3 best-proven steps for uplifting your Email List

3 best-proven steps to build an email list

An email list is more than just a list of email addresses. It is your reservoir of potential customers, a gateway to personalized outreach, and a strong foundation for building relationships, connections, and communication with your audience.

As you are in the blogging space i.e., in the digital marketing space, it is sure that you have heard “Money is on the list”. If there is one popular saying in digital marketing that is true, this is it.

Email list is important not only in terms of money but from many other perspectives (you will walk through below).

Do you know,

What is the most clickable call to action (CTA) online?

It’s not “add to cart”, “buy now” or “confirm your order”, it is “subscribe”.

Therefore, you need to build an email list from the day you start your blogging. It is the one that helps you learn, enjoy the benefits, and apply email marketing in your blogging journey.

Email marketing is a vast topic and includes many subtopics such as email list building, email segmentation, email list management, email deliverability, email automation, email list segmentation, etc.

As you can see, in this blog post, you are going to learn only one segment of email marketing and that is Email list building for the beginner.

Beginners in this sense that you are going to learn only steps to grow your email list in this blog post, not the email marketing and other advanced email list and email marketing techniques.

So, let’s get started!!!

And build your email list from day one of your blogging.

Table of Contents

What is an email list?

An email list is a collection of email addresses gathered from individuals who have willingly provided their contact information for a specific purpose.

The purpose can vary widely and may include receiving updates, newsletters, promotions, or other types of information from a particular individual, organization, or business.

Email lists are commonly used in marketing, communication, and outreach efforts. They serve as a direct channel for sending messages to your targeted audience. It allows you to stay connected with your customers, clients, or followers usually referred to as “subscribers”.

Building and maintaining your email list typically involves obtaining permission from individuals before adding them to the list. You will do that through opt-in mechanisms, where individuals willingly sign up or subscribe to receive your emails.

It is essential for your email marketing to comply with privacy and anti-spam regulations, ensuring that recipients have consented to receive communications.

You have to manage your email list through email marketing platforms or software. These tools help you to create, organize, and send emails to your subscribers. The platforms offer you features like segmentation, automation, and analytics to help you optimize the effectiveness of your email campaigns.

Why do you need an email list?

It is already mentioned above that you will be walking through the importance of your email list. Here you go. In this section, you are going to know why you need an email list for your blogging.

Building and maintaining your email list offers several important benefits. The advantages of your email list make it a very valuable tool for your blog’s growth and success.

Here are some key reasons why having an email list is crucial for your blogging:

The importance of an email list

Email is the number one preferred communication channel. At least 91% of the customers check their email daily and 72% of the customers prefer email as their source of business communication.
Email drives more conversion than any other marketing channel, including search and social combined.
Compared to many other marketing channels, email marketing is often cost-effective. With the ability to reach a large audience at a relatively low cost, it offers a high ROI.
Emails also have higher click-through rates. You are 6x more likely to get a click-through from an email campaign than you are from a tweet.
When it comes to purchases as a result of receiving a marketing message, email has the highest conversion rate (66%), when compared to social, direct mail, and more.
Your message is 5x more likely to be seen in email than via Facebook. Email provides a direct personal channel of communication with your audience.
Email becomes the best channel to reach the mobile audience. about 53% of emails are opened on mobile devices, and 23% of readers who open an email on a mobile device open it again later.

More benefits of an email list

You own your list, giving you more stability and autonomy in your communication strategy. On Facebook or any social network, your account could be suspended or deleted at any time, for any reason, without notice. Your efforts could go to waste. However, when it comes to email. You own your email list and no one can take those leads away from you.
An email list allows you to segment your audience based on various criteria such as demographics, preferences, or behavior. This enables you to send targeted and relevant messages to specific groups.
Through regular communication, you can establish trust, provide value, and keep your subscribers engaged with your brand or content.
Email lists are commonly used for promotional purposes, including product launches, sales, and special offers. Subscribers on your list are more likely to be interested in your offerings, making it an effective channel for driving sales and conversions.
Sending emails that link to your website or other online platform can drive traffic and increase engagement. It can serve as a traffic generator for your online presence.
Email marketing platforms provide analytics that allow you to track the performance of your campaign. The valuable insights provide the effectiveness of your messages.

3 proven step plan to grow your email list

To enjoy all the email marketing benefits mentioned above, you need to have an email list.

It will help you to connect directly with your audience, tailor your messages, and achieve your specific blogging objectives effectively.

You need a strategic approach and valuable content to grow your email list through your blog. In this way, you can attract visitors, engage with them, and encourage them to subscribe.

Here are the proven steps, or you can say the essential elements to grow your email list.

STEP 1: Find an email service provider that fits your requirements, budget, and skill level.

An email service provider especially for email marketing is a company or service that offers email communication services for your email list.

You can get the infrastructure and tools necessary for sending, managing, and tracking your email campaigns. It is the one where you can ensure the deliverability, reliability, and effectiveness of your email communication.

It could be your pain choosing an email service provider for your marketing because there are too many out there. Each of them has its strengths and weaknesses. You should consider your specific needs, the size of your audience, and the features required for your email marketing strategy.

These are the key features you should consider while choosing your email service provider for your email marketing campaign.

Key features of an email marketing service provider

Email campaign management: designing emails, segmenting lists, and automating campaigns to create, schedule, and send emails.
Subscriber management: managing email lists, adding and removing subscribers, segmenting audiences, and handling unsubscribe requests.
Deliverability Optimization: making sure that emails are delivered to recipients’ inboxes and not marked as spam.
Automation and Autoresponders: to enable email campaigns based on predefined triggers or user behavior and to send automated responses to specific actions or events.
Analytics and Reporting: to track the performance, metrics like open rates, click-through rates, conversion rates, etc.
Personalization: to create more targeted and relevant email content based on subscriber data, preference, or behavior.
A/B Testing: to experiment with different elements of your emails (subject lines, content, etc.) to optimize campaign performance.
Integration with other tools: integrate with other marketing tools, customer relationship management (CRM) systems, and e-commerce platforms to streamline workflows and enhance data synchronization.
Security: Email addresses are sensitive data that you are responsible for protecting. Your email marketing service provider should have robust precautions in place and use best practices to protect this data.
Customer Support: make sure that the provider has a helpful and accessible customer support team so that you can lean on when you need help.

Email Service Provider Examples for email marketing

Convert Kit - an email marketing service provider

It will be time-consuming when you check every email marketing platform out there because that are hundreds available.

But it is also crucial for your blogging business. It is your first step in your blogging success to utilize marketing’s most powerful channel.

So, you have to decide which one is suitable for you as mentioned earlier according to your budget, skillset, and number of subscribers along with the key features mentioned above.

Here are a few email marketing service provider examples:

Mailchimp: One of the most popular email services on the market and starter-friendly. They have the best starter-friendly plan. If you have less than 2,000 subscribers and send less than 12,000 emails, you don’t have to pay anything.

Aweber: One of the oldest and most well-known email service providers on the market. they have one of the best customer support teams. They blow everyone else away with quality, speed, and options.

ConvertKit: The newest email marketing platform on the market. It is simple and easy to use with a clean and easy-to-understand interface.

Drip: One of the latest entrants to the email marketing platforms on the market. It is known for its most advanced automation capabilities. It is not tailored for beginners but for more advanced users.

These are only a few examples of email marketing service providers available on the market. If you need a full list of email service providers for email marketing, the email vendor section has collected all the lists on their website. You can see the list through emailvendorselection.com and compare its features and pricing. Every ESP has its strengths and may cater to different types of users and industries.

STEP 2: Create an irresistible offer to give your subscriber a reason to subscribe.

We humans are skeptical by nature. Nobody wants to share personal details like email addresses and mobile numbers. There is an intrinsic resistance to sharing such details.

Your offer is the incentive you need to give to your audience to break that resistance and share their email addresses with you permitting you to send them emails.

You should know that the most important factor that will build or kill your list lies in the answers to these questions:

Why would someone subscribe to your list?
What is in it for them?

Your audience cares about themselves first. They need a reason to subscribe to your list. And that would be your irresistible offer which is to resonate with them, solve their problems, give answers to their queries, and help them to reach from point A to point B (desire state).

There are many offers you can give to your audience. It depends on your blog readers’ needs. But in the beginning stage of your list building, the most popular and easy entry point is lead magnets.

First, let’s discuss different types of offers or incentives you can provide to your audience to capture their email address. Then you will go through in detail why lead magnet is the best entry point for your list building.

Different types (ideas) of offers to uplift your list growth

Lead Magnets: This is probably the oldest and best technique for list building. You can create an eBook, an infographic, a video, or something the subscriber gets in exchange for his email address (and name). It works well when the lead magnet offered is short, actionable, and solves one problem for the audience.

Free courses/Email courses: You can develop a series of informative and valuable video courses or email courses that deliver content over a specified period. Users can sign up to receive the course via email. This approach keeps your audience engaged and eager to receive each installment.

Free webinars/Online workshops: This works very well with the course creator if you are in the same field. You can host a free webinar or online workshop on a topic relevant to your audience. You just have to ensure that the content is valuable and offers actionable insights. Participants can register by providing their email addresses.

Contests and Giveaways: You can run a contest or giveaways with enticing prizes. The prizes should be relevant to your audience and align with your brand. You could make an entry requiring their email address.

Content upgrade: This is the latest hot trend that is rocking the digital marketing world. You write an amazing blog post and create bonus content relevant to the blog post that will make the blog post even better. And you offer it in exchange for the email ID.

More ideas to create different types of offers for your list-building growth

Free exclusive content: You can offer high-quality, exclusive content that addresses a specific pain point or provides valuable insights. This could be an e-book, whitepaper, guide, or a series of informative articles that are not readily available elsewhere.

Discounts or Coupons: It is another tactic to build your list. You can provide special discounts or exclusive coupons for your products or services. Your audience loves saving money, and this tactic can be a powerful incentive to join your email list.

Resource Toolkit: You can create a resource toolkit that includes templates, checklists, and tools that your audience would find useful. You can offer it for free in exchange for their email addresses.

Exclusive Access or Sneak Peeks: Another way to build your list. You provide early access to new products, services, or features for subscribers. Your audience loves feeling like insiders and this exclusivity can be a strong motivator.

Free trials or Samples: If applicable, offer a free trial or sample of your product or service. This allows your potential customers to experience what you offer before committing, and you get their email addresses for follow-up.

Personalized Assessments or Quizzes: You can create a quiz or assessment related to your industry or niche. Then you offer personalized results and insights. In exchange for their email addresses.

Access to a Private Community: You offer access exclusively to email subscribers into your private community, such as a members-only forum or Facebook group even on your website.

The Lead Magnet

Source: instapage

The lead magnet is the backbone of your lead generation and email list growth.

You have to convince someone to share their details, you need to offer them something in exchange, that is valuable enough for them. “That something” is called lead magnets.

Lead magnet is one of the most effective incentives for growing your email list, especially in the beginning stages of building your audience. That is why, you should know and learn about the lead magnet first then other ideas or types of incentives you can offer.

You have got the full blog post on this topic “Lead magnet: Strong foundation of the blogging and digital marketing.”It is one of the best resources on lead magnet you can go through.

So, here are a few key reasons why you should focus on lead magnets in the beginning stage of your list building.

Key reasons why lead magnet is commonly used and effective

Immediate Value: lead magnets offer immediate value to your audience. Whether it is an e-book, checklist, webinar, or exclusive content, the promise of valuable information or resources encourages audiences to subscribe.

Targeted Audience Engagement: With your lead magnet that addresses a specific pain point or interest to your target audience, you can attract individuals who are genuinely interested in your niche or industry.

Establishing Expertise: Your well-crafted lead magnet can position you as an authority in your field. You can build trust with your potential subscribers providing them valuable information.

Building a Relationship: Giving your lead magnet and gaining permission to contact your subscribers via email allows you to start building a relationship with your audience.

Easy Entry Point: Your lead magnet makes it easy for your audience to take the first step in engaging with your brand. It is a low-risk commitment for them to provide their email address in exchange for something they find valuable.

List Segmentation: Since your subscribers opt-in to receive specific lead magnets based on their interests, you can use this information to segment your email list. This allows you to tailor your future communications to specific segments of your audience, increasing relevance.

STEP 3: Build a mechanism to capture your subscriber’s email address (and name)

Now you have the offer as you have learned above – your lead magnet in the beginning stage of list building.

You have signed up with the right (according to your requirements, budget, and skillset as mentioned above) email marketing service provider.

This is your last and final step in growing your email list and that is to capture the emails.

There are many techniques and methods to build your email-capturing mechanism. But before building the email capturing mechanism, you should meet some criteria to collect the email addresses effectively.

You should use the right email capture tools
You have to offer something of value to your new subscribers
It should be very easy to sign up

Here are the most used list-building techniques and methods

Landing pages
Pop-ups
Inline opt-in forms
Sticky bars
Interactive quizzes
Surveys
And more

Source: HubSpot

Let’s look at some popular tactics of email capturing mechanisms for your blog, especially in the beginning stage of your list building. These tactics are commonly used to build your list from day one of your blogging.

Most commonly used techniques or methods for capturing emails for your blog.

Landing Page

Landing pages, also known as squeeze pages are specifically designed to capture email ids is one of the most common methods to capture email ids. You should keep your landing page clear, simple, and focused. Make your call-to-action button big and post it above the fold. What you have to take care of is your headline should match your ad copy.

Here is an illustration of a landing page from omnisend.com, what it looks like, and what elements you should necessarily include in your landing page.

Points to be considered while designing your landing page

You should have your landing page. This is not a matter of ignoring because of technical steps in designing a landing page.
If you cannot design your landing page yourself, you should hire a freelancer. It should be unique and convey your message.
You should not mismatch the ad copy and landing page message. It should be relevant and communicate the same message.
It is best practice to include a relevant CTA to improve the performance.
You should avoid the poor design of the landing page. It should look decent at least. Your landing page is your salesperson talking to your audience.
Your landing page should be optimized for mobile devices.

Pop-ups

Pop-ups are small windows (generated using JavaScript) that “pop up” on the website when your website visitor triggers it. Popup usually includes CTA, which is a clickable button. It is enticing enough to influence your blog visitors to click on it, directing them towards a landing page.

There are many types of popups you can use on your website. It depends on your blog readers and your lead magnet. To use different types of popups on your blog website, you should have different opt-ins or lead magnets. Here are the most used popups:

Entry pop-ups: These pop-ups activate when a visitor enters your blog site. This type of form often blocks the majority’s view on the screen, forcing an engagement. You should make the pop-up appear five seconds after the visitor arrives on the page because it produces the best results.

Exit pop-ups: These pop-ups appear when your visitor’s mouse moves toward the “back” or “close” button. Exit pop-ups are usually the last-ditch efforts to engage your potential subscriber and prevent the loss of a good lead.

Other popups, you can use are:

On timer – your campaign will trigger a pop-up after the user has been on the page for a set time.
On scroll – trigger when the element you specify is visible on the page.
On inactivity – trigger when a defined period of inactivity has elapsed.
On click – your campaign will trigger when an element on the page is clicked.
On hover- Your campaign will trigger when an element on the page is hovered upon.

Using Chatbot

Source: intuz.com

Pop-ups annoy your readers a bit because they interrupt them. You can change that with a chatbot that is fueled by AI-based rules.

You can customize the questions and responses based on rules and provide the right message to the right audience.

This chatbot behaves conversational and non-intrusive. Its conversational abilities convince your blog site visitors to share their email addresses.

Besides above mentioned email capturing mechanism, you can use the form in the sidebar of your blog site and use it in your blog article. Floating and sticky bars are also used often to capture the email addresses of the subscribers by the blogger.

The last thing to do

You need to connect all the pieces mentioned above.

Integrating your landing page to your email marketing tool and thank you page etc. You need to automate the entire process, so that when your subscriber submits their details, the details are posted to your email marketing tool, and the subscribers get the lead magnet delivered.

After submitting the details your subscribers should lead to the thank you page. This is the page where you can give the download link or a link to access the lead magnet with instructions on how to access the lead magnet.

You can also use the thank you page to connect with you on different social networks. Or you can share testimonials from your happy customers.

Next, you should promote your landing page on different social media networks. You can do it either organically or if you have the budget, you can choose the paid option too.

Building an email list is just your starting point. You should nurture your list by providing value, creating fresh content continuously, and building relationships, and trust with them. Then only you can convert your list into the customer.

Final Words

Your understanding of the fundamental concept of an email list as a powerful tool for direct communication lays the foundation for your successful blogging and digital marketing journey.

Email list is the key to unlocking your full potential in building lasting relationships with your audience and driving engagement.

With the help of 3 proven steps outlined above, you can not only accumulate a larger subscriber base but also foster a community of engaged and loyal followers.

What you have to understand is, the strength of your email list lies not just in its size but in the quality of connection you build. To uplift your email list, you should build meaningful interactions and deliver value to your subscribers.

Therefore, to get the full potential of your list, you should implement the steps. Then only you can watch your list transform into a powerful asset that takes your blogging business to new heights.