How To Build An Email List For Your Business In 2023

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Are you looking for how to build an email list for your small business?

Building an email list is one of the best ways to reach your customers, in order to be successful in business.

Emails has proven over time to be one of the most effective ways to reach your customers right where they are.

With an email list, it’s easy to reach out to your customers to;

  • offer them special discounts
  • conduct a survey about your products
  • give them updates about your business
  • tell them about new products or service offerings, etc.

Thinking of building an email list might seem daunting at first, but in reality, it’s not. So you might ask, what’s the easiest way to build an email list for your small business? Not to bother, this article will teach you how to build an email list in no time.

There are email marketing platforms offering free and easy-to-use list-building tools, and you can quickly sign up with them with just your email.

Disclosure: We may receive compensation for some of the links in this article. This only helps to keep this website running and adds no extra cost to you if you decide to purchase a paid plan. You can read our full affiliate disclosure here.

Some email marketing platforms that let you get started for free are:

All that’s left is for you to know how to choose email marketing software and then use a proven strategy to grow your list.

If you learn how to build your email list early and keep at it consistently from day one, it’s only a matter of time before it pays off. Some entrepreneurs have gone on to build a sizable email list for their small business in a very short time.

So let me take you by the hand and teach you how to build an email list from scratch, explaining in detail all the steps you need to take.

But first;

Why Is Email List Building Important For Businesses?

1. Building an email list enables businesses to communicate directly and personally with their customers, enabling them to build trust and loyalty.

2. Businesses can also segment their customers based on their location, interests, buying power, and more. This enables them to create highly targeted and relevant email campaigns.

3. Email marketing has continued to be one of the most effective ways to reach customers, unlike social media. People’s attention span is getting shorter on social media, but email has been around for a long time and still offers as much personal communication.

4. Another plus for email marketing is that an email list is an effective way for businesses to keep in touch with their existing customers and encourage repeat business. You’re not limited to only those who follow you on social media or who happen to see your ads.

5. Lastly, email marketing is a tool that can help businesses achieve a variety of goals; from generating leads, to building brand awareness, and driving sales. With email marketing, brands can adapt their marketing strategy to suit their goals.

How To Build An Email List – My top 10

Whether you’re learning how to build an email list for the first time, or you already have marketing campaigns running to grow your email list, here are a few key pointers to help you achieve your objective.

1. Know Your Target Audience

In business, you have to know your customers; what they like, what their interests are, etc. The same goes for your email subscribers. Your email subscribers have wants, need and interests.

How To Build An Email List For Your Business - Know Your Target Audience

Without knowing these, you might not be able to craft email campaigns that resonate with your audience and encourages them to take your desired action.

Knowing your audience will require you to ask questions such as;

  • Who are your ideal customers?
  • What are their needs?
  • Can my business address these needs?
  • What interests do they have?
  • What mode of communication do they prefer?
  • What really drives them to take action?

When you have been able to successfully answer these questions, you would have a picture of who your ideal audience is, and how you can better target them with your email campaigns.

2. Create A Lead Magnet That Subscribers Need

To get subscribers emails, sometimes you have to offer something in return. And it has to be something of value.

And because when it comes to list building, the quality of your leads is as important, if not more important than the leads themselves. So you have to offer the right incentive to get the right people on your email list. This way you have more qualified prospects to reach out to.

There are lots of lead magnet ideas you can explore, from free eBooks, to free webinars and exclusive masterclasses. The options are too numerous. The image below is a perfect example from HubSpot. In this example, HubSpot is trying to capture emails of website owners, so they offer a website grader tool. To grade your website in seconds, you will have to give your website url and email address to get your website grade.

How to Build An email list_Lead magnet_Hubspot lead magnet

Offer lead magnets that are directly related to your product or service offerings. For instance, if you’re an ecommerce store selling shoes, you could offer a free ebook that teach your audience how to preserve their leather shoes, or if you’re a tax consultant, you could offer a spreadsheet that helps your audience calculate their taxes.

3. Create A Welcome Email That is ‘Welcoming’

In email marketing, first impressions count for a lot. Your welcome email is your chance to create a first impression on your subscriber, don’t waste it.

Subscribers can gauge your tone of voice and decide if they want to stay or go. So it is critical to craft a welcome email that is warm and welcoming and makes your new subscriber want to stay.

Here are a few things you should aim to accomplish with your welcome email series;

  • Get the subscriber acquainted with your brand.
  • Thank them for signing up
  • Introduce yourself/your expertise and highlight the value they will derive from staying on your list.
  • Ask them to whitelist your email so they don’t miss your emails or any future content from you.
  • Last, but not necessary, have a CTA that encourages them to take the next action. That can be to explore your blog, make a purchase, etc.

4. Create Email Opt-in Forms

Create email opt-in forms that speak directly to your target audience and encourages them to take action.

The copy you use on your email opt-in forms is one critical factor to getting people on your email list. You should take time to craft the perfect copy.

There are freelance copywriters you can pay on Fiverr or UpWork to craft something nice for you. You can also make use of AI copywriting software tools to craft high-converting copy.

Carefully consider every single element of your opt-in form. From the copy itself, to the call-to-action (CTA) button, to the font size and color. All these have to be carefully considered, optimized and tested.

5. Promote Your Opt-in Forms On Social Media

Social media platform are great for collecting sign-up information from potential subscribers.

While you might not be able to embed your opt-in forms on your social media platform (depending on which one you use and what is allowed there), you can still use your social platforms to drive traffic to a dedicated page on your website that houses your sign-up form, so that people can subscribe.

Potential customers that already know what you are about and the value you can offer are more likely to convert into email subscribers than those that are entirely new to your brand.

6. Place Your Email Opt-in Forms On Your Website

There are a lot of places you can place an opt-in form on your website. You can place it on your sidebar, footer, at the end of blog posts and on a dedicated sign-up page.

You will be best served placing it on a dedicated sign-up page. Reason being that dedicated landing pages are high-converting because they have less of the elements that distract potential subscribers from the main objective.

Homepage sidebars can also be a great place to put an opt-in form because it’s one of the first places your site visitors see immediately they land on your website.

7. Constantly Provide Value To Your Email Subscribers

While getting subscribers to your list is the primary objective, remember to constantly give them reason to stay on. One way to do that is to keep providing value.

Providing value to your audience is a no-brainer, if you don’t want to have people unsubscribing from your list.

Constantly send out high quality content that both educates and entertains your subscribers.

Time for promotional and sales emails will come, no doubt. But focus on giving value first.

To retain your list and attract new audience, value is the name of the game.

8. Consider Social Media Ads

You can also grow your email list using paid options on social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook. This is way quicker than the organic method.

But while considering paid ads, remember that most people who will come across your ads have not seen or heard about you before. They don’t know you or what you do.

So to get them on your list, provide them with a clear value proposition. Let them see reasons why they should sign-up for your email list.

For instance, let’s assume you’re running a Twitter ad.

In that case, you’ll want to ensure that, at the very least, you’re targeting people who have already shown an interest in your industry or similar products or services to those you offer.

Target those who have shown interest in or engaged with your content on social media, or browsed your website. That way you’re sure to get the best ROI on your advertising investment.

9. Collaborate With Other Businesses To Grow Your Email List

No business is an island.

Every business can grow and reach new customers by collaborating with other businesses in the same niche. That is also true for building an email list.

You can increase the number of eyeballs coming through to your email list by collaborating with other businesses. That can lead to a potential increase in the number of sign-ups to your list.

Another way you can leverage other businesses audience to grow your list is to co-host a webinar. Both you and your co-host will benefit from promoting this webinar to your lists, and getting sign-ups from the other business’ list adds to your already established audience. Here’s how you can get started organizing a webinar.

By doing this, you open yourself up to new audiences and it has the added advantage of solidifying your relationship with other businesses in your industry and opening you up to more opportunities in the future.

10. Don’t Get Tired Of Growing Your List

After you have learned how to build an email list, you will also need to learn all the ways to grow your list. And there are so many ways to do that. From using pop-up forms to offering free digital downloads or hosting free webinars. Don’t get tired of exploring all the ways available to grow your list.

The more subscribers on your email list, the higher the potential to drive conversion and sales.

Remember that nurturing your email list can lead to even higher conversions when the time comes to promote an offer. So don’t ever let your list grow cold.

Keep an open mind about all the different ways you can build your email list and continue to grow them. Keeping them warm and continuing to offer value will make sure that your email list continues to thrive for many more years.

How To Build An Email List – Measuring Your Email Marketing Success?

Building an email list is one thing, creating a successful email marketing campaign is another. And knowing which metrics matter most in your email marketing strategy is essential to determining what constitutes a successful campaign.

To measure your email marketing success, there are a few important metrics you should be tracking;

1. Open Rate

Your email open rate is a simple metric that tracks how successful your subject line was in leading subscribers to open your email. The open rate is the percentage of subscribers that open your email.

2. Click-Through Rate

This metric is a percentage of subscribers that clicked on at least one link in your email. It gives you an idea of how engaging your email content was and if it inspired your recipients to take action.

3. Unsubscribe Rate

Your email unsubscribe rate is the percentage of subscribers that leave or remove themselves from your email list after receiving an email from you. You want to keep this number as low as possible by providing valuable content and track your unsubscribe rate over time to see if there is a trend.

4. Complaint Rate

The percentage of people that mark future emails from you as spam. This metric is critical because it can impact your deliverability if it gets too high. Some email marketing platforms can even kick you out of their platform if your complaint rate goes out of the ordinary.

Most email marketing softwares show you these metrics out-of-the-box for every email campaign you run. As you progress in email marketing, you’ll have a good idea of how much each campaign costs you in terms of the time and resources it takes to put together.

You’ll be able to compare these with the results you get for each campaign. This will help you determine if email marketing is a route worth pursuing for your business. It will also help you determine if there’s something you need to change about your approach to email marketing.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) About How To Build An Email List

How To Build An Email List – Conclusion

If you’re going to find some level of success in today’s marketplace, learning how to build an email list is a no-brainer.

But instead of focusing on sales and promotion all the way, focus instead, on providing consistent value and delivering quality content to your subscribers. This will put you well on your way to to achieving success in no time.

When your subscribers see how much value they get from being on your list, I bet they will never entertain the thoughts of unsubscribing from your list. Instead they will look forward to your next emails.

And when you have an offer that requires them to part ways with their money? They will be more inclined to buy from you.

Do you already have an email list?

What email list building startegies have you found to be most effective?

Let me know in the comments below.

Additional Resources on DienyeDiri.Com: Sendinblue is one of the best email services for small businesses and they let you get started building your email list for free. Read our review of Sendinblue to find out what else you can do with their free plan.

Disclosure: We may receive compensation for some of the links in this article. This only helps to keep this website running and adds no extra cost to you if you decide to purchase a paid plan. You can read our full affiliate disclosure here.

Last Update: September 5, 2023 by Dienye Diri

Dienye Diri
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