Udemezue John
Introduction.
The hype behind social media platforms has made new digital businesses ignore the need to build an email marketing list.
The whole new trend behind every successful online business is to grow a tremendous amount of followership and ultimately get verified; only then will they think that they have hit a significant milestone in their online business.
Don’t get me wrong; I am not saying that using social media is terrible for businesses, but it often becomes a disaster to start building your online business foundation on social media in the long term.
While social media seems like the new trend to start growing your business, mind that most of these social media platforms have rules and regulation that controls the spread of information; especially when you have vast followership, you are most likely to break some significant limitations which could lead to your enormous followership page being deleted, or better still you fall into the victim of shadowban, which most social media companies say they don’t have. What happens after then? All your hard work is being thrown down the drain.
Meanwhile, there is a better strategy that can help you sustain your online business model for a much longer time even if eventually your social media pages go down; that marketing strategy is called Email Marketing, and it is what we will be discussing in this article.
When an online business develops an email marketing list, it becomes yours for life without any restrictions.
You are free to lift your email marketing list anywhere you see fit; even if your massive following on social media is destroyed or terminated, you can still create a brand new one by sending a mass email to your existing email marketing audience and asking them to follow you again.
Do you have the following Questions;
- how to grow an email list from scratch
- how to grow your email list
- how to build an email list on Instagram
- how to grow the email subscriber list
- how to grow an email marketing list
- how to grow your email database
- how to grow email subscribers
- how to get 1000 email subscribers
- how to grow an email list from scratch
- how to build an email list for eCommerce
- how to grow your email list with Instagram
- how to grow your newsletter list
- how to build an opt-in email list
This article has been created to help answer the above questions with clarity. Make sure to stick to the end to get a comprehensive understanding.
Best Email Marketing Software.
Before going to the next session in this article, the very first thing that you need to begin growing your email marketing audience is the use of an email marketing software; somewhere in this blog, I wrote a comprehensive guide on the best email marketing software to make use of, click the link to read that guide below.
How To Grow Your Email List.
Now you have already chosen an email marketing software, and you are almost ready and convinced to dive deeply into the ocean of email marketing.
Another obstacle you might face is growing up on those email subscriber lists. Let me quickly say this; No email marketing software supersedes each other; you have to choose which works for you.
You have to have an acute strategy to overcome this, or you will end up selecting email automation software of all kinds and end up with nothing. Here is a detailed list of how you can boost your email marketing list.
1. Strategise on your email marketing campaign.
Most people build an email marketing list, but they never have enough skills to persuade their customers or lead them to do what they want.
Before spending a whole time trying to generate subscribers into your email marketing list, here are some very few things you need to have at the back of your mind if you intend to turn them into active and paying customers.
1. personalise your messages.
As a person, one thing I hate most on the internet is getting a feeling that I am interacting with a Bot or an autoresponder; it makes me so mad with anyone trying to sell to me.
Bringing this into email marketing, one of the mistakes I see most email marketing guys make is to try to automate everything without having their customers in mind.
2. Leave Room For a reply.
I just told you how it makes me feel when I think I am interacting with a bot, and it even gets worst when I cannot inquire after a critical and juicy email has been sent to me.
In most cases, I ignore such emails when they come in again.
Having thousands of your subscribers have to reply to you can be very hectic and disturbing. I can understand that vast companies such as Amazon and Facebook don’t need your reply, but when you are still starting very small, you should leave room for that.
Don’t put Do not reply @ bla bla bla as your recipient. Honestly, it makes me sick, and your audience will not love it.
3. Segment your subscribers.
Audience segmentation divides people into homogeneous subgroups based on defined criteria such as product usage, demographics, psychographics, communication behaviours, and media use.
Most email marketers do not like to put this in mind; they clutter their email marketing list and send random messages. I will give an illustration below,
A few months back, I saw an online course on Facebook, and I proceeded to the landing page to subscribe because the system was on digital marketing. A few months later, I started getting an entirely different email from that person asking me to buy a health product; please answer this, How does selling a health product have to do with digital marketing? Two wrong ideologies and the wrong audience.
I immediately subscribed and left his list; that happens when you fail to segment your email list. Here is a graph that describes the results when you segment your audience.
4. Automate email campaigns when possible.
Common trigger emails are ‘welcome’ emails, ‘thank you emails and ‘transactional’ emails, such as order confirmation emails and email receipts. You want to notify a new lead when they subscribe to your email list; it serves as a more open opportunity to sell yourself.
As they say, the first impression lasts long, so don’t waste that first impression of yours.
5. Send Mobile-friendly emails.
In 2012, 27% of all marketing emails were opened on a mobile device. By 2014, that number jumped up to 42%. Now, it’s as high as 61%! I must tell you; These are huge numbers! And what do you do as soon as you wake up in the morning? As for me, I read my emails.
Have you ever received an email before, and you find it difficult to open because it has been over-designed with a lot of crap? this is a red signal for anyone who wants to pass messages across.
When you send an email to a subscriber who reads their emails on their mobile device, but the email is not optimised for that device, what do you think they do with it? Mostly, they will unsubscribe or delete it.
2. Choose reputable Email marketing Software.
Email marketing software is an online service that helps you host and manage all your email marketing-related stuff.
There are hundreds of email marketing software all around the internet. All come with different pricing and functionalities. You can choose from the one recommended in the section above.
Somewhere in this blog, I wrote a comprehensive guide on the best email marketing software to make use of, click the link to read that guide below.
3. Use Social Media.
Social media is one of the most effective ways to grow your email marketing list. Social media platform like Facebook and Twitter most especially allows you to embed links and captivating texts alongside your posts. You can check out my post on social media here.
Boosting your email marketing via social media can be accomplished using various methods, and they are.
- Embedding email marketing links or sales landing pages to your posts is more like adding a call to action.
- Creating a social media campaign with the objective of lead generation.
- Creating an online contest asking your followers to click and subscribe to your email
- Add a call to action button Link to your Facebook page and link to a landing page that requires an email address for access to a particular resource is another way to boost your email marketing list.
Here is a guide on leveraging social media for your email marketing growth.
4. Use of the website or a Blog.
A website can be utilised to boost your email list with various strategies. Most email conversion is usually created with a website or a blog. If you are a blogger of any kind, you should have an email subscribe functionality embedded alongside your website.
Blog posts help you increase your ranking on search engines like Google and allow you to collect blog subscribers that you can then upgrade.
- Ask website visitors for feedback using a custom form on your website. People enjoy offering feedback on information that pertains to them.
- On certain website pages, include a form that asks visitors what questions they might have about your business.
- Create A live Chat Tool. All Live Chat Tools offer email lead generation.
- You can boost your email marketing list today by adding a live chat plugin to your website.
- Add testimonials alongside your landing pages.No one would never want to associate with something they cannot trust or relate with. Therefore, a testimonial section embedded alongside your website landing page can encourage customers to sign up as a subscriber.
Here is a post to guide you on starting your website or blog.
Before diving deep into the basics and hardcore part of owning a website or running a blog, allow me to assume that you at least have a basic knowledge of how an entire website or a blog should run, so it’s time to stop talking and start doing.
I decided to drop a dedicated article on how you can own a perfect domain name and a cheap web host with Blue Host, and I recommend that you study and do what is advised in the article below.
Afterwards, you may return to fully digest the part you need to get started and stay on top of your game.
5. Traditional Marketing.
This can be a bit tasking and stressful, but this is a very effective way to start building your email marketing list, and this can be done by. First, collect emails in your store. If you have a physical shop where you interact with customers face-to-face, create an email campaign just for those visiting your stores.
Host an offline event: a Hackaton educational panel and even your conferences. Take the opportunity to collect email addresses in exchange for the info and demos you provide at the event.
6. Monetize Your email list.
Now that you have built your email marketing list, now it’s time to make money with it. The key to establishing the correct goals for your email marketing initiative is to align them with your business marketing goals.
Email marketing is the single most powerful channel to reach your audience, and it can be used to achieve several different objectives.
You have grown your email marketing list to a very substantial amount, and you don’t know how to convert those leads into a vast and significant income. Here is How to do it.
I wrote a comprehensive guide on this blog to help you learn how to make money with your email marketing list. Check out the link to the article to learn more.
7. Make Sure your email list is Delivered
It does not matter what type of company you have or what industry you are in; email marketing needs to be a priority for your business.
Just imagine spending time carefully writing your content, but you did not get the results you had expected. Why did that happen? To help you a bit, your email was sent to the spam box, which will not be visible for your audience to read.
In this article, I will give you some concrete reasons why this is happening to you and how you can stop it.
Even if you are not currently getting your email campaigns marked as spam, you can still benefit from this guide to help you take safety precautions before you get stuck.
Your emails should go straight to the recipient’s inbox, get opened, and generate click-throughs in a perfect world.
If you are presently going through this challenge, it’s time to give you a solid breakdown of what might be happening.
Let’s start with the law. You are probably aware that crooked marketers abused the heck out of email in the early days of the Internet. What happened as a result was a governmental crackdown on defective marketing exercises.
The CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 was signed into law by Ex-President George W. Bush in the year 2003. The law placed the U.S.’s first national standards for email enforceable by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).
The CAN-SPAM law’s full name is Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act of 2003. The purpose is to defend consumers from unrequested emails.
The law cancels many state laws that would otherwise allow for uncontrolled or partially regulated email marketing activity.
Relax; there is no need to worry. The FTC has implemented a clear set of guidelines to ensure that you are not violating the laws.
Here is a quick summary of the law from the FTC.
1. Don’t use fake or misleading header information.
2. Don’t use ambiguous subject lines.
3. Tell recipients where you are presently located.
4. Tell recipients how to opt-out of getting a future email from you.
5. Honour opt-out requests immediately.
6. Observe what others are doing on your behalf.
Violation and non-compliance with any of these laws could cost you a penalty of $42,530, so non-compliance can be very costly.
For more verification and adherence to these laws, you can check them out on the official website of the FTC.
Now that you already know the law, here are quick tips to help you not violate the CAN-SPAM act.
1. Make sure you are not tempted to buy subscribers.
Most people are aware of the potency of email marketing and are in a hast to speed things up; the downside of the whole process of buying an email subscriber is that you will be sending content to people who never signed up to receive them, making you violate one of the CAN-SPAM Act, which the Federal Trade Commission enforces. So there is an even greater chance of heading for the spam folder.
Let’s be frank for a while, and sit down to analyse this scenario properly. Put yourself in their shoes for a minute.
If you get a promotional message from a brand you never heard of and never signed up for, are you going to pay attention to that kind of email, let me guess, the answer is a NO.
To make things feel natural, you should be focusing on how to grow your email list by getting new subscribers. Include signup forms on your website, run a social media ad campaign, etc. You should check out the list in the first sections of these articles.
2. Limit your sending frequency.
Most people are too excited to send emails because they think it helps them connect to a segmented audience.
However, as a business owner, you think about your brand 24 hours a day. I can understand this, making it a habit to seek out ideas to promote your company constantly.
But on the other end, your customers and email subscribers are not always thinking about you the same way you feel about them. That’s just a fact!
When it comes to receiving emails, consumers report that sending emails too often is the number one most annoying action taken by marketers; your customers can see you as theft and will be forced to unsubscribe from your email list.
Giving your subscribers exactly what they’re asking for reduces your chances of getting marked as spam.
3. Use a clearly labelled “from” field address.
It is also essential to make it clear who the email is from. Some of you may have various email addresses within your domain, depending on the size of your company.
For example, when someone wants to make a complaint, you might have created a separate email address for that, usually in the form of [email protected].
Don’t change the sender field too often. Instead, try to stick with the one that works best for your promotional messages.
Avoid various choices, such as.
Make sure you create a solid reputation for these sender fields. It will build trust with your subscribers and even increase the chances that they will add the address to their contacts lists.
If they are used to getting your marketing emails from the same sender address, and one day it comes from an unusual one, they may think it’s spam. Even if that message comes from your company, it becomes misleading to your subscribers.
4. Don’t try to trick the recipient.
I see people make this mistake all the time. Most of the time, they try to be deceitful in an attempt to increase open email rates.
They trick their subscribers into clicking the message by padding click baits to their headlines, like telling people that they have won a prize if they did not win anything.
Again, this is a fast way to disappoint the recipient and get your content marked as spam. This act is a big mistake, and Tricking your customers can damage your brand.
In addition to keeping your message as spam, the recipient might eventually unsubscribe from your email list.
More than half of consumers say they have felt cheated or tricked into opening a promotional email, and this continuous act has led them to forcefully open emails.
5. Choose the right service provider.
With the vast number of email marketing providers, not all are trusted and reputable enough to serve your needs.
My advice is to work with a partner with a positive track record. There are thousands of marketing automation and email marketing companies out there.
Some of the best I recommend are Mailchimp and Getresponse. They have been in the business for a long time, and I have used them briefly.
I wrote an article to help you decide on some of the best email marketing software; you can click the link below to get started.
6. Make sure you Certify your IP.
This will assist you in getting on the good side of various email providers. However, it will likely cost thousands of dollars a year, so make sure to do an accurate cost/benefit analysis.
7. Stay relevant.
You need to concentrate on the content of your messages. Ask yourself these questions before sending out any email: Why are you sending this email? Is this message adding meaning to the subscriber? If you don’t have a clear answer to these, you should probably check the message.
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