How To Start an Email List — Top Benefits and Practices

Source: Pexels

An email list is every marketer’s Holy Grail. It’s even better because you don’t need Indiana Jones to do the guesswork. You’ve got plenty of tools that enable you to manage your contacts, verify the email addresses, and segment your email list into highly targeted groups.

Email is a powerful method for communicating with your prospects and converting them into loyal customers. Your email list consists of contacts who have given you their permission to send them all kinds of promotional emails. You can create lead nurturing email sequences and highly personalized customer journeys for your subscribers. 

Many marketers think that social media channels offer better opportunities than email. If we take a look at the statistics, we’ll see that this isn’t true. When it comes to permission-based marketing, 77% of consumers prefer receiving content by email instead of other methods. At the moment, there are 4,037 billion email users across the globe, and statisticians predict an expansive growth in the coming years.

If we’re talking numbers, you’d probably like to know the costs of using email and how much you can earn. According to HubSpot, for every dollar that you spend, email generates 38 dollars in return. That constitutes an astounding 3,800% ROI, making email one of the most lucrative marketing methods out there.

This brings us back to the drawing board — to start making money with your amazing email marketing campaigns, you need to create an email list. 

In this article, we’re going to help you learn how to build an email list from scratch through some of the best practices used by professional marketers. This includes:

1. Reaching out to your personal contacts

2. Creating gated content

3. Implementing pop-ups into your website

4. Crafting additional landing pages

5. Personalizing your CTAs

6. Leveraging social media channels

7. Throwing humor into the mix 

8. Using lead generation software

Reaching Out to Your Personal Contacts

When starting to build your contact list, you can reach out to your personal contacts. Think about the people in your personal contact list that would be interested in what you’ve got to say and offer. They already know who you are, so you’ve got enough freedom to let them know that you’re building an email list and inform them about how they could benefit from subscribing to it. 

If you’ve got a product that has a dedicated user base, you can contact them about your intention to create a promotional channel for your business. Ask them whether they’d be willing to sign up for your mailing list to receive product updates and other valuable information. You can also encourage them to share your emails with other interested parties.

Creating Gated Content

Gated content is an efficient method for motivating users to subscribe to your mailing list. The idea is to exchange valuable materials or information for a name and email address. Before the user can receive the gated content, they are prompted to fill out your subscription form. You can ask for other important information, such as their interests, but make sure that the form is simple to fill out and doesn’t scare people off with too many fields.

There are three most commonly used methods for providing gated content. These are:

1. Lead magnets

2. Locked content

3. Content upgrades

Lead Magnets

Lead magnets are valuable content pieces that your users can download by providing you with their email addresses. When deciding what type of lead magnets you want to offer, you need to ensure that you’re giving away something that people can benefit from. It needs to provide a solution for a particular pain point, and it should also be relevant and easy to digest.

There is a wide range of materials you can offer as lead magnets. This includes:

• Ebooks

• Guides

• Checklists

• Webinars

• Case studies

• Whitepapers

Locked Content

The content locking marketing strategy is based on providing high-quality materials such as reports, webinars, case studies, and whitepapers by enabling users to view only certain bits before they sign up. The available samples are commonly introductory sections that are meant to spark users’ interest to find out more. To be able to read or watch the rest of the content, your website visitors need to subscribe to your mailing list.

Some people may find this kind of teasing irritating, but research has shown that content locking can generate amazing results. According to a case study conducted by OptinMonster, one digital agency managed to increase lead conversions by 100% with this approach.

The more authority you gain by providing valuable content, the higher the chances are of people giving you their personal information in exchange.

Content Upgrades

Content upgrades differ from regular lead magnets because they are created specifically for the purpose of adding value to an existing resource. People love exclusive content, and if they enjoyed your article or webinar, they’ll be more than willing to give you their personal information in exchange for more relevant materials. According to Sleeknote’s report, this method helped them get 28.83% more email subscribers in 30 days.

There is a wide range of content types that you can offer as upgrades, depending on your business strategy. This includes:

• PDF downloads of ebooks and whitepapers

• Cheat sheets based on blog content

• Audio and video recordings of webinars

• Transcriptions of podcasts

Implementing Pop-Ups Into Your Website Pages

Pop-ups can be an efficient method for encouraging your website visitors to subscribe to your mailing list. We’re not talking about spammy pop-ups from almost two decades ago. This approach has evolved since then into a calculated online retargeting strategy. 

There is a vast assortment of pop-ups that generate different results. Exit-intent pop-ups can retain from 10 to 15 percent of your visitors. You need to provide them with an adequate incentive to stay on your website and subscribe to your mailing list. This can be a discount or a special offer. 

You should implement pop-ups as a cohesive part of the customer journey. Ensure that they don’t interrupt other user actions, such as browsing your products page and deciding what to purchase. You can set up pop-ups to greet returning visitors.

Pop-Up Types

Here are some of the pop-up types you can consider using:

Crafting Additional Landing Pages

Source: Pexels

When it comes to landing pages, it matters how many you’re using for different audiences. According to HubSpot’s research, companies can generate 55% more leads by increasing the number of their landing pages from 10 to 15.

The explanation of why this works is simple. You need to create highly personalized landing pages to grab the attention of a wider demographic. Before you can segment your email list into specific contact groups, you need to keep in mind that your website visitors come from different backgrounds and have various needs, interests, and lifestyles. This means that they also have different pain points and you need to provide solutions for all of them.

Personalizing Your CTAs

When crafting different landing pages, you should also create personalized CTAs. If your pages are catering to specific customer personas, every call-to-action needs to be aligned with their needs. Consider the fact that a personalized CTA can convert 202% better than a generic one. 

You need to ensure that the content you deliver is true to the promise you made with your CTA. Provide your subscribers with relevant ebooks, articles, webinars, and other content pieces that they can gain value from. This way, you’ll give them a reason to trust you and make them more receptive to your email campaigns.

Leveraging Social Media Channels

Social media channels can be a fruitful method for reaching out to your contacts and starting an email list. You can post links to your landing pages and encourage people to subscribe. You should adapt your approach to each social media platform, such as:

• Twitter

• Facebook

• Instagram

• LinkedIn

• Pinterest

Most social media sites allow you to set your posts as public. You can reach an audience beyond your follower list this way. Using popular hashtags can extend your exposure even further. 

You can join relevant social media groups where you’ll find active members of your target audience. Many such groups allow posting commercial links, enabling you to motivate group members to check out your website and subscribe to your mailing list. 

LinkedIn groups provide the best opportunities for exposure and communication because they often consist of professionals that know what they’re looking for. According to the statistics, more than 80% of leads generated via social media come from LinkedIn.

Leveraging social media channels may take some time and effort, but you can attract a large number of subscribers if you're patient and persistent.

Throwing Humor Into the Mix

Becoming an authority in your field by providing valuable content and attracting as many subscribers as you can doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t show your human side. There are plenty of opportunities where you can inject witty and humorous lines. You can generate better results by making your users feel like they’re dealing with a friend who’s trying to make them laugh. This will make them appreciate your offer more.

You can use this approach with your subscription forms. Lululemon, a yoga and fitness retailer, created a simple form that started with the witty line — “Let’s be friends with benefits.” They provided the option to choose whether you want to receive their emails, letting users know that they can unsubscribe at any time if they change their mind. Friends should make your laugh and allow you to make your own choices, right?

Using Lead Generation Software

Source: John Schnobrich @Unsplash

There are plenty of ways that you can drive people to subscribe to your email list. But if you want to build your list faster by finding and reaching out to thousands of contacts, you need to make the most of lead generation software. These tools enable you to scrape thousands of different sources, including domains, websites, databases, and social media channels. 

Many lead generation solutions have email verification features that help you find out whether the email addresses they extracted are associated with existing email accounts. Plenty of search features are built with a set of filters that enable you to narrow down your results based on different parameters, such as name, location, company, and job title. Some of the tools have the option to track your emails and determine their deliverability rates. 

The goal of lead generation software is to streamline the list building process and allow you to focus on other tasks that require a manual approach, such as:

• Crafting compelling subject lines

• Creating eye-catching email designs

• Writing engaging copies

• Producing high-quality content

What Lead Generation Tools We’ve Got to Offer

Among our Sell SaaS products, you can find a variety of lead generation solutions. This includes an assortment of email lookup tools. You can try our:

Other Sell SaaS Solutions You Can Use To Create an Email Newsletter Mailing List 

Aside from our email lookup tools, we’ve got a few more solutions that can help you start an email list and begin nurturing your leads. This includes:

1. Chatbot solution for capturing leads

2. Social proof notification widget

3. Email campaign creator

Chatbot Solution for Capturing Leads

You can integrate our chatbot solution into your website easily. Set it up to answer your website visitors’ most frequent questions and ask for crucial information in return, such as their names and email addresses. Using our chatbot can be an effective way to generate leads passively.

Social Proof Notification Widget

The social proof notification widget informs website visitors about various customer actions, such as recent orders and product reviews. This is a great way to encourage users that are on the fence about deciding to take action. The widget can help you motivate website visitors to subscribe to your email list.

Email Campaign Creator

You can use our email campaign creator to nurture your leads. Create compelling email campaigns in its easy-to-use online editor and automate them via the autoresponder feature. You can set up both drip and event-based campaigns. Create the perfect customer journey for your subscribers and ask them to share your emails with other interested parties. Shareable emails can help you add more contacts to your email list.

To ensure that your email campaigns are generating results, you can use the tracking feature and assess your email deliverability rates.

Why You Should Choose Sell SaaS

The best part about our products is that you can both use and resell them. Add your logo, colors, and company name, and sell our software at the price of your choosing.

Become our partner and earn between 60% and 80% of all the sales, depending on our partnership level. There are no additional fees. The way it works is simple — the more you sell, the more money goes to you.