Creating an Email List: Tips for Success from the Start

To be successful in your marketing strategies and email marketing efforts, a healthy and valuable email list is essential. We don’t have to tell you the obvious things like “an email list is a collection of email addresses”. But, we can surely admit that building it from scratch can be challenging.

However, collecting emails from the ground up will be beneficial for your business. It will help you make your email marketing campaigns effective, as you will drive sales and foster customer loyalty. In this article, let us show you what the features of a high-quality email list are and how to attract new leads. We will walk you through seven effective ways on how to build your email list.

Features of a good email list

Before we discuss how to build an email list, let's first discuss what makes it good and healthy. Creating an email list involves understanding the key components that make it valuable. By focusing on these elements, you can ensure that you target and engage your contacts. It will ultimately lead to better results and a more successful email marketing strategy. 

Consent-based

For your contacts to be valuable, they need to agree to sign up for your list. Be sure your leads gave permission to receive emails from you. To do it, use a double opt-in signup so that they have to confirm their email address. 

This way you can be sure that your newly collected contacts wanted to join your email list. You can also be sure that they are eager to get messages from you.

Valid and clean

Keeping a clean and up-to-date contact list can improve your deliverability and engagement rates. That is why you should remove inactive and invalid email addresses to keep only active and engaged subscribers on your list. All the rest will disturb the statistics and lower the results of your campaign. Not to mention that sending to invalid contacts is a waste of time and money. 

Engaged audience

The contacts on your email list should not only be valid and active but also engaged with the content you are sending. To have a good email list, ensure that your recipients are actively engaging with your emails. This can include opening, clicking, or taking the actions you have planned for in your campaign.

Regularly cleaning up your list is one thing to make sure you only have active and engaged subscribers on your list. Another way to do that is sending re-engagement and win-back campaigns to mobilize less active subscribers.

Easy to segment

The last feature of a good mailing list is easy segmentation. It means that the information you gather about your contacts should help you sort your list based on certain criteria. These criteria can include custom fields. For example, they could include demographics or age, but also behaviors and preferences based on your customers' past purchases.

Segmentation helps you send personalized emails to your target audience based on their needs. Your contacts will therefore feel more valued and better recognized by your company.

How to build an email list

Now, let us move on to the best tactics to build your email list from scratch. For a high conversion rate when collecting new contacts, try seven ways we selected for you:

Choose your email marketing software

Using an email service provider makes building contact lists and sending email campaigns easier for you.You can use Elastic Email to create opt-in forms and landing pages for lead generation. As for the former, you can create multiple signup and popup forms. You can also customize their appearance, fields, and placement. Everything is done securely and in compliance with GDPR regulations.

As for the landing pages, you can also design them in our dashboard. You do need to have any coding experience as you drag and drop various page elements into your layout. If you lack inspiration, you can choose a landing page from our pre-designed templates. You don't even need your own domain to publish it and collect contacts.

Once you collect emails, you can store and manage them in your account. You can group your contacts into lists and segments. This will help you communicate with your audience more effectively. You will still have access to all of your contacts.

In our Email Marketing product, you can start by storing up to 2,500 contacts and upgrade anytime.

When using email marketing software, you can easily send email campaigns to your contacts. You can select your recipients and content, and watch your emails being sent out in real time. We can send our email campaigns immediately or schedule them for a specific time to maximize their effectiveness. To avoid manual sending, you can also set up email automation flows with various rules and triggers.

Never buy an email list

It may seem obvious, but we cannot stress it enough that buying an email list is not a solution. Above all, buying your email contacts is illegal. Your subscribers have to agree to be on your list. We all want to have as many leads as possible, but remember that it’s all about quality over quantity.

To have a great and healthy email list, you need to collect valuable contacts who agreed to subscribe. Sending to millions without any results misses the whole point of email marketing. You want to attract potential customers who are interested in your business and willingly sign up for your email list.

Offer attractive lead magnets 

If you want to attract new leads, you need to give them some kind of incentive to make them subscribe. They give away their personal information, so offering them something valuable in return is a fair deal.

You can give away free items to attract potential customers. These items can include an e-book, gift guide, stock images, or webinar.

The type of free item you offer should depend on your business. This can help attract more leads and offer exclusive content. It can also be a discount, sale, or free shipping for new subscribers. Thanks to this, not only will you attract new subscribers, but you will also encourage them to make a purchase.

Create captivating landing pages

Creating landing pages is a great way to increase your audience because you can target specific people. You can pinpoint exactly who will see ads that lead to your site.

Remember to make the content of your landing page consistent with the content of the ads. When someone clicks a link to your site, they should see a catchy headline that makes them want to stay. Ensure that your landing page is simple to navigate and understand. This will prevent confusion and ensure that you do not miss out on the desired action.

If someone is already familiar with the content of your webpage, they should see a button with a strong call to action. It represents the value of performing the desired action. For example, if you offer a giveaway in exchange for a lead, use words like “Download” or “Access” to make the gain clear.

Create high-converting signup forms

Another way to collect new leads is by adding signup forms to your website. They may appear as an integral part of the site layout or as a pop-up. As for the former, you can usually spot them in the footer or side column.

The pop-up form appears on your website on top of the usual layout. It usually happens after visitors spend a certain amount of time on the page. It can also show up when visitors scroll a certain percentage down the page.

This gives them a chance to become familiar with the form, get some context, and to be more willing to sign up. Otherwise, people will consider your pop-up annoying and quickly close it so they can explore your website or leave it altogether.

Include signup forms on social media

Using multichannel marketing is a great way to build your email list. You can attract new leads on your social media profiles by posting a link to your newsletter signup form. It can appear as a “Sign Up” button, in a post or your profile bio. You can also run social media contests or giveaways to attract new contacts.

Use referral programs

The last of the ways to build an email list is to use a referral program. It is a solution for those who already have some contacts on their list. People who are already subscribed to your list make the best advertisement.

Of course, you should offer them something in return for helping to attract new leads. You can offer a special deal or discount to customers referred by your current subscribers. Customers can do this when they make a purchase at your online store.

You can take part in our referral program, too. Once you encourage people to sign up for an Elastic Email account and start sending emails, you receive 20% of all their purchases for up to six months.

To sum up - how to build your email list

Building an email list is a process, but it must not be difficult or challenging. If you diversify your efforts, you can be sure your list will grow steadily. We already know that a good email list is consent-based, valid, clean, engaged, and easy to segment.

Apart from starting with choosing email marketing software, remember never to buy any contact list. Instead, try to attract people with different kinds of lead magnets like free giveaways and exclusive content or deals.

Where you put your forms is important - on landing pages, websites, pop-ups, social media, or referral programs. These are all good ways to grow a strong and valuable email list. Build a list of engaged and loyal followers who will stay with your content for years. Good luck!