HOW TO BUILD AN EMAIL LIST

In general, there are 3 primary types of email lists:

First-Party Customer Email Lists: This article is not about building customer email lists since most companies already have the email addresses of their customers.

Third-Party Prospecting Email Lists: This article is not about building a prospecting email list since it’s cheaper and more logical to buy a prospecting email list than attempting self-compilation.

First-Party Inquirer Email Lists: This article is about opt-in inquirer email lists … consisting of people who have specifically requested information from our company. Opt-In inquirers are like gold as they are on the verge of becoming a customer … just need a little more convincing.

HOW TO BUILD A FIRST-PARTY EMAIL LIST: Your website is the best arena for building a first-party email list … email list of opt-in inquirers. And to achieve this task you must drive prospects to your website … pure and simple. Once they’re at your website – you can use a variety of tactics to convince / entice prospects (website visitors) to share their email address … hence collect 1st party email addresses.  And note that this article is not about website tactics (CTA pop-ups, custom landing page, etc) that can be used to convince website visitors to share their email address … to opt-in for more info; these tactics are best covered by your website administrator – website creative team. This article is about on how to get people to your website … as website tactics are fruitless if people can’t find your website. 

IMPORTANT NOTE: When Googling “how to build an email list,” one will find countless articles that offer website centric solutions; in other words, ideas for capturing an email address from website visitors. For most companies, these email list building ideas are futile because they are predicated on the premise that potential customers will magically find your website. For example, what value is a catchy CTA pop-up (call-to-action … benefit for sharing email address) on your website if people can’t find your website? What’s the use of offering a 10% discount for sharing email address if potential customers can’t find your website? Cart before the horse … can’t institute website centric ideas if people are not visiting your website to begin with. Thus, this article will share ideas for driving prospects to your website.

10 WAYS TO INCREASE WEBSITE TRAFFIC FOR COLLECTING 1ST-PARTY EMAIL ADDRESSES

1. SEO: Optimizing website content with keywords, crafting engaging high-quality content, backlinks, and other nifty website ideas represent the primary goal of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) … having your website appear on page “one” of Google search results. Unfortunately, for most companies this goal is not feasible … the degree of competition makes this goal nearly impossible. SEO (page 1 of search results) is simply not a realistic goal for most companies.

2. MASS ADVERTISING: Billboard, TV, Radio, Newspaper ads are effective for increase website traffic. However, mass advertising is best for offers that appeal to a wide spectrum of the population; most marketers need pinpoint targeting to achieve a positive ROI.

3. SIGN-UP OPTION ON SOCIAL MEDIA: This suggestion is predicated on having a lot of social media followers; if you don’t have a high number of people frequently visiting your social media page – then this option will not generate a significant number of first party email addresses.

4. COLLECT IN PERSON: In-Store events and pop-up shops are effective in collecting 1st-party email addresses, though again we are talking about an inconsequential quantity. And tradeshows, common route for B2B marketers, the show exhibitors will often receive a free email list of attendees and/or will collect emails via business cards in a fishbowl. An effective strategy albeit a small quantity of emails. Plus, note that ConstantContact, MailChimp, and others consider email addresses collected via trade show/fishbowl … as 3rd party email addresses … no different than buying an email list of qualified B2B decision makers.

5. MISCELLANEOUS: Work with influencers, engage with community, public relations postings, referrals, and other niche marketing strategies are fine … however, not effective solutions for driving a “significant” number of prospects to website.

6. BLOG, VIDEOS, NEWSLETTER, WEBINARS: Relevant / informative blogs/videos (Youtube, TikTok) are effective, though there’s the challenge of getting people to find your blog/videos. A highly informative newsletter will not generate leads UNLESS prospects magically discover the newsletter. And posting the newsletter on social media is futile … unless you’re a large company with thousands of followers.

7. DIRECT MAIL: DM is a very effective way to drive qualified prospects to your website … though a bit expensive for many. However, we do offer some co-op direct mail campaigns that can cut mailing cost in half!

8. SEARCH ADS: Of course, search ads are a very effective medium for driving new website visitors, though for some product/service lines the ROI is too low … the high cost of this type of advertising does not justify the number of new website visitors.

9. DISPLAY ADS: When reviewing ad expenditures by medium, we can conclude display ads represent a very common vehicle for driving prospects to a website. Plus, display ads offer the added advantage of building brand awareness.

10. PROSPECTING EMAIL CAMPAIGN: A prospecting email campaign is a proven vehicle for driving new prospects to a website. A major advantage of this ad medium is that the marketer can be pro-active … actively reach out to qualified candidates – instead of sitting back and hoping that people will magically find their website. Plus, with this option the marketer can laser focus on qualified prospects … which is probably one reason this ad medium often has the lowest cost per new inquirer. A marketer has two options for executing a prospecting email campaign: first option is to simply buy a prospecting email list and self-execute the campaign. If there’s not a team with experience in executing prospecting email campaigns, then we (DMDatabases) can execute the campaign for you. And for clients with a specific offer and a clear LTV, our rates are click driven … marketer only pays for clicks.

BOTTOM-LINE: All of the above 10 ideas … and other unmentioned niche ideas … can drive prospects to a website. However, as explained in this article, some ideas are more effective than others.