20 Ways to Build an Email Marketing List

Smart marketers know that a good, growing email list is gold. The size of the list needs to increase and evolve to sustain the widest reach possible, as does the quality of those email addresses, reaching the right people the right way with messages they value. Good lists are the foundation of email marketing — which still dominates ROI — so follow these steps to make sure your email lists are a dynamic, on-target and growing foundation for profitable customer relationships.

1. Make it worth opting in — with a program that’s targeted to subscribers’ real needs and interests.
   
2. Be clear up front with what recipients can expect to receive and how you will respect their privacy and preferences.
   
3. Add a form to your video to collect email names and subscribers
   
4. Post a template of informative videos on Facebook, (whether or not they were created by others). Use a widget to add a form that invites viewers to “get more like this.”
   
5. Make a share board; post it regularly on social.
   
6. Create one-page landing page templates that contain calls to action and provide coupons or other incentives.
   
7. Send a new-customer welcome email that contains a discount coupon — and has a form to refer a friend to get a discount coupon.
   
8. Embed email templates on your existing blogs and web sites with forms, offers and calls to action.
   
9. Be sure to include a subscribe button on your communications so that a reader can become a relationship.
   
10. Social sites like Facebook should feature a prominent opt-in that promotes the program and invites readers to join.
    
11. Promote the email program on all your printed materials.
    
12. Promote the program at in-store point of sales.
    
13. Visitors to your website should quickly and clearly see the email opt-in.
    
14. Position the e-mail sign-in at consistent locations for all the different phases of a visit to your website.
    
15. Accompany any sign-in form with an email opt-in and program description.
    
16. Make some promotions, sales, etc., available through email only.
    
17. Make the email opt-in an easy gate to jump, knowing that there will be other opportunities to learn further customer preferences.
    
18. Sell the program – concisely – at opt-in locations.
    
19. Promote an online webinar or contest and collect email addresses from sign-ins.
    
20. Create different email subscriptions that will target specific segments of your audience according to their needs and interests.

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