The starting point for every email marketing strategy is to build an email list. For your strategic success, it has to be not just a bunch of email addresses but a database of qualified leads. That’s why professional marketing teams like Flowium put so much effort into this process and emphasize on the importance of quality, not quantity.
Thankfully, there is a number of practices how to build an email list for marketing that we’re willing to share. Read ahead to find out effective tactics that work for businesses in 2024.
Top 9 Email List Building Strategies
Marketing is based on experiments and trials when every business tries to figure out what exactly works the best for their market. So far, marketers haven’t been able to create a universal strategy, but some of the tactics proved to be really effective in most cases. Here, we’ll share the best ways how to grow your email list. Since there’s no telling what’s going to work out, we recommend familiarizing yourself with all the practices and applying them in combination for the max effect. Start building an email list with the correct strategies right now.
Optimize CTAs
People are more likely to click on forms and links on your website and landing pages and take the action you describe when your calls to action (CTAs) are engaging. Captivating call-to-actions draw in users and force them to take an instant action, such downloading a resource, purchasing a product, or subscribing to a newsletter. Start with optimization to make sure users understand what exactly you want them to do. Here are some main point to remember while enhancing CTAs.
- Because visitors usually want to move quickly and steer clear of tough choices, call-to-action messages should be brief and free of ambiguity.
- CTAs reduce choice fatigue and make it simpler for users to comprehend the advantages of performing the intended action by being clear and concise.
- Promoting quick replies and effective conversions can be done by emphasizing the urgency or value and employing language that is action-oriented.
Offer Compelling Incentives
Now, when your site visitors know what to do, you should give them the clear reason why to do. Simply saying “Subscribe Now” isn’t a good enough reason for users to pun in their email addresses. Offer them some sort of incentives you know they would appreciate.
Remember that lead generation is almost impossible without a premium lead magnet for the present-day audience. Coupons or access to unique material are two best examples of incentives. It can be both a tangible freebie and useful content, such as a case study or free e-book. Perhaps it’s a time-saving checklist that will spare your reader difficulties, or a template for using your product.
Overall, developing something that your target audience values is the foundation of any effective list building strategy.
In the practice example block below, you can see how Flowium does it. We often offer free checklists and guides for our website visitors who are interested in more advanced techniques for email marketing and in-depth insights into the industry. While providing valuable information, we also ensure our email list growth.
Place Opt-In Forms Strategically
Where you place your opt-in forms is also very important for growing your email list. There are several options for the placement that we see to be working in 2024.
Welcome Mat
A welcome mat is one of the top list building strategies that has been around for quite the time. We’ve noticed that an increasing number of firms are using it once again.
In essence, it is a sign-up form that fills the whole screen that opens when visitors open the web-page. You must close the welcome screen or follow their instructions in order to close the window and begin browsing the website in order to be able to continue to the website.
You can see the practice example of this opt-in on Neil Patel‘s website.
Although it’s a terrific approach to get website visitors to sign up for your email, some consumers or potential customers may find it annoying.
Footer Opt-in
The second method that can help you generate email list is an opt-in footer. People are indoctrinated to scroll down to the opt-in at the bottom of pages, particularly when it comes to online shopping and business. In the footer, you can subscribe to a newsletter or receive a discount. Even such a huge platform like Shopify utilize this working practice, having its newsletter sign-up area built into its footer by default.
Other static opt-in forms that you can utilize for your web-pages are in-line forms and floating bars.
Practice Example — RSVLTS
One of our clients RSVLTS also successfully uses a footer opt-in. You can sign up for their newsletter if you scroll down. People can opt in and leave their email address to receive a newsletter from the brand.
Add Pop-Ups
Pop-ups also contain sign-up forms, but they appear only when a visitor triggers them with a certain action. Their sudden appearance can quickly draw attention and encourage to opting-in. Pop-ups are one of the best means for building an email marketing list. There are a few main types that marketers use.
Exit Intent Pop-Up
When a user’s web browser detects that they are about to leave the website—that is, when they scroll their mouse pointer to the URL part of the browser—this kind of opt-in form appears on the screen. When they try to exit, it will pup-up with frequent phrases like, “Hey, before you go”, or “Do this before you go”, thus it is already customized. For you to get their email and remarket to them, it must be really appealing for them to either stay on your website or do the task you require of them. Using a discount or special offer to attract a website visitor before they leave can be a very successful strategy.
Here’s the practice example of the use of exit intent pop-up for list building by Mochikids.
Other dynamic sign-up forms that you can use as one of the practices how to build an email list fast are below surprise pop-ups and slide-in forms.
Add Quizzes
Using quizzes and other interactive elements is a valuable strategy for email list building. It helps website visitors determine which services or products they need, making them particularly useful when visitors are unsure. This approach also helps with segmentation of the email list based on the gathered information. By asking questions and receiving responses, businesses can suggest tailored products, serving as an effective email collection method.
One of the effective ways of implementing this tactic is providing an email opt-in form at the conclusion of the test before displaying the quiz results to entice participants to join your email list.
Let’s look at the practice example by Emily Jeffords who utilizes this strategy—requiring a subscription in order to view the quiz results—to draw artists to her online membership and email list. Users receive their results and other pertinent emails from her after subscribing.
Invest in Converting Landing Pages
Landing pages are an excellent strategy for growing your email list because they are extremely specialized. Since landings are more targeted at particular audiences or offers than a standard homepage, this strategy raises the possibility that users may engage and share their email addresses. Here are some recommendations for those who intend to use landing pages for building email lists.
- Make sure your title effectively communicates the value of your offer and grabs the reader’s attention when you’re developing a targeted landing page.
- Utilize compelling language that speaks to your target audience’s wants, objectives, and problems in order to boost interaction and email sign-ups.
- Make sure your call to action is obvious, conspicuous, and emphasizes the advantages of registering.
- Your landing page should have a clear, simple, and navigable layout and design.
Create Loyalty Programs
A rewards or loyalty program adds to the previous point about incentives, among other strategies that grow email list. We highly advise installing a loyalty program, especially if you have an online store. This is an extra technique to get email subscribers and give them something of value. A loyalty program gives your subscribers more value and aids in the development of your subscriber database. The likelihood of conversion is higher.
Going back to RSVLTS once more for practice example, you can notice that they have RSVLTS Rewards that anyone can join by registering. This is an extra method via which they gather emails. You can read more about the loyalty program that Flowium implemented for the brand in our Case study.
Promote Sign-Ups on Social Media
Social media followers have already demonstrated interest in your business; take advantage of their commitment by giving them the choice to join and grow your email list. Put a sign-up link in your bio and share it sometimes in posts to improve list building. Advertise your newsletter on all social media and email channels, and think about holding contests or rewards to draw subscribers. Every time someone reads your Instagram profile, you have a better chance of gaining new subscribers if you include a call to action in your bio for email signups. Additionally, to present your newsletter to people who have already connected with you, offer a subscriber link in your email signature.
Build an Email List Offline
By gathering email addresses offline at live events or in real businesses, you can grow your email list. By transforming any sign-up form into a scannable code, you may use QR codes to quickly connect offline and online channels. Gather addresses in person by going to fairs and events having a registration list that has an email field. Request clients’ email addresses wherever possible when making offline transactions. Arrange events or get-togethers for the community, and use signup forms to get email addresses from participants. By requiring email addresses on event sign-up sites, events—virtual or in-person—introduce your brand to new audiences and offer chances to expand your email list.
More List Building Practices from Flowium
Our guide on how to generate email lists doesn’t end on nine best strategies that we’ve just looked into. There are other elements that you can optimize on your website to boost list building. Here, we’ll share with you additional ways to generate more and more subscribers.
Homepage Optimization
First things you need to do is to make your homepage is fully optimized to build email lists. This means using appropriate CTAs, effective opt-in forms, and suitable pop-ups. In other words, you need to apply the strategies that we presented above in order to complete optimization. Don’t forget about the functional side—apart from the correct placement, design and copy, all these forms and elements have to function properly and be responsive for mobile devices. Overall, the main goal of optimization is to improve your homepage in ways that encourage users to opt-in.
List Building on “About Us”
Increasing the number of email subscribers via the About Us page is another additional strategy. The About Us page ranks second or third in terms of website traffic after the homepage, so you should optimize it and add some opt-in techniques. Therefore, adding the opt-in form to that page is crucial as it will increase the number of email subscribers you get.
Pat Flynn of Smart Passive Income is a fantastic example of opt-in method usage. On the About page you can read about him, his projects, the team, the mission, and other details as usual but it also gathers email addresses. You can fill in the sign-up form at the bottom and receive newsletters from Pat Flynn.
Blog Email List Building
Converting blog post visitors to subscribers is the one of the best methods for email list building. For this strategy to work, you need to make sure you produce high-quality content for your blog. You also need to increase the amount of traffic that reaches those pages and get visitors to sign up for emails.
Although you may create a classic sign-up form on the side and use it for all of your blogs, we recommend making the extra effort to customize it, as we do at our company. Keep in mind that even though we are an email marketing agency and your company may be different, the same approach will still work.
We produce material and publish blog entries on many subjects. For these subjects and categories, we created numerous lead magnets, for example, checklists for email campaigns and Klaviyo. When you visit a blog article about Klaviyo, a form offering a free Klaviyo checklist will appear. It can be an opt-in form the message, “Download this free Klaviyo setup checklist” or any other related lead magnet we promote at the moment. This tailored approach has a greater conversion rate because readers find the content relevant to their needs.
Using 404 Page
The last method to collect more email subscribers is to customize your 404 page. Sometimes people mistype your pages, or maybe you deleted the pages, and they do not exist. It will redirect people to the 404 error page. That page can be customizable, and we highly recommend this. You can enhance sign-up forms by offering a discount or cheat sheet as an apology when a page does not exist. Here’s an excellent example of this practice from Kinsta.
You can get a more detailed explanation about utilizing 404 page for list building from our previous article.
FAQ
What is an email list?
A collection of emails that companies have collected from clients or visitors who want to get updates, coupons, and other information about your company delivered straight to their inbox in digital format is called an email list.
What is list building?
Finding and gathering emails from users and visitors is known as list building. This enables you to expand the email database you use to finish off your email marketing campaigns. Additionally, it offers you more chances to improve the potential channels of connection you have with both present and potential clients.
Where to get email lists?
The only correct way of obtaining an email list is using all the practices we mentioned. Other sources are deemed unreliable, and for a good reason at that. Don’t buy email lists! Purchasing email lists, which frequently contain low-quality contacts and spam traps, is a common mistake made by inexperienced e-commerce marketers. Additionally, as you do not have verification of opt-in consent, employing bought lists may subject you to GDPR violations and severe penalties. This can result in a bad sender reputation, bans, and even account termination by your email service provider. In the end, rather than increasing sales, this strategy wastes money and minimizes the efforts of your email marketing campaigns.
Final Thoughts
We hope this article gives you a great perspective on the best practices of email list building. Even though creating an email list isn’t simple, with the effective tactics we provided, you can jumpstart the growth of your list. Now that you know how to grow an email list, you can easily draw in qualified leads and see the list of your subscribers expand. If you need any further consulting or professional assistance, Contact Flowium to receive top-notch email marketing services.
