Build an Effective Email List: Strategies, Tactics, and Best Practices

Even with the advent of social media and paid advertising, email remains at the heart of a successful marketing strategy. Putting together a quality email list will help you secure direct access to your audience, so you don’t always have to rely on social media. With an email list, you’ll have accurate data on who wants to buy after they become aware of your brand. Use the following strategies, tactics, and best practices to help you build and grow your email list. 

First, a question: 

What is an email list?

An email list is a collection of contacts who have consented to receive email communications from you. Your email list might include customers, organization members, donors, potential clients, vendors, business partners, or any other contact groups interested in learning more about your business or organization.

Why you want to create an email list

Research conducted for the Constant Contact Small Business Now Report found that 53% of small business owners in the U.S., U.K., Canada, and Australia used email marketing as the most frequent strategy for finding and retaining customers. Building a healthy email list will help you grow interest in your business or organization and promote desired actions like purchases and donations. 

How to create an email list 

Email marketing can be challenging when everyone’s inbox is bursting. To get people to join your email list, you have to be clever and creative. The following are some tried and true strategies to help you build a quality list. 

Before we jump into strategies, a quick but important tip.

Never purchase an email list: As a best practice for communicating with an interested and engaged audience, never purchase an email list. Buying an email list does not count as individual consent from subscribers. When you buy an email list and send communications without consent your emails will be sent to spam, or they will bounce. This type of practice is damaging to your business’s credibility and will give you flawed data about who’s interested in your offerings.

Online strategies to build your email list

Utilizing the following strategies can help you build your email list  — whether you’re starting from scratch or building on what you already have.

Create a sign-up form or landing page

A sign-up form is a short, easy way to collect information from your visitors, like name and email address. A sign-up form includes a short ask or call to action — like “want to join?” or “sign up today,” fields for data collection, and a submit button. When asking for subscriber data, a simple request for name and email address should be sufficient. Places to embed a sign-up form include the front page of your website, at the end of a blog post, in the footer navigation, and on a contact page. 

A landing page is similar to a sign-up form but has its own URL. For example, mybusiness.com/signup would lead the user to a page with form fields and a submit button. Landing pages give you more space to encourage your visitors with on-page content and access to long-form content downloads. 

When creating a sign-up form or a landing page, use valuable content, like a free birthday gift, promo code, white paper, or ebook, and a call to action to encourage your audience to complete the form. Include form fields for relevant information like name, email address, and other need-to-know contact information. If you want to include fields that are required, be sure to include asterisks to indicate them.

Site-building integrations, like the Constant Contact Forms plugin for WordPress, can also make creating a sign-up form for your site quick and easy.

Create a pop-up

A pop-up is a type of sign-up form that reveals itself when a user completes a particular action. Consider the following scenario: someone visits your website from a search engine or through a link on social media. They land on a web page and have a query answered or peruse through the page. Then, they decide to exit without engagement or what you really want — a signup. This is where the exit pop-up comes into play. 

An exit pop-up is shown to a website visitor when they try to leave your website. Exit intent includes actions like: 

• Directing a cursor toward the exit button
• Attempting to tab to another web page
• Scrolling up instead of down

According to our friends at Shopify, “the average conversion rate for pop-up forms is just over 3%, with the best pop-ups converting at around 10%.” Keep this in mind when you’re wavering on how to keep people on the page and increase signups. 

Use social media

With 91% of mobile users participating on social media platforms, your business is in the palm of their hands. Social media allows you to connect with your audience in real-time, share valuable content and links, and build a community. To grow your email list, use social media to direct your audience to a desired action. Promote a lead magnet, product, or service, and send them to your website to capture sales and email subscriptions.  

Get Social: Learn How to Grow Your Email List with Facebook

Collaborate with an influencer

Influencers hold a lot of power in the business world. Forming a business relationship with a quality influencer in your industry or community can be incredibly beneficial. Influencer partnerships help you reach a wider audience and lend credibility to your brand image. Work with an influencer to promote your email list through streamed product trials, blog reviews of goods and services, and professional product photography. Remember you are required to hashtag sponsored content for transparency. #sponsored #ad

Paid social and search ads

Consider investing in paid social media and search ads to drive traffic to your sign-up forms. Place ads on social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram as well as on search engines like Google and Bing. Paid social media ads work like organic social content but with the added bonus that they are guaranteed to reach your target audience. 

Offline strategies

Use a physical sign-up sheet, attend and host industry events, and collect business cards to help you build your list offline. 

Physical sign-up sheets

Place a sign-up sheet at your register to collect signups and put a name to face. As people make a purchase, encourage them to sign up for your email marketing list and to come visit your store again. 

Attend and host industry events

Attending and hosting industry events is good for building your business’s brand credibility, recognition, and intrigue. Participate in trade shows, conferences, and webinars related to your niche. Host your own events to showcase your expertise and collect email addresses. To make the process quick and easy for event attendees, place a QR code linked to your sign-up form on printed materials such as business cards, brochures, flyers, and posters.

Collect business cards

Event attendees may give you their business cards. If they do, ask them if they would like to be added to your business’s email marketing list. Do not automatically assume that a business card equals an email marketing subscription. There is a scenario where the person wants to be in contact with your business for inquiries, partnership, sponsorship, etc., and not as a potential customer. Ask to be sure by sending a one-time welcome email to introduce your business and request the recipient to join your marketing email list. 

Build your list on the go: See how to scan business cards with the Constant Contact mobile app.

List-building tactics 

Support your strategies with the following list-building tactics. 

Run a contest or giveaway

Everyone loves a free gift or a chance to win a prize. Host a contest or raffle and direct your customers to enter using a sign-up form, custom landing page, or by signing up for your newsletter. Encourage followers to share contest or giveaway information with friends and family by providing additional entrees or other sources of value in exchange for their help promoting your business. 

Create a lead magnet with gated content

Most people are pretty protective of their personal information, that’s why they won’t just give you their email or phone number. Using a lead magnet is a great way to gather new subscribers by providing valuable content in exchange for their email addresses. Gating places a barrier (a sign-up form or landing page) on high-value, high-converting content. Gated content is downloadable and requires users to provide their email addresses to gain access. 

Common gated content can include an ebook, whitepaper, checklist, etc. 

Implement a referral program 

Never underestimate the power of word-of-mouth marketing, especially when it comes to referrals. People trust those close to them to lead them in the right direction, so a friend or a family member giving a potential client a positive opinion of your business carries a ton of weight. If you have the means, incentivize referrals by providing discounts, product trials, and other types of value to the referrer and to the referee. 

Offer an incentive

Consider offering discounts, access to exclusive sales, and free products or trials to encourage people to sign up for your email list. Potential subscribers are more likely to exchange their contact information when they receive something of value in return. 

Looking for an incentive? Connect your Nift account to draw in subscribers with free gift cards.

Text-to-join

Like a QR code, text-to-join is a quick and easy way for customers, event attendees, and passersby to subscribe to your list. Provide a mobile number for your business and ask them to text “Join.” Soon, they’ll be on your list. 

Integrations

Leverage existing customer interactions with integrations. For example, when customers check out on your ecommerce website (like Shopify) they can consent to receive marketing emails.  Once their information is synced with a CRM, you can add them to separate lists they’ve given consent for, like event lists, product announcements, and more.

12 best practices for building an email list

The following best practices will help you to build a successful email list. 

1. Use a digital marketing platform to easily manage your list across multiple marketing channels
2. Create a sign-up form to easily add customers to your list
3. Focus on providing value with a discount or valuable content
4. Consent is key — don’t purchase email lists and be sure subscribers opt-in
5. Use custom landing pages and share them across multiple channels
6. Use a variety of tactics across different channels like using contests or incentives to encourage social followers to engage and subscribe. 
7. Test strategies to find out what works and what doesn’t 
8. Make signing up easy — a simple name/email should suffice
9. Utilize text-to-join functionality to allow customers to subscribe by sending a text message
10. Maintain your list and keep it healthy by removing or re-engaging unengaged subscribers
11. Utilize integrations (like ecommerce or CRM) to ensure your lists are always in sync and up-to-date
12. Send a welcome email or series to set expectations and help retain subscribers 

Build your business with a high-quality email list

Now that you know the strategies and best practices for building an email list for your business, it is time to begin collecting eager subscribers. Create a landing page, publicize your email list on social media, and think about ways to provide your audience with value. Consider investing in an email service provider to keep your subscribers and content all in one place. As you build your list and begin sending communications, remember best practices like keeping your list clean and why you should never purchase an email list. Happy list building! 

Next, download Quick Tips to Grow Your Email List