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Your subscriber list is crucial to successful email marketing.
Email marketing might seem outdated and dull compared to social media marketing. Still, email marketing offers significant value to businesses and consumers because nearly everyone has an email address and uses email daily.
Your email subscriber list is a key determinant of email marketing campaign success. A high-quality list can ensure the right audience sees your message, but a poorly built list means your message might go unheard. We’ll explain why email list quality is crucial and outline 20 strategies to build a highly effective subscriber list that will maximize your marketing efforts.
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An email list — also called a mailing list or subscriber list — is a collection of email addresses a business has gathered from visitors and customers. With opt-in email marketing, individuals actively choose to receive communications from the business, including updates, announcements and discounts. The best email marketing services can help you build and manage your list while delivering relevant, targeted content.
Email list building refers to the process of increasing subscribers who opt in to receive your emails. Patrick J. Peters III, head of Direct to Consumer at Market Performance Group, emphasized that building a quality email list requires a multi-pronged approach. “The key to growing your email list is to create content, use SEO, earned media and organic social to ground your brand with social proof and build the foundation of your email list organically,” Peters explained. “Then, use paid media channels to amplify that message and grow your email list.”
When building your email list, keep three major priorities in mind:
With these priorities in mind, you can begin growing your list with quality email addresses from your target audience — the people who genuinely want to receive your content.
CTAs help organic website visitors sign up for your emails. Including CTAs on every landing page throughout your website, such as “Sign up for our mailing list to receive special offers,” increases the likelihood of engaged and interested consumers subscribing as they navigate your site.
While email is a popular communication method, many consumers find businesses through social media. Including an email sign-up link on social media posts is a surefire way to add interested consumers to your list. Since your goal is to build a quality list — not just amass numbers — this method ensures you find subscribers actively seeking out businesses like yours.
In addition to including email list sign-up links in your regular posts, consider creating social media posts — on your Facebook page or Instagram account, for example — that specifically inform customers about your email list and the content they’ll receive if they sign up. This strategy ensures quality signups from highly targeted visitors.
Consider partnering with other websites by contributing articles or guest blog posts that include a sign-up CTA. Expanding your online presence opens your business to a new audience and helps you access new email addresses and high-quality prospects.
Additionally, invite others to write guest posts for your blog or website. These contributors will bring some of their audience to your site and improve your outreach.
Incorporate email list-building into your everyday tasks. For example, when a new customer calls for a quote or when you’re providing information about your business, ask if they’d like to join your email subscriber list. Before inviting them, you can vet the prospect to ensure they would be a quality addition to your list.
An exit-intent pop-up appears when a visitor is about to leave a website. You can customize these email pop-ups with specific messages. For example, you could invite visitors to sign up for emails to receive updates, exclusive offers or more information about your business.
Opt-ins are one of the most reliable ways to build quality email lists. However, visitors need a clear incentive to sign up and the process of providing their contact info must be fast and easy.
If you find that your content isn’t enticing enough people to sign up for your emails, consider providing an incentive. Offer a discount code, free download or complimentary item to encourage people to sign up. A popular incentive is providing actionable information, such as a checklist or webinar related to your industry.
Email-only specials are also an excellent way to drive list participation. Whether you’re using a buy-one-get-one sale, limited-edition items or another specialized offer, offering email-only specials will add an element of enthusiasm to growing your email list.
However, be mindful that you want a quality email list, so ensure that your incentives attract genuinely interested subscribers rather than those signing up just for the perk.
Challenges and giveaways work much like incentives. You can create a challenge, such as running a 5K, donating food or organizing a giveaway or social media contest where customers provide their email addresses to participate. The same caveat holds true here, however: Make sure your challenge or giveaway attracts genuinely interested subscribers rather than those signing up just for the prize.
Give your customers and prospects premium content in exchange for their email addresses. This content can include catalogs, guides, white papers, webinars, online courses and annual reports. This practice is known as gated content — exclusively curated for those on your email list. It is a great way to attract highly interested subscribers who are more likely to engage with your brand over time.
Ask your customers for their email addresses so they can join a free customer loyalty program and earn perks, rewards or discounts. Ensure your enrollment process is straightforward and be transparent about your offerings — the more specific, the better. Loyalty programs foster long-term brand relationships, making this an excellent strategy for building a high-quality email list.
Try running co-branded campaigns with complementary businesses in your industry. You likely share a similar target audience, so you both can benefit by reaching high-quality recipients. However, never directly share or exchange email lists, as this may violate opt-in email marketing regulations such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), CAN-SPAM Act and California Consumer Privacy Act.
Instead, use co-branded emails where both businesses independently send promotions to their lists, encouraging cross-signups without breaching privacy laws. [Related article: 5 Reasons Your Business Should Have Strategic Partnerships]
Encourage your subscribers to share your opt-in link on social media, email and messaging platforms to attract more like-minded prospects. You can also add an opt-in link at the bottom of your email signature, newsletters and promotional emails and encourage employees to do the same.
Additionally, consider adding a “Forward to a Friend” button to your emails. This allows recipients to easily share your content with their network, helping you reach high-quality prospects similar to your existing audience.
Engage your employees in organically growing your email list by inviting them to share sign-up opportunities with friends, family and professional connections who may be genuinely interested in your products or services. However, ensure all signups follow email marketing rules and regulations — no one should add contacts without their consent.
When customers get to your online checkout page after shopping, give them the option to subscribe to your email list. This is a prime opportunity to grow your email list because customers are already engaged with your brand. Keep in mind that, under the GDPR, you cannot check the box for your customers; they must opt in themselves.
Most people today prefer electronic forms of communication over traditional mail. However, snail mail can help your digital campaigns, too. If your business still uses the postal service for direct mail marketing, consider providing customers with a quick response code that will send them directly to your opt-in page or allow them to switch to electronic communications, providing their email address in the process.
Your local chamber of commerce provides access to a network of business owners and community events where you can connect with potential customers.
Once you join, explore opportunities to promote your business through chamber newsletters, networking events and business directories. If the chamber has an email list, ensure you follow opt-in regulations before sending promotional emails with an opt-in link to encourage signups.
Maintaining a high-quality email list ensures your messages reach engaged, interested prospects while improving your email marketing performance. If your list contains outdated or inactive addresses, your open rates and click-through rates (CTR) may be skewed, making it harder to measure campaign success.
People frequently change email addresses, impacting deliverability and bounce rates. To maintain email list quality, regularly review your email metrics to identify and remove the following:
After cleaning your list, your remaining subscribers will be more engaged and likely to convert into customers.
Bhavik Sarkhedi, branding expert and co-founder of Ohh My Brand, emphasized that subscriber filtering is crucial to building and maintaining a quality email list. “Getting subscribers is one thing; filtering them is another,” Sarkhedi noted.
To ensure only engaged and relevant contacts remain on your list, Sarkhedi recommends the following three-step filtering process:
Another effective filtering method is following up after a lead magnet download, such as an e-book. “Another key filter? A simple Google Form right after they receive the e-book,” Sarkhedi suggested. “Not promotional, not a sales pitch — just a short survey asking about their biggest pain points. If they take the time to respond, they’re not just a subscriber. They’re a potential customer.”
Email marketing platforms allow you to “tag” subscribers — categorizing them for more effective, personalized content and helping you create a higher-quality email list. For example, if subscribers sign up for a free e-book on a particular topic, you can tag them as interested in that subject and send them relevant follow-up content to boost engagement.
You can also identify high-value customers by tagging them based on:
This segmentation enables you to reward your most engaged subscribers with exclusive promotions, VIP events or brand ambassador opportunities, fostering stronger relationships and increasing lifetime customer value.
When creating list-building offers, such as access to high-value content or prizes, ensure your offers are relevant to one or more of your buyer personas. For example, if your business offers franchise or investment opportunities and one of your personas is retirees with substantial savings, your offer could highlight how they can generate passive income with minimal time commitment. This ensures that those who subscribe are high-quality leads, not just freebie seekers.
If your offers are too general or are major giveaways, you may generate a huge subscriber list, but many of them will probably not be actual prospects for your business.
Henry Timmes, CEO of Campaign Cleaner, emphasized that building a quality email list isn’t just about collecting addresses — it’s about maintaining engagement and ensuring subscribers remain interested in your content.
“Ensuring subscribers are active, engaged and qualified involves consistent, relevant communication and nurturing,” Timmes explained. “I send out regular newsletters that provide useful information or insights, not just sales pitches, which helps in keeping the audience engaged.”
Timmes recommends the following tips for keeping your email list active and engaged:
A quality email list is extremely valuable because email marketing delivers a high digital marketing return on investment.
Email marketing is a powerful communication tool that is:
Without a quality email list, your business could miss out on thousands of potential customers. Since most consumers have an email address, building a quality email list should be your top priority in your digital marketing strategy.
Compelling statistics reveal that robust email marketing is a powerful tool for your business’s success and growth.
Because building a quality email list the old-fashioned way can take time, many businesses have considered purchasing premade email lists or an email database that promises hundreds or thousands of email addresses instantly. However, you rarely get what you pay for with these purchased-list schemes and they’re often more trouble than they’re worth.
“Buying email lists can not only hurt your brand’s reputation, but your domain’s reputation as well,” warned Jeff Moriarty, marketing manager at Tanzanite Jewelry Designs. “It might get you a few quick sales, but it is not worth the harm it can cause by giving your business and domain a bad name. Focus on the long game.”
When you buy an email list, many subscribers could have old, fake or invalid email addresses and the legitimate ones probably don’t have an active interest in your business or industry. Furthermore, you risk being flagged as a spammer, which could result in your actual customers never seeing your emails.
“When you purchase an email list, even if it’s from a reputable source, you could be putting your email and ad accounts at risk,” cautioned Danielle Miller, social media marketer at Miller Media Management. “If too many people flag the email as spam – because they’ve never heard of you — all your future emails to them and others could end up in the spam folder.”
Jennifer Dublino contributed to this article.