If you’re still not capturing customer emails, then you’re effectively cutting out a huge channel from getting more sales. It doesn’t matter if you run a blog, have a brick and mortar business, or sell products online – you should build an email list right away. Why? Some of the reasons we’ll explain below. Learn. And exactly how it can help improve your profits and why it’s so important to start building one from the very beginning.
Gaining new customers, generating leads and growing a business requires more than just interacting with your existing audience on social media platforms. To be successful, you need to understand how to nurture your audiences and turn potential customers into active participants in your business by using email marketing in a unique way. And that’s where list building comes in.
Yet, a lot of people fail to realize the value that an email list can bring to their business. I know what you’re thinking – “I don’t need an email list!” This is a common misconception. Most people think social media is enough – they think they can spam people and hit their monthly goals without having to work for it.
It’s not true; at least, not if you actually want to take your email marketing and by extension your business to the next level.
So, join us as we discuss why your business needs an email list and why you should start building one right away.
What is an email list?
An email list can be simply defined as, a collection of people who subscribe to receive emails from you. For example, a grocery store might build an email list of its customers and send emails regarding tips on saving money, news about promotions, and other information relevant to the customer. When someone subscribes to a newsletter, that person is indicating that they care about receiving communication from you.
Why you should build your own email list right away
Stable and reliable Traffic
Email lists are an excellent way to build a stable of guests for your website. They allow you to reach a critical mass of potential visitors without spending money on advertising and maintaining multiple websites.
Think of it this way: when you have your own email list, you can determine when your emails go out, to whom and how often. For example, if you have published a new blog post or there is a new interesting offer, all you need to do is craft a relevant email and send it out to your subscribers. The larger and higher quality your list, the more visitors you will reach with it.
No more wondering when you sent that last email. With your own email list, you’ll always be able to keep in touch with everyone who matters most.
What this translates into is that you can generate visitors and sales at the push of a button.
A better ROI
Typically, email marketing is relatively cheaper, and the ROI is incredible compared to running expensive PPC campaigns like AdWords. Furthermore, with an email list, your marketing efforts are more sustainable because once a subscriber opts into your list, you can email a subscriber several times and market several products/services to your list over a long period of time- basically until they unsubscribe from your mailing list. The lifetime value is just too awesome to be ignored – on the average, you get $38 for every $ 1 you spend with email marketing, and your odds are greatly increased when you have your own list.
Also, having your own list means you don’t have to purchase lists from others thus saving money for other aspects of your business. Besides, purchasing lists from third parties can land you in trouble which could be costly.
Boosts Conversion rate
Most visitors to your website will not buy from you the first time they visit. Why? They simply have no need (yet) for your offer or they do not trust you enough. This is totally normal.
By marketing to your email list you can build trust and keep your audience informed about what you offer without being obnoxious or salesy. After all they subscribed so that’s one foot in the door for you.
The importance of building trust in order to successfully win customers online cannot be overemphasized. Other means of marketing, for example, posting on social media or PPC ads, are relatively impersonal.
On the other hand, building an email list allows you to easily segment your audience so you can reach them with content that resonates with them. With an email, there is more flexibility and it allows for customization to fit each subscriber – e.g. salutation is personal. This promotes trust building more than most marketing channels.
By nurturing a prospect, you have a much better chance to convert them into customers.
Here is a real life example: Most of our consulting clients were long term email subscribers for a long time before they decided to work with us after we were able to win their trust.
You don’t want to be at the mercy of an external platform
While it is possible to build a massive and profitable following and lists on social media platforms, the data is not yours!
Imagine you have a Facebook page (fan page) with 100,000 fans. You can reach quite a lot of them with your regular contributions. Great! Then all of a sudden, Facebook blocks your fan page.
The point is: with any of the third-party service providers and external platforms, you can lose all the reach you’ve painstakingly built up over a long period of time overnight.
Remember, these platforms have their own rules which you’ll have to abide with even if it’s to your detriment. With your list however, you got the data, have control, and can sleep peacefully at night knowing it is going nowhere.
Performance Tracking
Performance tracking is difficult when you have to decipher click through rates from a variety of sources when each service keeps their numbers to themselves. With an email list, it’s easy to see how well your email campaigns are performing. For example, if you’re promoting an affiliate product, it helps determine which products are best performing and which ones aren’t worth promoting any longer.
What to consider in order to collect suitable email addresses for your list
You’ve discovered that having your email list is a very valuable tool. You can use it to promote your own apps, increase your organic traffic and to promote affiliate offers. However, what you should also know is that success is dependent on the quality of the email addresses you collect, i.e., the quality of your email list.
Here is why:
- A list filled with inactive emails failing on their formatting or syntax would increase the chances of your email ending up in the spam folder.
- A low quality list is one with lots of temporary disposable email addresses – this means your freemium offers are likely to get abused indiscriminately.
- Bounce backs are higher when your email list contains many undesirable email addresses.
Surely, after spending a lot of time, energy, and money on your email campaign you don’t want all your efforts to be in vain which is what would likely happen if you do nothing to affirm the quality of your email list hence the need for email verification to ensure your success.
Email account verification would identify and remove bad contacts from your lists. This would reduce bounce backs, increase your Sender Reputation Score, email deliverability, open rate and reply rate which in turn would give your email campaigning performance a massive boost.