20 Ways Retailers Can Build Their Email 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 return on investment. Follow these steps to make sure your email list is a dynamic, on-target and growing foundation for profitable customer relationships:
1. Make it worth opting in by having 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'll respect their privacy and preferences.
3. Add a form to your video page to collect email names.
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 media.
6. Create one-page landing page templates that contain calls to action and provide coupons or other incentives for signing up for your email program.
7. Send a new-customer welcome emails that contain a coupon and a form to refer a friend to get another coupon.
8. Embed email templates on your existing blogs and websites with forms, offers and calls to action.
9. Include a subscribe button on your communications so that readers can sign up.
10. Use your social pages to feature a prominent opt-in that promotes the program and invites readers to join.
11. Promote your email program on all of your printed materials.
12. Promote the program at the point of sale in-store.
13. Visitors to your website should quickly and clearly see the email opt-in button.
14. Position the e-mail sign-in at a consistent location 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 to email subscribers only.
17. Make the email opt-in form 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 a webinar or contest and collect email addresses from sign-ins.
20. Create different email subscriptions that target specific segments of your audience according to their needs and interests.
Dan Forootan is president of StreamSend Email Marketing, designed to help businesses maximize the reach of their marketing budget when sending an email newsletter or using social media.
