It is not a secret that the contact database is essentially important for all newsletters. That is great if you have had an experience in sending out emails or SMS messages to your customers and regular subscribers. But what if you do not have a contact database yet, or the latter isn’t big enough? There are many tips on how to build a contact database, but let’s figure out the reasons why we need to grow it.
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Why Should You Start Building Your Own Contact List?
Imagine you are running an online store. You know that less than 5% of your website visitors are willing to shop with you. It is important to stay in touch with them until the moment they make a purchase.
Persuading people to buy is much more difficult than persuading them to give you their email addresses, which is why a contact list is a valuable input into your business.
It’s not only about profit but rather about credibility. When you keep in touch with the target audience, they are more loyal to your messages. Due to this fact, you will be able to use email marketing as an effective promotional and sales tool.
How To Grow Your Email Subscriber List?
Growing an email list takes a lot of time and requires hard work. Today I’m going to give some pieces of advice on how to make it in an easier and more effective way.
1. Choose The Right Email Marketing Platform
Prior to building your contact list, you need to choose the right email marketing platform. Try to find an email service provider that meets your real needs and helps you utilize online marketing. Look for a platform that:
- allows you not to waste time on a daily routine;
- creates 100% automated campaigns easily without programmers from an IT Department;
- has a drag-and-drop email template editor, and a library of responsive email templates;
- comprises all email marketing tools in one single omnichannel system.
A good customer service is one more important feature. eSputnik is an example of a good email service provider. Such world innovations as MarketingSherpa, Marketing Nation, and Artificial Intelligence (AI) are implemented by this Saas.
2. Add The Subscription Form To Your Website Or Social Networks Pages
Don’t forget to:
- motivate people to subscribe to your newsletter for relevant content;
- offer some gifts for subscription;
- post only highly useful content on your website. This makes the visitors subscribe without hesitation;
- conduct experiments with the subscription form location on a webpage;
- encourage the clients not to skip any important information or event.
3. Use A Client Questionnaire To Collect Email Contacts
make a survey, lottery or trivia contest collecting the subscriber’s email contacts data; don’t forget to report them about results;
- make sure that questionnaire is easy to understand;
- offer something as a gift for the clients that provide their personal data.
4. Group The Contact Data From Every Available Source
- previous newsletters;
- CRM systems (1С, Oracle, Bitrix, Terasoft etc.);
- business cards and booklets.
5. Be Creative
- don’t hesitate to talk about your email campaigns; among your acquaintances, there may be those who will get interested;
- if you have some videos – add your website address to the end of the video; mention there that much more information is available for subscribers;
- add “share with a friend” option to your email.
The only thing you should never do is to buy the email contacts databases. There are three main reasons NOT to do this because:
- it is illegal;
- it may cause a collapse of your relations with clients;
- it may lead to poor communication from the very start preventing from desirable results.
Let’s take a look at these reasons. What is the worst thing all email marketers want to avoid? Right, being reported as spam. Most likely, your messages will be marked as spam by subscribers, and they will be absolutely right. No one likes to receive useless emails.
When a person subscribes to your newsletters on his own, he is supposed to be willing to receive your emails. That’s the main principle.
Be careful with email list management:
- remove the unsubscribed clients from your email list [M3] on time;
- check the database for useless contact data;
- save all the additional info that may help you with newsletters.
Imagine that you bought a pig in a poke. Stranger’s database may ruin your relations with subscribers instead of bringing the desired benefit. Some email addresses may be blacklisted. By sending the messages out to these addresses you face the risk of significant damage to your IP address reputation or even might get blacklisted.
Do you think you will succeed in writing a message to people you are not familiar with? Probably not. Clients from your real contact base are more likely to respond to the newsletter. Those people are ready to receive new information from you; they are actual customers who are interested in your products and can make an order at any time.
No doubt that it is good to have a large and effective database but only some can build it quickly. Well, why do you think it should be done fast? It’s better to build your email marketing list gradually. Try to realize your ideas that motivate clients to subscribe. Think about the quality of the contact base, not the quantity.
If you are interested in even more business-related articles and information from us here at Bit Rebels then we have a lot to choose from.
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