You may not have thought of it this way, but emailing can actually be a fantastic tool for digital marketing. With the potential for infinite reach and viral capabilities, email allows your company to connect with potential prospects in a way that is not possible with any other marketing medium.
Of course, if you want to take advantage of the full power of email, you will first have to have a list of subscribers to send mail to. Whether you don’t have the expertise or the time to create high-quality emails, there are a number of challenges that can stop you from making the most of your emails.
Luckily for you, there are dozens of simple ways that you can collect email addresses so that you can take full advantage of email marketing. One of the best ways to start is to connect with friends, family members, colleagues, and anybody else that you already know.
Capture Emails From Your Email Signature
Think about the number of people who contact you via email on a daily basis. These contacts may not be on your mailing list just yet, but this shouldn’t stop you from suggesting that they subscribe to your newsletter. Be sure to include a short and sweet CTA and direct them to your landing page or form via a link in your email signature.
While this may not result in thousands and thousands of new subscriptions, it is a passive, easy way for you to grow awareness if you are regularly emailing people. Remember to update your other existing email signatures and have your team update theirs as well.
Encourage Forwarding
Be sure to contact the subscribers that you currently have and motivate them to spread your emails with the people in their network. One of the most powerful marketing tools in the world is word-of-mouth, and email is the ideal outlet for suggesting it to your subscribers. If they are on your mailing list and are receiving value from the messages that you send them, then they probably know others that would benefit as well.
We can’t stress enough the importance of making emails easy to subscribe to, and even easier to share. Update the template that you’re currently using so that it includes social media sharing buttons, dedicate a portion of your newsletter to motivate readers to forward your message, and embed a hyperlink to your hosted web form or sign-up page so that your newest readers are able to sign up straight from your email.
Ask Prospects & Customers
When prospective and existing customers connect with you or purchase something from you, ask them verbally if they want to subscribe to your mailing list or newsletter. If you want to encourage them, offer something that might be of direct benefit to them, like a kickoff template or a complimentary ebook.
Grow your mailing list by asking customers that you are already in conversation with over the phone. Give the main idea of what to expect from the emails that you send them – it takes just a second or two to write down an email address. If you’re doing this task five times a day for one week, you’ll have 25 more email addresses than when you started, and 100 addresses in a single month.
Asking Family, Friends, & Colleagues
Using your network makes for an excellent way to grow your mailing list, and is usually the best starting point. While a few of your connections might not take interest in the material itself, they may just know somebody who would. Be upfront and let them know that you are starting a mailing list.
When the time comes for you to send out your email, try to not sound like a robot. Speak as you would in person, as this will help people better relate to you. It helps to start out with email templates, but remember to customize that template depending on the relationship you have with the person you’re sending the mail to.
People tend to have different ways of communicating based on where the conversation is happening. When you’re texting someone, you’re going to be far more casual than if you were emailing them. When you’re having a face-to-face conversation, you shouldn’t talk like you’re reading from a script.
Getting New Emails From Your Website
There is often a range of website improvement opportunities right under your nose that you may be missing out on. A lot of the time, an email marketing strategy begins from the simple goal of getting people to subscribe to your newsletter, after which additional email capture goals are added.
Optimize the current placement of your forms
Even if there is already a sign-up form on each and every page of your website, test the location of your form on a variety of web page templates. For instance, if your blog posts include only a sign-up form in the footer of the post, then that form will not be getting nearly as much visibility as it would if it were halfway through posts or on the sidebar.
Make sure that your web form is on a consistent, easy-to-find place on each page of your website.
Have a form present throughout your site
One of the best practices for capturing emails via your website is to have a sign-up form on pretty much every page of your website so that anybody who ends up on your site is able to sign up for your emails with ease. This is the simplest part of expanding your mailing list but is commonly overlooked.
Offer freebies
You’re also able to gather emails by offering your visitors freebies. There’s nothing that a potential customer finds more attractive than something free, or a preview of a service that they do not already have. Regardless of the content of your newsletter, you’re an expert in your field, so write a brief guide to your specific industry, send out a download link, or offer free templates to your potential customers.
Wrapping Up
Email marketing can be incredibly effective when you implement the right strategies. We certainly hope that we were able to help you build your mailing list!