So, you’re a small creative business – maybe you launched your business in 2020 during the ~panorama~ and are still coming to grips with the whole marketing side of it all. Well, if you’re on your marketing journey then this should be one of the first stations you stop at! Growing email lists is essential to growing your business even if you haven’t just started… If you’ve had your business for years and have 1,000s of followers on social media, and tons of sales, you still need to build an email list. No harm will come from it at all because it’s just too good!!
We’ll Be Discussing:
- The Importance of Building an Email List
- The Benefits of Building an Email List
- How to Grow an Email List
7 WAYS TO GROW YOUR EMAIL LIST FAST
- Lead Magnets
- Offers
- Free Webinar
- Create a Poll
- Create a Quiz
- Giveaways
- Subscribe Buttons
THE IMPORTANCE OF BUILDING AN EMAIL LIST
This is such a valuable step when it comes to transforming your small business as this is where you can communicate with previous, current and potential clients. It may be a shock to you but it’s been proven time and time again that when it comes to digital marketing, it’s more effective to communicate with your audience via an email, than with a social media post that is obviously for all your followers.
The money is in the email list – did you know that 72 % of people prefer to receive promotional content through email compared to 17% who prefer social media? This itself says why it’s imperative to hop onto the email train and give your audience what they want.
Not only is it important to have an email list to successfully grow your business, but there are so many benefits too and we’ll get into those right now!
THE BENEFITS OF BUILDING AN EMAIL LIST
The benefits of having and building an email list are endless. To be honest, I don’t think there are any cons at all… That is if you do it right! An email list is essential to any business and it will help transform your business into the success you want it to be. So, here’s why you need an email list…
Having an email list means you have access to so many potential customers/ clients! By emailing everyone you are able to build a relationship with them, let them get to know you and your brand and soon enough they’ll be loyal customers! By keeping in constant contact with your subscribers, you’re ensuring they’re up to date with what’s going on with your business and can let them know of any promotions or deals you’re offering.
You completely own your email list! This is great because you have total control over your list and you don’t have to worry about any guidelines or changes to any policies as you would with any social media platform. Okay, you may have 10,000s of followers on Pinterest and TikTok, but at the end of the day, those platforms own that data, not you. Whereas with your email list it’s all yours!!
An amazing trick that you can do with your email list is to segment your subscribers into different groups. You can do this based on their age, location, gender and even their likes and interests! This makes nurturing your subscribers so much easier as you can send out emails based on these groups. This way, not all your subscribers are getting the same content, they’re getting specific content tailored just for them, this will maximize their loyalty, boost sales and reduce any unsubscribers.
You can also automate your email campaigns which means that once your emails are written and set up you can have them sent to your subscribers’ inboxes automatically whenever you want! This is great because you can bulk write a bunch of email sequences and have them all sent out over a period of time, to different groups. As well as being incredibly time efficient for you, automating your email sequences ensures your emails are sent at the optimal time and with the relevant information based on the individual and their interaction with your business. Because the emails contain valuable information specific to the individual, they’re more likely to open and read the email. As well as generating a higher ROI (return of investment) , this will contribute to increasing sales for your business!
Another benefit is that you can make a ton of money!! The thing about email marketing is that it has the highest return on investment which means that for every dollar you spend on a campaign you can expect a $44 return! That’s 4400%! By combining all the benefits we discussed above, you’re sending out emails to your subscribers that they want to read, and hopefully, they’ll be looking forward to your emails. As you nurture your subscribers and send them good quality relevant content, they’re going to want to spend their money with you over any competitors.
Well, those are our reasons to build an email list and I really hope you’re on board because we here at CANDESCENT all promise you that you will not ever regret it! It’s such a valuable move to make for your creative business and you’ll see immediate results.
7 WAYS TO GROW YOUR EMAIL LIST FAST
So, since we’ve discussed how important it is to have a mailing list and its glorious benefits, it’s now time to get into how to actually build your massive email list. We’ve got 7 effective list building strategies to get people to sign up and we can’t wait to share them with you!
LEAD MAGNETS: EBOOK/ GUIDE/ CHEAT SHEET/ TEMPLATES
This is by far the easiest and best way to start building your email list right away! A Lead Magnet is something (such as an eBook, guide, etc.) that people find valuable that you can exchange for their email address. This gives people the opportunity to see if they like your type of content at the same time giving you their email address so that you can start nurturing them! This is an amazing place to start when it comes to building your mailing list and that’s why we have a guide to help you create your own lead magnet! Check it out here. It features 5 lead magnet ideas to help grow your email list in 2021 so what are you waiting for!
OFFERS/ COUPONS/ PROMO CODES
This is a great way for collecting email addresses as everyone loves to save some money! Giving your audience an option to do so by simply handing over their email address will no doubt get people to sign-up for your mailing list. You could do this by posting the promotions on your social media accounts so that you can attract your audience as if they already follow you, then they’re already interested in what you’re selling. Promote an offer such as ‘sign up to get 20% off your first purchase’ on your socials and link it to a landing page on your website where people can enter their email address to gain access to the offer. This should give your email list a great boost!
FREE WEBINAR
If you also want your audience to get to know you and your business more, then hosting a free webinar is a great way to do so. This will allow you to show them exactly what it is that your business does and how you can help them with your products/ services. To capture their email addresses, all you have to do is make it an essential step to signing up for the webinar. This way you can also email them reminders about the event, ask them for feedback and then also nurture them with other content as well.
CREATE A POLL
Create a poll and use an incentive to get your audience to take part. This could be a voucher or a discount and will entice your audience to want to get involved. At the end, have a field where people have to put in their email address in order to get access to the deal. The poll should feature questions about your business, whether it’s about products/ services, features you offer and so on… This way when people submit their answers you are also getting feedback about your business that you could use to either improve or to get ideas on what to launch next, or what content your audience prefers to see. This information is extremely valuable and you get their email address so it’s a great one to do!
CREATE A QUIZ
This is another fun way to get your audience to not only give their email addresses but to get them more involved with your business. It’s a fun little activity where people can answer a bunch of questions related to your industry and at the very end, to view their results or to have them emailed to their inbox they have to give their email address. The quiz can be ‘What kind of poser are you’ if you’re a photography business, or ‘What style of rings would best suit you’ if you make jewellery. It’s a super fun experience and by the end, you would have grown your email list! Interact is a great online quiz generator that you can use to create the perfect quiz for your audience! If you want to know what other amazing business tools we love to streamline your business, then download our FREE guide here!
GIVEAWAYS
This is quite similar to the ‘Offers’ strategy but this could arguably work better. It would cost more as you’d be giving something away free of charge rather than just at a discounted price, but as it is 100% off you’re more likely to get even more people involved with the giveaway. In order for people to enter this amazing giveaway, they would have to provide an email address and you’re sorted! Use the email addresses to draw the winner from so asking for it is justified. For a sneaky bonus, you can ask your audience to promote your giveaway on their social media stories as an extra entry. Them promoting it means you can reach an even wider audience!
SUBSCRIBE BUTTONS/ OPT-IN FORMS ON YOUR WEBSITE
Having signup forms that pop up across your website are essential! They may seem annoying but they work and that’s why everyone does it. There are so many different kinds of subscribe buttons and pop-ups that you can use all over your website to get people to hand over their email addresses. You can have them on every important landing page, a subscribe field at the bottom of all your pages, a sign-up on your blog to receive the latest posts, a tick box to receive marketing promotions at checkout, a sign-up for your email newsletter, the list is endless! Yieldify has a great article where they discuss lots of different kinds of website opt-in forms that other businesses use, so check it out if you want more detail.
Well, there you have it! Our glorious 7 list building tools to accumulate as many email addresses as you can so that you have an elite email list! The power of an email list is insane, and once you’ve built yourself up a nice hefty email list then you can start nurturing your subscribers and eventually turn them into loyal customers.
We here at CANDESCENT highly recommend starting off your journey to building your email list using a Lead Magnet to exchange with your audience for their email address. This is such an easy and effective way to kick-start your email marketing campaign and before you know it you have loads of downloads! Again, make sure you check out our FREE guide with
5 Lead Magnet Ideas to Help Grow Your Email List in 2021. It’s guaranteed to get the ball rolling on your journey to turning your email subscribers into loyal customers.
If you have any burning questions that need answering then don’t hesitate to message us across any of our social media platforms or get in touch on our contact page. We love to be involved with our community because after all, we’re here to help you on your small business journey!
Photo Credit: © J. Kelly Brito