How To Build A HUGE Email List From Scratch
One of the biggest challenges when someone begins their path of internet marketing is acquiring email lists. I'm not talking about searching on Google and purchasing a list to email your offers to (since this is essentially considered spam), but rather putting in a little thought and developing a strategy or method to actually build an email list that is responsive, engaging and most importantly opted in...
I have read a lot of threads in this forum, and the same question is asked over and over, "How do I build an email list?"; and these questions are generally answered in one of two ways.
a) Build Good Content on your website.
b) Or a recommedation for an email service or plugin to accept email subscribers is recommended.
While both of these things are essential to good email marketing and acquiring and building your email list these answers simply don't provide any real answers on how to actually build an effective email subscriber list.
Soo....in my mind...this question for all of the newer folks to marketing are really never answered.
While there are tons of WSO threads offering various methods marketers have used to build a following, fans sales and everything else under the sun in the internet marketing forum, after looking at a lot of these it still leaves a lot to be said on how to actuallybuild a list fast and effectively.
I personally have spent hours and hours reading this forum, other forums, watching videos and even testing methods myself. I can say that from all of this research and testing I have learned a lot.
There is no "One Exact Way" to build an email list and I would strongly encourage anyone just starting out in IM to sit down for two hours watching youtube vids on email marketing. I learned several very effective methods that actually worked by following the tactics and strategies I learned from these videos ....and it all started out from a very simple search in youtube...."Building Targeted Email Lists, Email Marketing How To, Get Email Leads ".
Now I don't want this post to be another meatless rant that just gives you recommendations like go watch video's etc, so rather than just pointing to a source to go research I thought I would share a method which has effectively helped me build HUGE email lists that are 100% opt in and targeted.
Before I explain this method in detail let me say, this method is just a general idea and the exact method may not work for the type of subscriber list you are trying to build and the methodology should be modified to match your goals but the overal method as I shall explain it, if done properly is effective for bulding HUGE email lists.
What you will need.
1) Website-Preferrably wordpress as there are a ton ofplugins that you can easily manage and make modifications as needed.
2) Contact Form 7 wordpress plugin
3) Mail Poet- A Free wordpress plugin that allows you to send emails from your website (a self-hosted solution) and manage your email list.
Once you have these things all set up, now its time to grind the thinking wheels and develop a creative concept to do the two essential things for building lists i.e. the idea that captures the lead (or the call to action) and the method to generate traffic.
Concept To Capture the lead.
This is perhaps the most important aspect of marketing and will mean the difference between building a huge list or failing. Unfortunately I can't give you the creative ideas for your call to action; but I can share with you an idea that has been tested and effectively worked to build a list of more than 15k opted-in subscribers in less than two weeks.
When you are entering the creative process for your marketing campaign you first have to define your goals. For the purpose of this methodology and example the goals were
a) Generate 100k page views
b) Capture 5% of visitors emails all opt-ins
To accomplish such a lofty goal from scratch we realized that the offer needed to be targeted and something that the audience would feel the need to respond to.
Considering that we were trying to acquire leads for individuals or businesses that were interested in acquiring information on internet security and privacy rights or upgrading existing security software someone might be using, we came up with the idea on capturing leads by creating an online survey which we would publish the results of.
The survey was an anonymous survey (so users did not need to submit any identifying information) with less than 10 questions. It had to be a short and simple survey to be sure that visitors could see it wold not take much time and even a short glance at the survey one can see it was about online security and internet privacy rights. Used contact form 7 to create the survey.
When I create lead captures like this I usually place 2 or 3 capture points one can opt in and submit there email too. In this specific method I created the first capture on the 5th question which asked the user to select a choice about how much they know about online security with the options of none, a little and a lot. No matter the selection there would be a dynamic question pop up that asks them if they want to learn more about internet security (1st capture CTA) and if they select yes then a field pops up asking for their email.
As I mentioned above I always like to place multiple capture points and true to form I placed my second capture at the end of the survey. Once the last question is answered again a dynamic question pops up asking if the person submitting the form would like to receive the results of this survey ( I set the logic so if they have previously provided their email in the form above then this question does not generate).
Voila, Now you have a perfect lead capture form to capture leads for people interested in online security information, all with opt-in submissions only.
Generating Traffic
Okay, so now you the form idea and a concept that you can build on for your own email subscriber list ideas, but the question that pops up is how do you generate traffic to this form for people to submit to. This is usually where most people stop and get stuck.
There are lots of ways to generate traffic to your site/form, but the effectiveness of this will vary according to method and audience being targetted. As an old school marketer I believe in direct marketing. What I mean about direct marketing is dont build a site and sit to wait to rank for some keyword in a search engine or hoping someone tells someone about your site (If you do this you will have a 97% chance of failure and disappearing in obscurity), but rather go to where your audience is. Linked in is a great source to delve into to make connections as there are tons of groups the same is true with facebook, and if you have the money of course there is always paid advertisement
However, for this specific campaign concept it was thought the best audience to target were webmasters, people that own or manage websites. We felt they would be the best audience to initially target for this survey and also the most responsive to matters dealing with online security and privacy rights especially amid all the current hacking issues going on over the past year or so.
So with our lead system ready to capture emails, we began our contact form marketing campaign, this is where you contact webmasters or web owners directly at their site (You can do this manuallly or there is software that automates this task). As we reached out to the online community and sought their feedback for our survey.
In a two week period we were able to get more than 25k submitted forms with more than 15k opted in emails which surpassed even our 5% capture goal. Needless to say we were very pleased with the results.
While this specific campaign is used here as an illustration on how to build an email list fast and effectively it doesnt mean that this method as written will work for you or your product/service you are offering! This is the part where your own thoughts and ideas come into play. Be genuine in your offers, follow through with what you say and be direct with reaching out to people and people will respond. You just need to be a little creative.
This is but one method on how to build an email list.....
The most important advice I can give anyone just starting out is dont just try one method, spend some time learning several methods and try them all. See what works and doesnt work for your offer. As I said, those 2 hours I spent on youtube learning various methods was time well spent.
Hope someone here finds benefit in this.
I have read a lot of threads in this forum, and the same question is asked over and over, "How do I build an email list?"; and these questions are generally answered in one of two ways.
a) Build Good Content on your website.
b) Or a recommedation for an email service or plugin to accept email subscribers is recommended.
While both of these things are essential to good email marketing and acquiring and building your email list these answers simply don't provide any real answers on how to actually build an effective email subscriber list.
Soo....in my mind...this question for all of the newer folks to marketing are really never answered.
While there are tons of WSO threads offering various methods marketers have used to build a following, fans sales and everything else under the sun in the internet marketing forum, after looking at a lot of these it still leaves a lot to be said on how to actuallybuild a list fast and effectively.
I personally have spent hours and hours reading this forum, other forums, watching videos and even testing methods myself. I can say that from all of this research and testing I have learned a lot.
There is no "One Exact Way" to build an email list and I would strongly encourage anyone just starting out in IM to sit down for two hours watching youtube vids on email marketing. I learned several very effective methods that actually worked by following the tactics and strategies I learned from these videos ....and it all started out from a very simple search in youtube...."Building Targeted Email Lists, Email Marketing How To, Get Email Leads ".
Now I don't want this post to be another meatless rant that just gives you recommendations like go watch video's etc, so rather than just pointing to a source to go research I thought I would share a method which has effectively helped me build HUGE email lists that are 100% opt in and targeted.
Before I explain this method in detail let me say, this method is just a general idea and the exact method may not work for the type of subscriber list you are trying to build and the methodology should be modified to match your goals but the overal method as I shall explain it, if done properly is effective for bulding HUGE email lists.
What you will need.
1) Website-Preferrably wordpress as there are a ton ofplugins that you can easily manage and make modifications as needed.
2) Contact Form 7 wordpress plugin
3) Mail Poet- A Free wordpress plugin that allows you to send emails from your website (a self-hosted solution) and manage your email list.
Once you have these things all set up, now its time to grind the thinking wheels and develop a creative concept to do the two essential things for building lists i.e. the idea that captures the lead (or the call to action) and the method to generate traffic.
Concept To Capture the lead.
This is perhaps the most important aspect of marketing and will mean the difference between building a huge list or failing. Unfortunately I can't give you the creative ideas for your call to action; but I can share with you an idea that has been tested and effectively worked to build a list of more than 15k opted-in subscribers in less than two weeks.
When you are entering the creative process for your marketing campaign you first have to define your goals. For the purpose of this methodology and example the goals were
a) Generate 100k page views
b) Capture 5% of visitors emails all opt-ins
To accomplish such a lofty goal from scratch we realized that the offer needed to be targeted and something that the audience would feel the need to respond to.
Considering that we were trying to acquire leads for individuals or businesses that were interested in acquiring information on internet security and privacy rights or upgrading existing security software someone might be using, we came up with the idea on capturing leads by creating an online survey which we would publish the results of.
The survey was an anonymous survey (so users did not need to submit any identifying information) with less than 10 questions. It had to be a short and simple survey to be sure that visitors could see it wold not take much time and even a short glance at the survey one can see it was about online security and internet privacy rights. Used contact form 7 to create the survey.
When I create lead captures like this I usually place 2 or 3 capture points one can opt in and submit there email too. In this specific method I created the first capture on the 5th question which asked the user to select a choice about how much they know about online security with the options of none, a little and a lot. No matter the selection there would be a dynamic question pop up that asks them if they want to learn more about internet security (1st capture CTA) and if they select yes then a field pops up asking for their email.
As I mentioned above I always like to place multiple capture points and true to form I placed my second capture at the end of the survey. Once the last question is answered again a dynamic question pops up asking if the person submitting the form would like to receive the results of this survey ( I set the logic so if they have previously provided their email in the form above then this question does not generate).
Voila, Now you have a perfect lead capture form to capture leads for people interested in online security information, all with opt-in submissions only.
Generating Traffic
Okay, so now you the form idea and a concept that you can build on for your own email subscriber list ideas, but the question that pops up is how do you generate traffic to this form for people to submit to. This is usually where most people stop and get stuck.
There are lots of ways to generate traffic to your site/form, but the effectiveness of this will vary according to method and audience being targetted. As an old school marketer I believe in direct marketing. What I mean about direct marketing is dont build a site and sit to wait to rank for some keyword in a search engine or hoping someone tells someone about your site (If you do this you will have a 97% chance of failure and disappearing in obscurity), but rather go to where your audience is. Linked in is a great source to delve into to make connections as there are tons of groups the same is true with facebook, and if you have the money of course there is always paid advertisement
However, for this specific campaign concept it was thought the best audience to target were webmasters, people that own or manage websites. We felt they would be the best audience to initially target for this survey and also the most responsive to matters dealing with online security and privacy rights especially amid all the current hacking issues going on over the past year or so.
So with our lead system ready to capture emails, we began our contact form marketing campaign, this is where you contact webmasters or web owners directly at their site (You can do this manuallly or there is software that automates this task). As we reached out to the online community and sought their feedback for our survey.
In a two week period we were able to get more than 25k submitted forms with more than 15k opted in emails which surpassed even our 5% capture goal. Needless to say we were very pleased with the results.
While this specific campaign is used here as an illustration on how to build an email list fast and effectively it doesnt mean that this method as written will work for you or your product/service you are offering! This is the part where your own thoughts and ideas come into play. Be genuine in your offers, follow through with what you say and be direct with reaching out to people and people will respond. You just need to be a little creative.
This is but one method on how to build an email list.....
The most important advice I can give anyone just starting out is dont just try one method, spend some time learning several methods and try them all. See what works and doesnt work for your offer. As I said, those 2 hours I spent on youtube learning various methods was time well spent.
Hope someone here finds benefit in this.
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Internet Marketer since 3 years. Love to learn always and prefer to share knowledge with others!