Is email marketing part of your marketing mix? Most companies I have had the pleasure of interacting with, never mention the need for email marketing in their overall strategy. Begging the question, do they feel it unnecessary or do the agencies fail entirely to divulge the need for this quite important tactic?
Looking at target personas, keenly it becomes clear on some of the channels they prefer. Some read blogs, others visit social media channels. Others prefer email marketing. Thus the urgent need to have email marketing in your arsenal.
For those who have been religiously deploying email marketing campaigns, how healthy is your list insofar as numbers are concerned?
An email list is a collection of email addresses that a business can create by engaging with potential customers through lead-generating campaigns. The reason you need to keep growing it is: Your email marketing database degrades by about 22.5% every year.
How then do you grow your email list?
1. Create remarkable email content
Content is always king. This can never be stressed enough. Taking the time to create content that will make your readers abandon what they were doing to open and click on your email is one way of making them share the email and further improve your metrics.
2. Encourage subscribers to share and forward your emails
Open any email campaign you receive. If it doesn’t have a strong Call to Action, then something big is missing. In marketing, we are always advised to lead the reader towards the desired action. In this instance, encourage them to share the email with their friends. If it’s good a read, then you are well on your way to adding new subscribers.
3. Reinvigorate a stale email list with an opt-in campaign
Most email lists over time start to gather dust. To imply, many of the subscriber’s level of engagement drops. Little to no activity is reported. In such cases, you need to send an opt-in campaign to jolt the subscribers.
Those who re-subscribe build on those, while those who fail to, let them be. They will when the time is right and feel strongly that they are missing something.
4. Add a link to your employees’ signatures
Many a time I have seen email signatures that only promote the website visitations. Rarely do marketers use this space to promote email signups.
5. Create a new lead-generation offer
Did I hear leads? Mention that and the hairs on the back of all marketers go up. This is what we literally work for. More so when we get qualified leads, then we are all over the moon.
Although most of the times, depending on the need, the leads we get are cold. Making us go a step further to nurture them to a point when they will be ready to make the purchase.
In order to grow your email list, create an irresistible offer that will net both qualified and unqualified leads. All these are captured in a lead capture form which is either integrated with a CRM such as mail chimp or lead forms such as the ones on Facebook which can then be transferred to an email marketing client of your choice.
6. Promote an online contest
A while back on Facebook a company that deals with plots had put out a post encouraging its followers to share their email addresses in case they wanted hot real estate listings. To my amazement, hundreds upon hundreds of emails were shared.
Imagine the results you would get if you promoted a contest – with the promise of a reward at the end of the contest. Just imagine.
7. Add a call-to-action button to the top of your Facebook Business Page
Like email signatures, depending on your objective make all CTA’s help drive email signups.
8. Publish links to gated offers via social media
Gated content refers to the content shared which can only be accessed after getting the rights of access. This can be achieved by either submitting name and email address or just your email address. The simpler the process the higher the chances of success.
The gated offer can be a white paper, a report, an eBook etc.
9. Create a blog that readers can subscribe to
When the world knew blogging, every online writer became a blogger. Grow an amazing audience who you then convert to an email database who are always eager to read from you.
10. Collect email addresses at a trade show & in your store
Go on an email harvesting mission. Anyone that comes to your tradeshows and in your store, make sure to ask them for their contact information. Make it clear why you need it so they can give it willingly.
If you need help with your marketing, we’re dedicated and ready to help! Contact us here or talk to an expert now at (+254) 738 759566