusive discounts, to your current customers in exchange for every contact they successfully refer to join your email marketing list.
How effective are referral programs in growing your email marketing list? Well, here’s a case study.
Morning Brew is one of the companies that use a milestone-based referral program to boost the number of its subscribers.
As demonstrated below, the program rewards each referee based on the number of legit email subscribers they bring on board.
Thanks to their great branding and an equally great email service provider, the company got up to 1000 subscribers a day!
As a result, despite being launched only in 2015, Morning Brew already has around 1.9 million subscribers.
To ensure a successful referral program, make sure your incentives are valuable in the eyes of your subscribers in the first place. You can send them surveys and ask them directly what would motivate them to refer other potential subscribers to you.
In closing
If you’re looking to run successful email marketing campaigns, then you require a high-quality email list. You can send targeted and personalized marketing messages with the customer information you’ll collect on the email signup forms.
In this article, we’ve discussed tips you should follow to build and grow a healthy list. First, design attractive lead magnets, use clear CTAs for them, and finally, run referral programs.
Follow our tips, and you’ll be able to build that email list from scratch and watch it grow. All the best!