Everyone knows that the best way to market to your customers is by building an in-house email marketing list.

The fastest way to get your email marketing started is to use a bought-in list. But the problem with that is you are sending unsolicited emails to people who may not even be interested in what you have to say. Therefore the chances of your campaign being successful are slim.

By far the best way to market via email is to build your own list where people have opted in. That way you know that your email messages won’t be met with hostility.

That’s all well and good, but how to you build your list? What techniques can you use to get people to sign up?

Well, that’s where this little list comes into play.

12 Ways to Build Your Email List

Here are a few suggestions to get you started.

1. Trade shows and fairs

If there is a trade show, fair or exhibition you attend regularly, have a sign up list with you on your stand. Then, as you engage and interact with your customers, you can ask them to sign up so they are the first to hear about your news and offers.

2. Shop event

Whether you are a retail outlet or if you have offices, why not have an open evening. It could be to launch a new product, celebrate a business milestone or just a new season event. Again, make sure you have a list available where they can sign up for your newsletter and email offers.

3. Public speaking

It may not be your favourite activity, but we all tend to get roped into giving a talk at some point. Use this opportunity to promote your newsletter. Weave into your speech mention of your newsletter and how they can sign up to receive your latest hints, tips and offers.

4. Prize draw

No one likes to think they’re missing out on anything. Offer your newsletter subscribers a free monthly draw. If there is a chance of getting something for nothing, people will sign up.

5. Packaging

If yours is a business that ships products out to people, make sure you have something within the packaging that mentions your newsletter. Make signing up more tempting by telling them of your email only offers. If they think it is in their best interests to sign up, they will.

6. Twitter

OK, let’s just get one thing straight, Twitter is not to be used for spam. Twitter is about engaging with your followers but there is no harm in mentioning your newsletter occasionally. Just make sure you don’t over do it. Perhaps if you have an email offer coming up, you can mention that: “sign up for my newsletter and get the latest email offer”.

7. Business cards

Business cards are often under utilised. They are seen as only being useful for passing on your contact details. Use the back of your card to tell people what you can do for them and include a call to action to sign up for your newsletter.

8. Email signature

Another under utilised tool. By simply inserting a hyperlink in your signature with a CTA to sign up for your newsletter, you are increasing your list building opportunities.

9. Something for nothing

Don’t we all like that? Getting something for nothing is always a great motivator so give something away in return for their signup. It can be an eBook, white paper, industry report, even a discount off a first purchase. Whatever it is, make sure it adds value.

10. Make the most of your bounce backs

Email addresses change, and most of the time people can’t remember what newsletters they’ve sign up for. So the first you’ll know about it, is when you get your email message bounce back. But don’t just delete it from your list, send out a postcard asking for their new email address.

11. Make it easy to opt in

Don’t hide your sign up box. Make sure it stands out. And to maximise your chances, include it on every page of your website.

12. Pass it on

Your email recipients are a great marketing tool in their own right, so use them. They are bound to know someone else who would be interested in what you have to say, so make sure you include a ‘forward to a friend’ button. Also, make sure when it is forwarded there is an opt-in form included in your communication somewhere so they can sign up immediately.

There are a few suggestions to get you started. Do you use any other techniques that I’ve not touched on here? If so, why not share them with us? Email marketing is a powerful tool that all businesses should be utilising. Building your list is one of the most vital aspects and by following these simple techniques, you’ll build a quality list, fast.

Sally Ormond - freelance copywriter

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If you are using email marketing as part of your internet marketing campaign – well done.

It is probably one of the fastest, easiest and most productive forms of marketing when used in conjunction with an in-house mailing list.

The best way to get your new subscribers to warm to you, is to welcome them when they sign up.

Sounds obvious, doesn’t it? So why are so many of you failing to do it?

As soon as someone signs up, they should receive a welcome email from you. This serves several purposes:

Your email welcome

Branding

Make sure your welcome email is branded in line with your company’s personality. Sending out the email immediately after sign up will mean your company name will be fresh in your new subscribers mind. Seeing an email with your livery will ensure they recognise it, welcome it and (with a bit of luck), read it.

Value

It should also add value to your new relationship. Thank them for signing up and restate the benefits in doing so. Even though they’ve probably read these there’s no harm in reiterating them.

This is also a great opportunity to thank them by including a special offer. Perhaps a money off coupon, free report or something along those lines. This will show that you value their subscription.

Expectations

Your subscribers will want to know what they’ve signed up for. Although this would have been covered at the sign up point, it’s good practice to tell them again. Let them know what they’ll get from you and how often.

Cross promotions

If you are a business that has more than one mailing list, this is a prime opportunity to offer your other newsletters. But make sure you ask them to opt-in to the other lists, you can’t just add them.

Technical bits

Of course, to ensure your email is fully compliant, you must also ensure it contains features such as:

• an opt-out link
• your company’s physical mailing address
• a link to your email preference centre (if relevant)
• refer a friend link
• a link back to your website.

Ask them

This is also a great time to ask them what they are looking for. Not only will this show you as a caring company that listens to its subscribers, but it will also give you a valuable insight into what people want to read.

Sending a welcome email is your chance to set out exactly what your readers will get and an opportunity to discover what they want to read.

Start your relationship off on the right foot and they are likely to remain a subscriber longer. And, retention is the name of game.

Sally Ormond – freelance copywriter

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There are three things every email marketer wants to achieve:

• They want their message to be delivered
• They want to establish a relationship of trust with their mailing list
• They want their emails to be read

But, if you want to become known as an email spammer that won’t be important to you. You won’t care about your recipient. You’ll go out of your way to send annoying emails. You will want them to unsubscribe from or block your messages.

To help you become a spammer extraordinaire, just follow these tips:

1. Never use a real name

Don’t you just hate it when you get emails from real people? Wouldn’t it be better to conceal your true identity?

Who cares if your email shows it’s come from Sally Ormond or Briar Copywriting? It would be much better to use something like ‘Bulk’, ‘List’, ‘Blank’. The recipient will never guess it’s a spam email with a senders name like that.

2. Make sure your subject line rings alarm bells

Subject lines that make sense are so boring. It’s much better to use something nonsensical – Brodie tell freelancecopywriter.com – fab! That tells the reader absolutely nothing. Of course, if you really want to get their attention THERE’S NO BETTER WAY THAN USING CAPITAL LETTERS!!!

3. Don’t send it to real people

Do you really want to spend time making sure you have a real person’s name in your recipient’s email address? Of course not. Just sent them out to generic addresses. Yes, some might get stuck in spam filters but there’ll be some that get through.

4. Use catch phrases where possible

Why waste your time trying to come up with a strong subject line that is informative and eye catching? Go with the good old ‘free’, ‘cheap’, ‘GUARANTEED’, ‘no obligation’. It’s not as if your recipients are going to be bright enough to work out we only use those words to make them open our emails.

5. Don’t worry about the quality of your copy

People always bang on about making sure you proofread everything. What’s the harm in the odd spelling mistake, punctuation balls-up or grammatical error? They’ll be so busy they won’t even notice.

6. Don’t get cocky

If you’re confident in your writing you’ll make your reader think you know what you’re taking about.

Keep it vague. Use words like ‘I was wondering’, ‘perhaps you could’ – I mean, it’s not as if we want the reader to take action is it?

7. Send it to anyone

I’m not into all this sending information only to those who are interested. How do you know if someone is interested or not? I mean, it’s like those emails you get from SEO companies. It’s not like they’ve got time to check to see if the company they’re mailing out to is on the front page of Google or not is it? OK, so the copywriter we emailed was on the front page for the term ‘copywriter’ but I bet there are some terms they’re not on the front page for. That’s why it’s important to be vague in your email – specifics will only cause problems.

Why do you need to know this?

If you want to become known as a spammer, these 7 tips will help you.

But if you want to avoid that particular tag, remember:

• always use a real name in the sender field
• ensure your subject lines make sense, are informative and don’t use capital letters
• send your emails to a real address including a persons name
• avoid catch phrases and words like ‘free’ ‘cheap’ ‘GUARANTEED’
• make sure you proofread before sending out your email
• write with confidence, if you want your reader to take action, tell them
• make sure your email only goes to those who would be interested/or would benefit from your product/service

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The advent of email marketing has revolutionised the way many businesses market themselves today.

Never before have you been able to market to so many people, so quickly and cheaply.

But as well as being one of the most efficient forms of marketing, it can also be one of the most damaging if you get it wrong.

How to get email marketing right

One of the most important aspects of email marketing is your list. Yes, you could take a short cut and go and buy yourself a mailing list, but will that really work?

By far the best mailing list you can have is your own in-house list. Yes, it will take time to build but its quality will be far superior to anything you can ‘buy off the shelf’.

Of course, to do this you have to get people to part with their email addresses which isn’t as easy as it sounds. You’ll have to offer them something worthwhile – great information, fantastic tips, special offers.

How to generate sign ups and keep them

I have put together 7 simple steps to help you get your email marketing right. Follow these and you’ll increase your sign ups and keep them subscribed.

1. Make is easy

If you want someone to sign up for your newsletter/email marketing, you have to make it easy for them.

Just ask for their email address – at this stage you don’t need anything else. Long forms asking for loads of information will not be attractive. Remember at this stage you’re not looking at generating leads, all you want is an email address so you can add value to your relationship with them.

Also, make sure you reassure them you won’t spam or pass on their details to a third party.

2. Sign them up

A visitor to your website isn’t going to hunt round it for your sign up box. So, you have to make sure your sign up box is prominent. You could place it on every page of your website, but why not also have it on your order form or even in your comments section.

That way, whenever they interact with you, you are giving them the opportunity to opt in to your mailing list.

3. Use a reliable service

There’s nothing worse than collecting loads of email addresses and then using a service that is going to constantly let you down.

You need one you can rely on to produce attractive and robust email/newsletter templates that are delivered first time, every time. I would recommend the Aweber service.

4. Work on your subject lines

Your subject line has to grab your recipient’s interest if you want them to open it. Don’t use anything spammy – go for things like ‘Tips’, ‘How to’, ‘Discover’, ‘Learn’.

If your company’s brand is well known, use it in your subject line so it is instantly recognisable as something to be read.

5. Make an impact

Most people, when they open your email, will just quickly scan the first few lines to see if it’s worth spending time on. So make sure your important information comes first.

Hit them hard and fast – grab their attention and draw them into the rest of your message.

6. Test

The best way to hone your email marketing skills is to split test. Divide your mailing in two and send out the same email but with two different subject lines.

Monitor which has the best open rate – learn what generates the best response and continually develop it. Over time you’ll begin to create powerful emails that really sell.

7. Make sure you give value

If you want people to subscribe and stay subscribed, you have to give them great information.

Sending them constant sales messages will just turn them off. You need to listen to them, give them information that will be of use to them. If your customer service team are fielding the same questions over and over again, use this in your marketing. Answer their questions and show them you listen.

If you get your email marketing right, you’ll develop strong and loyal relationships with your customers and boost your sales. You’ll become a name they know and trust. But it is all too easy to get it wrong.

Test, reliable services, great offers, valuable information – these are the things that will make your marketing work.

Sally Ormond – freelance copywriter

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If, as a business, you have decided to enter the world of email marketing, there are a few things you should know.

• It is relatively cheap
• It is quick
• You can reach a wide audience in one go
• You can get information out quickly

But to get the full benefit of email marketing your approach has to be consistent. Your customers like consistency and reliability.

Follow up

Email marketing is ideal for communicating an offer to your customer base. It could be a discount or special offer or it could be in the form of information – a new report, case study or reference manual.

When your flood of responses arrive all wanting a copy, you must make sure every request is actioned. Being short handed isn’t an excuse. Your customers will expect you to have planned ahead – if it was a winning offer, they would assume you’d have enough staff on hand to deal with the enquiries. After all, a great offer isn’t any good if you don’t have the man power to deal with it.

Announcing…

Email marketing is also a great way to communicate new events, future offers, products or improved products. Why not survey your customers by using an online free service such as Survey Monkey. That way you’ll get feedback directly from your customers which you can use to enhance your products and services.

Keeping your customers informed in this way will show them you care; you have their best interests at heart and should you happen to get a few extra sales along the way, even better.

Reciprocity

That is one of my favourite words referring to good old fashioned ‘give and take’.

By sending out weekly, bi-weekly or monthly tips to your mailing list, you are building a relationship of trust. You are giving them something for nothing – a very powerful thing.

Of course, what goes around comes around, so if you are seen giving them extra information free of charge, they are more likely to come to you when they need your products and services.

Keeping regular

A monthly newsletter to your customers is always a great idea. They hear from you regularly. You can use it to give more general information they may find useful. In an earlier post I mentioned the importance of segmenting your mailing list. Your newsletter is your opportunity to pop up into your list’s inbox regularly with fantastic information.

But, if you are going to do a newsletter, make sure you do send it regularly (whether monthly or bi-monthly). People will begin to expect it and if it suddenly doesn’t show up, they could be left wondering what’s happened – perhaps you’ve gone out of business?

It takes time to put together a great newsletter, but the effort will be worth it. That regular contact will ensure your company is always in the back of their minds.

Announcing…

Finally, another great benefit of email marketing is that it allows you to shout about your new products, services and offers.

Your mailing list will be the first to know what is happening. Give them an early bird offer to make them feel valued and to encourage them to remain subscribed to your mailing list.

Why you need to know this

If email marketing is done badly, it could harm your business. Done well, and you’ll reap the rewards.

Sally Ormond – freelance copywriter

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Keeping in touch with new, prospective and existing customers has always been a headache. How much contact is too much? Should you contact them after they have purchased? Will it seem pushy if you continue to ‘pester’ them?

However, marketing to your existing customer base remains one of the most effective ways to promote your products and services.

After all, if they’ve bought from you once, they probably will again.

Be careful what you say

Although many more businesses today are turning to email marketing as a quick, effective, and relatively inexpensive method of promoting their products, they make one fatal mistake.

When an email campaign fails to deliver the expected return, it’s all too easy to blame:

• the copy of the email
• the subject line of the email
• the day it was sent out on
• the time it was sent
• the offer it contained.

Yes, some of these could have an effect if you don’t get them right, but there is a fundamental aspect of email marketing that is more likely to blame.

It is an error that is seen time and time again. What’s more, it occurs because the business doesn’t have the right tools for the job.

If you look at your mailing list, not everyone is going to be interested in the same information. For example if you run a pet supplies company, some of your customers will be interested in supplies for their cats, some for their dogs and some for their horses.

So if you have an offer on dog collars and you send that out to everyone on your list, it will only appeal to about a third of those people contacted.

If people on your list are constantly being sent information they don’t want or need, there is a good chance that your email will either be deleted (best case scenario) or they’ll unsubscribe.

Email marketing is great if you send the right information to the right people.

Divide and conquer

The key is to devise campaigns that are only sent to the customers who are likely to be interested in them. Now, not all software will allow you to do this and some of you will have vast mailing lists which makes it an impossible task to do manually. But, if you can do it, it will make a world of difference to your response rate.

So, your dog collar promotion will only go out to your dog owners. By tailoring your marketing to the direct needs of your customers, you are maximising your opportunities of making a sale. This will also have the effect of ensuring the information you send is relevant, of interest and therefore will enhance your relationship with them.

If you ignore this and simply bang out emails again and again to your entire list, you’ll start to alienate yourself. No one wants their inbox filled with ‘rubbish’.

A monthly general newsletter to your entire list will keep regular contact with everyone (just try to make sure there is something for everyone in it). This is great to keep the name of your business in their mind so when they are ready to make a purchase they will (hopefully) come to you. But special offers must be segmented.

Why do you need to know this?

Email marketing is a very efficient way of promotion and selling, but the blanket approach will do more harm than good.

If you consistently send information to people who don’t want it, they’ll unsubscribe. It will come across as though your organisation is remote and out of touch. Taking the effort to tailor your message to your recipients will enhance your chances of a sale and strengthen your relationship with them. You will come across as someone who cares, someone who doesn’t send them useless information and only sends things that you know are relevant to them.

So if your email campaign doesn’t perform as you expect, don’t immediately blame the copy, subject line or offer; take a look at who  you sent it to. That could be where the problem lies.

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Email marketing is fast becoming the new black. It’s been around for a while but companies are now beginning to understand the potential it has.

In the past your mailings involved folding copious numbers of letters, sticking them in envelopes and slapping on stamps – today you simply spend a bit of time crafting your email and pressing send.

But how do you stop your email going directly into the delete file?

It’s all in the opening

The first thing your recipient will see is the sender’s name and subject line. So how do you make sure you pique his curiosity sufficiently to click on your email and open it?

Take Henry here for instance. He’s been tasked to come up with an email that will knock his customer’s socks off. 

He works for a washing power factory. His company has come up with a new detergent that will banish every stain known to man. To help him out, I have emailed him 10 little words that should him create something amazing.

———————————————–

Sender: sally@briarcopywriting.com

Subject: At last, the words you need to succeed

Hi Henry,

I thought you might find this list of words useful when putting together your sales email today. As a copywriter I find them invaluable when creating email campaigns for my clients. Try them out and see how you get on.

1. Advice – this indicates you’ll be sharing something really useful “Advice for getting your whites white”
2. Why – this indicates they’ll learn something new “Why stains will be a thing of the past”
3. At last – this indicates that it’s finally here “At last a washing powder you can trust”
4. Introducing – this gives you the opportunity to use your product name or company name “Introducing Magic White”
5. How to – everyone loves to learn things “How to get whites white first time”
6. How – very similar to the previous one but allows a more subtle introduction “How you can banish stains forever”
7. Announcing – this can be used as an effective teaser because you don’t have to include your products name “Announcing the latest laundry technology”
8. Which – this will get their interest because they’ll want to know if there is something new they need to know “Which powder banishes stains every time?”
9. New – This is an old one but a good one because everyone loves something that’s new “New advanced formula that banishes stains”
10. Now – this is one of the most powerful three letter words used by copywriters “Now you too can have whiter whites”

I’m sure you can come up with some better lines than the ones I’ve written above – they are just there to illustrate how the words work.

The other thing to remember is to keep your subject line to 40 characters or less so it doesn’t get truncated.

Remember Henry, the subject line is all that stands between your email and the delete file. It should be short, directed at your reader and instantly attention grabbing.

These 10 little words are tried and tested and get results again and again. Give them a go and let me know how you get on.

Warm regards,

Sally

Freelance copywriter

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Related posts:

Boost your email open rate

Email your way to success

Email marketing – when’s the best time to send

Work you way towards the perfect email body

Email marketing – why it doesn’t always work

Is email marketing right for you?

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The best time to send your email can depend on a number of factors:

• who your audience is
• what your content is
• why you’re sending the email…

The best way to discover the optimum time and day is through asking your recipients and trial and error.

A general rule of thumb

This ‘general rule of thumb’ is the one I work from. You may have different ideas to me and experiences. If you do please comment below because I’d love to hear your take on this subject.

Generally I send out my emails during the working week. Not everyone is a workaholic (says she as she types this on a Sunday afternoon), so I always avoid sending out business communications such as email marketing at the weekend.

I find the best days are Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday, with Tuesday and Thursday being my preferred days.

Why not Monday?

Look at your Monday – what are you normally doing? It’s the first day back in the office after the weekend. You’ll probably spend the day finishing off last weeks jobs before you even start looking through your new batch of emails.

If you do get to your emails I bet you just give them a cursory glance and pick our the most important ones. Considering how much work you have to get through that week, you’ll probably also delete those which you won’t have time to look at – i.e. the newsletters! (this is where it pays to spend extra time working on your eye-catching headline).

Why not Friday?

The same kind of thing as above – you’re now winding down for the weekend trying to finish off those last minute jobs that landed on your desk at lunchtime. You don’t have time for newsletters and marketing emails now and you definitely don’t want to see them on Monday morning so they end up being deleted.

Tuesday and Thursday then

In my experience, Tuesday and Thursday are the best days. Why? Who knows – perhaps you’re more into your stride by then or you have more time on those days. But it seems to work for me.

Remember though, there is only one way to really discover the optimum time to send your communications and that’s by testing. Try it and test it – who knows you may come up with  completely different results to me.

Everyone’s market is different so testing is the only way to determine what will really work for you. But it’s also important to keep testing. Different times of year could return different results.

Sally Ormond – freelance copywriter

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The best way to dive into email marketing is to build your own opt-in  list.

Sure, if you wanted to cut corners you could buy in a list or two – but do you really know what you’re getting?

The best and safest way to market your business through email is by utilising a list you have developed.

Great! So how do you start getting a list like that. It’s all very well in theory but creating a good list takes time. But at least you know that by doing it this way, you’ll have a list that is qualified and interested in what you’re offering.

How do I build my list and stop people from unsubscribing?

First, let’s make it clear that when you produce your newsletter you must have an unsubscribe button on it. You won’t be able to please all of the people all of the time. Your news and information may only be relevant for a certain period for some people so don’t be too disheartened if you get a few people unsubscribing from your list.

Really the first thing you have to worry about is getting people to hand over their email addresses in the first place.

Why should they give you their address? The information or offers you have for them must be relevant and useful otherwise why should the bother? It would also be a good idea to give them something – e.g. a free report, eBook etc.

Give them great content

Every issue of your newsletter must contain information that is interesting and relevant to your reader. If you promise insights into SEO and give them the latest news on Wall Street they’ll get a bit hacked off and unsubscribe.

Make every page of your website count

Get your opt-in form on every page of your site – in the  same place. And make sure it’s easy to find – if you’re offering a free report/eBook make sure you show that too. Why not add them to your social media pages too such as Facebook.

Don’t make the sign up process complicated – a simple name and email address will suffice.

Psst, pass it on…

If your subscribers like your content, the chances are others will as well. Ask them to spread the work and “pass it on” to their friends and colleagues. This kind of viral marketing can be very powerful and help you grow a list quickly.

Use a squeeze page

There is only one goal for a squeeze page and that is to get opt-ins. It’s a bit like a mini sales letter. It has a strong headline followed by tantalising benefits. Research your keywords and invest in a bit of pay-per-click and you’re away.

To give it an extra boost add in a few testimonials too. You can also add video.

Blog

Blogging will generate interest and traffic to your site. If your blog is on a different URL to your website why not include a sign up box there too?

So there you go – just a few ideas to help you grow a home cultivated email marketing opt-in list.

Can you think of any other way of generating your list? If so why not post a comment and share your ideas with everyone.

Sally Ormond – freelance copywriter

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If you have been following my blog, you’ll recall the last few posts dealt with the issue of email marketing.

Email remains one of the most cost effective methods for today’s small businesses to market to their customers. With a single click your offer or news item can be distributed to thousands of in boxes anywhere in the world. We have already looked at the structure and content of a great email campaign – now it’s time to take it to another level.

I came across this great post on eMarketer which gives you a further trick you can try to boost your email open rate. This is an excellent piece of advice for all business owners and definitley worth a try because Coupons Boost E-Mail Open Rate ( eMarketer).

This is such a simple idea and so easy to implement. So why not give it a go?

Next time you send out an email campaign or newsletter, try adding a coupon and see what effect it has on your open rate.

Associated posts:

Is Email Marketing Right For You?

Email Marketing – It’s All In The Subject Line

Work Your Way Towards The Perfect Email Body

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