10 Things You Should Know About Building Your List

In the world of digital marketing, building your list is imperative. But what, exactly, does building your list even mean?

“Building your list” refers to building an email list of both potential and active customers. This is the audience a business can easily market to via an email follow-up.

Using an email list is an incredibly powerful and effective tool when it comes to digital marketing. But, in order to do so, you’ll need to build that email list first!

Building you email list will assist you not only with re-marketing new or existing customers, but can also be utilized as a source for push-button traffic. Push-button traffic, in this case, simply means that you can send a surge of traffic just by sending an email (at a click of a button).

The amount of push-button traffic you get will be dependent on the amount of people who click on links. Obviously, this will also depend on how many people are opening your emails, and how many people are on your email list!

As you can see, it all comes back to building that strong and expansive email-based customer list. So, let’s take a look at ten of the best ways for you to grow and build that list.

1. Use Social Media

Let’s face it: social media is the future. While this may seem discouraging for an article discussing how to build an email list, it’s not! In fact, 76% of American adults still actively use their email; there are over 3.9 billion email users worldwide. (Source)

So, it’s not that people don’t use their email, they just need a reason to check it.

If you are active on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or TikTok, take a look at who your subscribers and followers are. Then, use those same channels to pitch your newsletter! Followers of yours who are already loyal to you and your company may not even know your email newsletter exists, so let them know.

2. Provide a Compelling Lead Magnet

Potential or current customers browse your website because they want to know more about the products or services you are selling. So, one great way to get people to sign up to your email newsletter is by promising a more in-depth look at whatever their interest is currently on.

For example, if you own a website that sells fishing or other wildlife equipment, you can say, “Subscribe to our email list for exclusive discounts and fishing tips!” This way, you can offer them information as well as sales promotions.

That piece of information is called a "lead magnet."

This can come in many forms such as a 15% off coupon, a free-trial, a free ebook, checklist, or video; whatever fits your business best. Make sure that you check out my free training report on this.

Once you’ve made the offer through a landing page or pop-up, you’ll have the customer enter in their email list in order to receive their discount or freebie. This is an incredibly effective strategy; people love free things!

3. Create Engaging Content

Obviously, people will be less likely to sign up for your email list if your content is subpar or uninteresting. So, you’ll want to create an engaging and valuable call-to-action for your business, and then add your ask at the bottom.

Once you’ve hooked your reader, they will be much more likely to give you their email so they can receive further updates and offers. Simply adding, “to subscribe to our email list, click here” at the bottom of your call-to-action page will work wonders.

4. Make Your Opt-In Form Easy and Accessible

It is very common to business to add a static pop-up form that accompanies a user around the website as they browse, offering a chance to sign up for their newsletter. This way, a user can easily sign up for your email list at a moment’s notice, and can take their time browsing your website before they decide.

You will find many large and successful companies utilize this practice, so it’s definitely something to implement as you move forward. (Source)

5. Utilize Timed Surveys

Let’s discuss pop-ups a little bit more. Aside from simply adding a pop up asking customers if they want to sign up for your email newsletter, you can also use them to create timed surveys. Doing this may help gain subscribers who normally may not subscribe on the ask alone.

For this strategy, try to personalize these surveys based on what pages of your website your customers are visiting. For instance, if they are continuously visiting a page that sells a certain product or service, try making your survey: “You seem interested in this product/service. Would you like to sign up to our email newsletter to get more information and discounts on this?”

Timed surveys have a great track record. In fact, one Canadian University was able to grow their subscriber list by 500% by utilizing this strategy! (Source)

6. Create Multiple Landing Pages

Think about your website this way: everyone who visits it may need something slightly different. For this reason, it’s a good idea to create multiple “landing pages”. Landing pages simply refer to the page your customer will see when they click on a pop-up, advertisement, or link.

The more landing pages you create, the more leads you will ultimately receive. In fact, according to a study conducted by Hubspot, leads were increased by 55% when companies offered 15 landing pages instead of 10. (Source)

7. Don’t Be a Spammer

No one wants to be hit with a bunch of emails that they perceive as spam. So, you’ll want to make sure you’re framing your email newsletter as just that, as opposed to a sales ad.

I've joined some lists where people are always promoting. That works in some niches, but there are many cases where it doesn't nowadays.

One of the reasons being is spam filters.

Another reason is engagement.

When people don't open or click on your emails, sooner or later, your emails will go directly to the junk mail folder.

8. Customers Are Your Audience

In some circles, list building through sales is a killer approach. So instead of building a free email list, you directly build a buyers list.

This is a great strategy as you're building your own list of known buyers, and they've already gone through the know, like, and trust process enough to pull out their credit card and buy something from you.

Make sure that you treat your customers with respect and also realize that you can continue to provide value to them through the entire life cycle of your relationship. Some people call this the backend and this is where most of the business can take place.

9. Use Word of Mouth

One of the best marketing strategies is getting others to do it for you! Take a look at your current email newsletter to gain new subscribers.

One good tactic is to say, “Refer 3 friends to our email list and receive a discount on your purchase”, or offer them another freebie.

When Hotmail first started, they were promoting their free email service through the signature of every outbound email.

In the internet marketing industry, affiliate marketing has been used heavily to spread the word. If you own the product or service, you can generate leads when your product is sold.

10. Change It Up

We’ve used the words “Subscribe for updates” a couple times in this article. So, what things do you plan on updating your customers about?

You want to make sure you aren’t pulling a bait and switch; if your customers are promised updates, make sure you’re giving them updates!

Whether it be new products, new information, the layouts or aesthetics of your web pages, or even something as simple as changing the headlines and call-to-actions of your offer, make sure you are changing thing up to see what works the best. You can test and track different areas of your landing pages to see what increases your visit-to-opt-in conversions.

Wrapping things up. There are 2 resources that can help you in your list building journey.

1st, check out my free training. I offer an exclusive report that will show you how to generate more leads.

2nd, check out one of my favorite list building training courses. It's close to the cost of a cup of coffee, but you'll gain so much from it!