8 Ways to “Fine-Tune” Your Email Engagement

AS the CEO of SendLane, having helped our customers deliver over 3.2 BILLION emails, I’ve learned a lot about email engagement and the best ways to keep customer interaction high with your list.

I want to share with you today, the 8 ways to help fine tune your email engagement with your email list.

1. Clarity over Creativity.

Yes, mysterious or “blind” emails will create bigger engagement. But at the same time, they lose trust.  And as an email list owner, you need to “keep trust”. Keep it relevant and obvious. This will keep your list more engaged with you for a longer time.

2. Find the perfect time and stay consistent.

Experts say 8 – 9am EST and 3 – 4pm EST are the best times to email. If your list is fresh, it would be wise to send a message at these times, using your autoresponder.

But here are facts: the BEST time to email them is based on the BEST time they listen to you. That means it’s also the best time that YOU like to email for your business.

3. Avoid the Spam Filter.

• Prominent calls to actions – saying “CLICK HERE FOR SAVINGS” will get you in trouble.
• Bad HTML code – Most autoresponder and email service platforms won’t allow this. But if you are self emailing, or self coding your HTML form, make sure it has GOOD form.
• AVOID using Microsoft Word. This is a big no no. Do not copy and paste from Word. It carries over bad HTML that will encourage spam.
• Using “Re:” and “FWD” in your subject lines. Not only is this ILLEGAL but it’s also very misleading AND will cause a higher rate of spam.
• Avoid single image emails. Yes, they look fancy, but using 1 image as the entire email including all text, will get you in trouble. Try creating a template and fill it with raw text.
• Never purchase an email list, use a purchased or found email list, or trust anyone that “GIVES YOU” subscribers.  First (and again), it’s ILLEGAL to buy an email list and email someone without their permission.  Remember, you are running a business, nothing is ever truly done for you. Each subscriber should cost $1-2, if not more. If it’s less than that, it’s probably junk.

4. Personalize your sender name.

I’m much more likely to open an email from “Jimmy” than if I saw “IMPORTANT MESSAGE” or “MEMBERS ONLY”. If you want, you can have it come from a company or brand, but don’t list it as the raw email either.

5. Avoid “Free, Help, Percent off, Reminder, Urgent”.

These are major spam trigger words…avoid them! These 5 are the worst offenders. Let’s stop using them and diluting the value of these words.

6. Beware of the same subject line blinds.

This is simple. Stop sending the same email subject line over and over. I get that it’s powerful. It worked in the past. But let’s face it: we all become blind to repetition.

7. Get to the point.

STOP with the super long emails. I know you are trying to pre-sell, share a story, get a message across, etc. but let’s look at Twitter: 140 characters…there’s a reason for that.

People have short attention spans. Take the first 50 characters or less and get your point across FAST. People spend less than 51 seconds in their inbox when on a mobile phone. 50% of email users use mobile phones. Hurry, get your message across ASAP!

8. HARD stop emails.

You’ve seen it before…

“Hey you there

Yes this is me.

You are about to learn

about taking better pictures”

The reason it was done in the past was to keep it “mobile friendly” but that was the past. With most email marketing tools, it automatically now adjusts your email messages to fit the mobile screen perfectly.

Now, when you do that, it looks like this:

“Hey you there

Yes this is me.

You are about to

learn

about taking better

pictures.”

This looks terrible.  STOP IT!

That’s all for today. I hope you can take these 8 tips and expand your email marketing!

Let me know what you think below and don’t forget to share with your friends!

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Reignite the Fire with Inactive Customers

Whether you’re completing a brand overhaul or launching a new product, you should always have a reactivation email campaign working to win back old customers and keep them engaged.

As John Russell, President of Harley-Davidson, once said: ‘The more you engage with customers, the clearer things become and the easier it is to determine what you should be doing.’ When running your business, your efforts must be customer-centric, from first visit through post-purchase, to rise above the rest. Not only does the customer benefit from your investment in maintaining the relationship, over time your bottom line benefits as well.

One of the most important things to remember though is that your work is not done once you’ve made initial contact in the inbox. Beyond your welcome email, promotional offers, and confirmations, many businesses often underestimate the benefits to continued outreach to their broader customer base.

Like any relationship, a healthy amount of patience and communication is necessary. This is the point where reactivation emails come into play.

This type of email is useful after a certain period of inactivity within your list. Customers with an ‘inactive’ status could be nonresponders, non-clickers, or non-purchasers. Inactive could also include customers who haven’t made a purchase in a while, or those who only subscribe to your company’s newsletter.

Thinking about it from a statistics perspective, branding insights firm MarketingSherpa recently found that 75% of email subscribers become inactive within a year. This shows how critical it is to add a reactivation email campaign to your communication plan. It helps keep the fire going.
There are many ways to reconnect with customers. It’s not a one-size-fits-all mission. The easiest way is the direct “we miss you and want you back” email. This simple and straightforward approach is an excellent way to ensure your subscriber list is up to date and CAN-SPAM compliant.

In the ‘we miss you’ example below, New Hampshire-based dairy farm Stonyfield gives inactive subscribers the choice to either stay in touch or discontinue receiving communication altogether.



Find a way to offer customers the opportunity to remember how much they loved your company when they first engaged with it. From there, focus on the ones who want to stay engaged and can potentially grow with you

In this next example, children’s retailer Carter’s combines “we miss you” with a time sensitive offer in one email. This does a good job of enticing the customer by letting them know about the store’s current inventory. It conveys how long the offer will last and prompts a call-to-action (CTA).



Whether you design your reactivation email to confirm continued communication or inspire another purchase, it’s well worth the effort to keep customers engaged.

Consider this: In 2012, the Direct Marketing Association reported how much more cost-effective it was to cultivate existing customers versus acquiring new ones. It found the median return on investment for existing customers was $28.50, compared to a mean customer acquisition cost of $55.24.

In summary: reactivating customers pays off.

Going back to John Russell’s quote, a reactivation email focuses you on the right customers. By keeping an ongoing dialog, you create a valuable relationship and an exemplary customer experience.
Have you recently tried to re-engage a contact list? Tell us about your results.


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Incredibly Useful Instagram Tips for Small Businesses

IT’S no secret that Instagram is a channel your small business can no longer neglect. As of September 2015, Instagram had over 400 million monthly active users.

That’s quite a bit more than Twitter’s reported 327 million monthly active users.

But here’s the deal:

You mostly hear about Twitter needing to be the channel to focus your small business social media marketing on and not too much is said about marketing on Instagram.

• Are companies not buying into what the Instagram platform offers?
• Perhaps it’s the lack of tools and automation available on other channels?
• Is it because small businesses don’t know what to do?

That ends today as I show you 4 incredibly useful tips small businesses can get more out of Instagram.

Know Who Your Audience Is

Look, there’s no point in jumping into marketing on Instagram if you don’t even know who you are marketing to. If your messaging doesn’t align with your audience and the channel, you will be fighting an uphill battle.

You’ll need to understand who you are marketing to. This is typically accomplished by creating personas of your target customer.

Doing this process will help you to better understand who you are marketing to and what messages resonate with them.

Aside from knowing who you want to follow, you can also study who is already following you.

There are several tools out there that can give you this insight, or you can be like me and use Microsoft Excel to get Instagram data for you.

With Excel, you can filter by keywords, number of followers, number of users they are following, or even the amount of posts they have made on Instagram.

In the end, it doesn’t matter how you get the data – the key is to look at it closely to understand who your audience is.

Creating Engagement on Instagram

Once you know who your ideal audience is, you’ll have a better idea how to best go about creating engagement with them.

Of course this will probably be different for everyone depending on what industry you are in and what type of content resonates with your audience as there are a variety of ways to create engagement. I’ll touch on a few ideas of how to create engaging posts.

Perhaps, you sell a physical product like bowling balls.

A great way to subtly market your product to your audience is to not only show your product in use, but to also show the success or accomplishments that can be achieved by using your product.

For example, take Ebonite Bowling. They are a manufacturer of various bowling products including bowling balls. Check out this post that not only shows one of their products in use, but also demonstrates the success of using it.

What’s nice about this approach is that there is not any direct selling occurring. Instead, Ebonite let’s their product market itself by showing that you can also be successful by using it.

A few other ways you can create engaging Instagram posts are:

• Sharing behind the scene videos of your company
• Giving sneak-peek previews of upcoming products
• Showcase employees/the company
• Participate in weekly hashtags (#TBT, etc)
• Show time-lapse videos of how your products are made
• Promote your brand evangelists using your product

By creating engaging content on Instagram, you will help expand your reach through people commenting, liking, and sharing your content.

Find New Audiences

What happens when you feel like you have hit a wall in growing your audience?

It’s sometimes easier to partner with other Instagram pages in order to reach a new audience. Especially, an active audience.

This is typically called a “shout for shout” or “shout out”.

What this means is that you will post something to your account that promotes someone else’s account. In exchange, the account you are promoting will post something to their account that promotes your account.

You can do this the old fashioned way by manually identifying large Instagram accounts that have an audience demographic similar to yours. Once identified, you will need to contact them to see if this type of exchange interests them.

If your following is similar in size to their following, typically you can do an even swap. Meaning that you each post promoting each other without having to pay anything.

Should you want to get a larger account to send out a shout for you, they will probably want to be compensated. You’ll need to decide what you can afford and what is fair to both parties.

There is another option to get access to new audiences without having to do a “shout for shout” exchange. However, this will definitely cost you some money.

You can use a service that essentially arranges the shout out for you. Instead, their service allows for a one-way shout out. Basically, you pay a fee to the site in order for them to facilitate the shout out with an account of your choosing.

One such site is ShoutCart. While I have not used them, the option is there if you want a quick way to reach a new audience.

You can filter the results by industry, audience size or price in order to identify accounts that may be a good fit for you.

One thing to note when ordering, you will have the option to have your post live on the Instagram account for a set time or indefinitely. If you choose a set time, then your post will be removed from the account after it has been live for that set time.

Depending on the amount of followers an account has, chances are your shout out will get pushed pretty far down a user’s timeline within two hours. However, this is something you should test and monitor as everyone’s audience will be different.

Streamline Efforts Through Tools & Automation

The last Instagram tip I would like to cover is automation. On channels like Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn there are quite a few social media tools to help with automation.

Unfortunately, with Instagram there are not too many.

However, I have identified several Instagram tools that can help with certain aspects of marketing your small business.

• FameBit – Find, hire and work with influential stars on Instagram
• FollowAdder – Automated social networking Instagram management software
• Iconosquare – Get key metrics about your Instagram account
• Instagress – Accelerate your life on Instagram for more targeted likes, comments and follows
• Keyhole – Real time hashtag tracking on Instagram
• Latergramme – Schedule and manage your Instagram posts
• Ninja Outreach – Find thousands of Instagram influencers with a simple keyword search

As with any social network, there is not a one-size-fits-all tool. You will need to take a step back and see what areas make the most sense in utilizing a tool. I will say that you will need to use automation with caution. Using tools should help you be more efficient with your social activities.

However, there is one thing that social media tools can’t replace. And that’s interaction.

In the end, it is up to you to use automation to help with efforts that don’t necessarily need a human touch or are repetitive. Interaction and engagement should be a manual process.

Get More Out of Instagram for Your Business

There’s no doubt that your small business can take advantage of Instagram marketing. It may differ from the approaches that you have taken on other social channels in terms of messaging, media, and automation.

While I have given several tips that you can use on Instagram, it’s up to you to test and see what does or doesn’t work. If you aren’t documenting your activities, how will you know if it’s working?

Instagram might be one of the newer social media networks, but success is driven by the same core activity that works on all the other channels. Engagement.

You might not get much engagement early, but as the account grows your business will build relationships with the target audience. Over time, this will lead to compounding engagement on your business account that will help you get the most out of Instagram.

I’d like to hear about how you or your small business gets the most it can out of Instagram. Please be sure to let me know in the comments below.

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Automation takes your email marketing strategy to the next level. If you’re new to email marketing, we created this Beginner’s Guide to lay the foundation. As soon as you have the basics down, you can up your game with autoresponders.

Last week in the first of this three-part series, we covered the benefits of autoresponders and explored a variety of Welcome Emails. In this second post, we dive into Content Offer and Survey Emails. Here’s what you need to know about these two types of email campaigns.
Content Offer Emails

You can educate your audience by sharing your knowledge. Keep them engaged with content you know they will find interesting and useful.

Let’s look at a couple of examples that offer quality content.

#1

The Expert Institute uses an autoresponder that combines a welcome email and content offering.

The email above welcomes the new recipient, provides a point of contact and also includes a link to an in-depth article.

#2

In this next example, you can see how Eventbrite communicates with people who haven’t used their app in a while. They tell the user how much they’ve missed them and offer some content to re-engage.




Both product and service-based businesses can use these two types of content offer emails. Send your version to new customers and those who haven’t purchased from you in a while. Aim to make the recipients feel connected by providing them with thoughtful and relevant content.
Surveys and Feedback Emails

Another way to get customers to engage is by sending an autoresponder that asks for their feedback triggered by a recent purchase. Collecting this kind of information can be of great benefit to your business, and customers appreciate the opportunity to share their thoughts.

#1

In the example below, a chance to win a gift card is offered as an incentive for writing a review. The email also includes instructions on how to write the review and a quick reference to the product that was purchased.





#2

Sending a survey is yet another way to elicit feedback and engage your audience. In the following example, Coastal.com explains the reason for the email and provides a link to the survey. It also conveys that the survey is quick and painless, which is a good thing to mention as short surveys are always better received.




Creating a survey is a simple process. Once you’ve done so, add the link to your automated email or create an eye-catching button that takes the recipient to the survey when clicked. Be sure to use a catchy and relevant subject line to help get opens and stay compliant with laws.

Conclusion

Both Content Offer and Feedback emails give you a way to engage with leads and customers. By setting up these kinds of autoresponders, you maintain communication and keep your brand and business top of mind.

For the final part in this series, we look at Follow-Up and Confirmation emails.

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Guide to Autoresponders Part 1: Benefits and Welcome Emails

Finding new customers and not having nearly enough time in the day are likely two of your biggest concerns as a business owner. That’s why email marketing is essential to growing your customer base. The high ROI is unrivaled. An autoresponder series is a valuable email marketing tool that gives you the opportunity to share new content, build an email list or start promoting your latest service, even while you sleep.

We’ve put together a three-part guide on the benefits of autoresponders and explore the various kinds of trigger-based emails and when to use them. In part one, we cover the following:
The Benefits of Autoresponders
Welcome Emails
The Benefits of Autoresponders

Here are five ways your business can benefit from using email autoresponders:

1. Save you time

Want to save some time and get more done in your day? An autoresponder can help you accomplish this.

Rather than writing and sending individual emails to your subscribers, why not create effective emails set for automatic delivery? When your email list gets a new subscriber, you can set a trigger to automatically send them a welcome email. ‘The automation process is a snap,’ says Jill Bastian, our Community Education and Training manager.

“Business owners won’t need much time to set up autoresponder emails,” she says. “That’s a big deal for any business owner.”

2. Make a great first impression

A new contact could quickly become a paying customer, but first you’ll need to make the right impression. In a world full of competitors, you can impress potential customers by showing your commitment to customer service. If prospective clients receive a welcome email or a discount after signing up for your company email, it shows them that you’re on top of your game and will entice them to come back for more.

3. Offer the chance to capitalize on sales

When a new subscriber signs up for your email, it’s a signal that they are ready to learn more about your business. They’ve already shown their interest; now you just need to capitalize on the opportunity.

“Being able to connect with new customers right away can be a huge win for a small business,” Bastian says. “And autoresponders can expedite that process.”

By sending an automated welcome email, or a thanks-for-signing-up email, you take one step closer to converting an interested prospect into a paying customer.

4. Provide value for your customers

The idea of getting overrun with spam emails or useless junk mail often keeps people from signing up for emails. An autoresponder that contains access to additional content or service is an excellent way to show your customers that your emails are valuable. You want to demonstrate that your name in the inbox provides something worth reading.

5. Keep your audience engaged

Setting up automated emails is a great no-hassle way to speak to your customers and keep your brand top of mind within your industry. Remember though that your content should not only be informative, but also provoke thought and speak directly to the reader’s needs/desires.

You want to make customers feel they are participating in something worthwhile. Adding polls or ‘submit your best story’ prompts about a select topic to an automated email are just two examples of how to do that. These types of messages set the tone for how a new customer will view the approachability of your brand.

Now that we’ve highlighted the benefits let’s take a look at one of the most popular autoresponders.
Welcome Emails

As mentioned earlier, Welcome emails are widely used and often expected when signing up for any sort of company/brand list. They are the perfect way to get new customers interested in your brand and ready to learn about what’s coming next from you!

Rockhouse Partners, a marketing company that helps promote entertainment venues, effectively uses Welcome emails to thank their fans for signing up. This is also their initial touchpoint for encouraging more interaction with their audience and it seems to work well.

“When a fan signs up for an email list they’ll automatically receive a message from our client with a brief, tone-setting introduction,” says Emily Harris with Rockhouse Partners. “Often, we’ll incorporate a call-to-action for tickets to upcoming events, or an offer to connect on social media profiles.” Emily Harris with Rockhouse Partners explains.

This recent autoresponder example illustrates how they incorporate an introduction along with a call-to-action (CTA) and social media buttons:



The “welcome to the family” message is a nice way to acknowledge the new fan, and the “view all events” button is an important call to action that pushes fans to learn more.

Below, you’ll find two other Welcome emails. Notice one offers a free item; the other includes several text-based links that provide more company information.





A promotional element like a discount code or a printable coupon is an excellent addition to a Welcome email as well.

If you haven’t started using autoresponders, a Welcome email is a great place to begin. VerticalResponse allows you to do so easily with a free or paid account. For even more tips and information on how Welcome emails increase engagement, check out this video.

Stay tuned for part two when we cover Content Offer and Survey Emails of the autoresponder series.

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4 Ways to Marry Your Email Marketing and Website Optimization Strategies

Do you hear that? It’s getting louder. It’s the sound of millions of emails, targeted ads, and personalized web experiences fighting for relevance. Despite the noise, B2B and B2C brands succeed at delivering relevant information to their target audiences. According to Direct Marketing Association, for every $1 spent on email marketing, the average return-on-investment is $40.56. But there’s a difference between threading the needle and really creating something.

In many cases, data is being used to deliver personalized email campaigns with fantastic results. The Aberdeen Group says that personalized emails improve click-through rates by 14% and conversion rates by 10%. With results like these, the motivation to test, segment, and personalize email campaigns will no doubt increase. However, the success of these incremental improvements to email marketing depends largely on the next steps customers take after engaging with your email. Whether you’re sending them to a specific landing page or inviting them to take advantage of a personalized offer on-site, the work doesn’t end in your customer’s inbox.

By looking at how you use data to improve email marketing from the broader perspective of your web or mobile experience, you can multiply the impact of your targeting. And it’s worth it. According to Steelhouse, using correct targeting and testing methods can increase conversion rates up to 300%.

Break Down the Barriers

Closing the data loop and breaking down the organizational divisions between email marketing and website optimization is increasingly common. Marketers are adopting this strategy, particularly as facts about open-rates on mobile come to light and digital teams unite forces. But any brand making a significant investment in email marketing will soon be throwing good money after bad without an optimized, personalized mobile experience. Eisenberg Holdings says that companies typically spend $92 to bring customers to their site, but only $1 to convert them. Instead, make your money count twice by investing in a strategy that combines data from email marketing with on-site behavior for a comprehensive approach to optimization.

According to EConsultancy, 64% of companies would like to improve their personalization, 64%, their marketing automation, and 62%, their segmentation. The key is to unify these three key areas for a strategy that will keep your communications relevant and your audience engaged. Here, I’m going to share four ways your website’s optimization strategy can enhance your email marketing efforts, and vice versa! Let’s get started…

1. Use Website Data to Validate Email Segmentation

Segmenting your audience for email marketing is not an uncommon practice. However, the segmentation of your website traffic is often treated as a mutually exclusive effort.

Try This: Use your website data to validate predefined segments for email marketing campaigns with a URL parameter. By doing so, you can find out whether your segments behave how you expected them to with metrics that look at their behavior from first click to exit.

2. Use Email Marketing Attributes to Create a Better On-Site Experience

The data from email and websites can interact in either direction. One leading travel brand worked with Maxymiser, a website and app optimization solution, on an email campaign designed to bring users to the site by converting email prospects with a featured destination that best reflected their preferences (either collected or expressed.) Using Maxymiser’s optimization solution, the brand selected 36 destinations to offer and used each one as a specific variant of the test.

Try This: Segment visitors who came from email and determine which predictive attributes will make their visit the best possible experience. In the above instance, the brand took the attributes generated by an email campaign and used them to test and target on their site—and you can too.

3. Map Email Engagement and CRM

With the right tools, you can map the unique identifier to a CRM file and target specific individualized content to that visitor.

Try This: The data-driven marketer (you!) could place an individualized identifier in the URL of an email campaign. You can also match up an individual from the aforementioned unique URL to segments or visitor groups defined in the CRM file.

4. Test and Target from Email to Landing Page (Mobile or Desktop)

Using your optimization solution, you can test custom content on your predefined email segments by redirecting them from email to a specific landing page.

Try This: Optimize both your emails and landing pages in a single test and combine your analytics for a clear perspective on your user’s behavior. This might be a particularly interesting test to run on a mobile landing page.

In Q1 2014, more email was opened on iPhones (38%) than all desktops combined (34%). You can be sure that these percentages have only increased in the last 12 months. With that being said, if you’re hoping to convert a visitor with email, you have to optimize your mobile landing pages. A website optimization solution like Maxymiser can run the aforementioned desktop landing page test on mobile as well. A unified optimization and email marketing team could easily work together to generate a rich tapestry of insights by segmenting email audiences and testing the optimal experience on desktop or mobile, depending on where the user comes from.

So, don’t just think about the connection between email marketing and optimization; plan for success by aligning your strategy with a multi-channel approach like the one I have described above. On the road to becoming a holistic digital marketing organization, the marriage between email marketing and website optimization is one of the most valuable steps.

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15 Hygiene Tips to Keep Your Email List Clean as a Whistle

A healthy email list is vital to any business. Thanks to bounces, unsubscribes and address changes, you can lose upwards of one-third of your list each year. If you’re not replacing churned email addresses with new active ones, your business can feel the impact.

Here are 15 tips to help you clean, maintain and grow your email list.

Remove or win back inactive contacts
Many email list guidelines recommend waiting for a full year of inactivity before removing a subscriber from your mailing list, but many providers now advise removing inactive email addresses after just six months of inactivity.

That said, it’s important that you try to engage a subscriber before removing him or her from your list. There’s a variety of ways you can win subscribers back or at least learn from their behavior before they go.

Tip No. 1: Send a “we miss you” email with a special offer or discount code to see if you can incentivize the customer to make a purchase.

Tip No. 2: Send a polite “fish or cut bait” email asking if they’d like to confirm they want to stay on your email list before you remove them.

Tip No. 3: Find out why they’re inactive. When you give your contacts a way to unsubscribe after a long period of inactivity, give them a one-click survey on your unsubscribe page to find out why they’re leaving. Too many emails? Irrelevant content? Not enough discounts? Use the information to keep the next contact from leaving. You can also include a similar survey on your unsubscribe confirmation page.

Maintain the working parts of your list

Tip No. 4: Mail your list at least once a month. It will keep your readers engaged, increase the likelihood that they’ll make a purchase or donation, and let you know (via bouncebacks) which accounts are no longer active.

Tip No. 5: There are some great tools to help you maintain a healthy email list. Kickbox helps eliminates bounces before you launch your email campaign by “scrubbing” your list and replacing it with a squeaky-clean version. Kickbox uses a real-time API to verify email addresses before it adds a subscriber to your list. It also detects disposable email domains, role-based email addresses (e.g., webmaster@, info@, support@) and low-quality addresses. All Kickbox users get 100 free verifications every day. What’s more, VerticalResponse users get a 10 percent discount for additional verifications.

Tip No. 6: You’ll also want to take a cue from your open rates. If 99 percent of your list isn’t opening your email, you’ll need to do some work on your subject lines and the timing of your emails (day of the week and time of day). Dasheroo allows you to instantly view key stats from your VerticalResponse emails alongside your other apps like Facebook, Twitter, Google Analytics and many more, all in one easy-to-understand business dashboard! And it’s free.

Tip No. 7: If you’re not already doing it, consider segmenting your emails based on purchases or links clicked. If you sell clothing and certain customers only purchase men’s clothing, they may not want to receive your emails promoting sales on children’s apparel. Likewise, if you sell pet supplies, you can divide your list into categories based on the animal(s) they buy for or are interested in.

Grow your list

Tip No. 8: One of the simplest ways to collect email addresses is with a sign up form on your website or blog. It’s easy to set up, and you don’t have to think about it once you created it. VerticalResponse offers sign up forms for free with every account.

Tip No. 9: You can also collect emails at expos or brick-and-mortar locations. Encourage visitors to drop their card into a fishbowl for a chance to win something. People understand that by doing so, you will include them on your email list.

Tip No. 10: Some retail stores have great success obtaining emails at the register when customers pay. You can offer incentives, such as discounts and promotions, for signing up.

Tip No. 11: Tatango allows new contacts to add their email address to your list with a simple text. Customers text your business’s unique word to 33733, and they’ll be asked to reply with their email address. You can add up to 250 contacts each month to your VerticalResponse email list.

Tip No. 12: Run a contest on Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest requiring participants to supply their email address to enter. Remember to follow contest guidelines for each social network.

Tip No. 13: Justuno is a tool that allows you to build email lists with incentive-based promotions. Using an instant offer widget, you can offer site visitors a coupon code or free download if they join your email list.

Tip No. 14: Include a link to your sign up form in your personal email signature.

Tip No. 15: Collect contact information with Twitter Lead Generation Cards, which requires the reader to do nothing more than click on the call to action and then hit submit. The beauty of these cards is that the person’s name, Twitter handle and email address is automatically filled in for them. You can see how to set up a Twitter Lead Generation Card in this short video.


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40 Brilliant-but-Easy Ways to Build Your Email List

 

Email marketing is a high-impact, low-cost way of delivering your marketing message to current customers and prospects — if, that is, you have a great email list. If you don’t, this article is for you. Read on for the most effective and creative ways to build your email list.

If your email list is short, scant on information, full or errors and redundancies, or just not on-track with your targeting, that poor-quality data can be worse than having no data at all! Without a good email list, all your other digital marketing efforts are little more than wheel spinning.

There’s a lot to be said for the human touch, and these ideas rely on good old-fashioned human interaction to help you build your email list.

Build your email list the right way

1. Put out the sign-up sheet

Whether you’re at a trade show, community event or in your own storefront, collecting email addresses in person can be as easy as putting out a signup sheet and encouraging people to write down their details.

2. Leverage business cards

When you meet people face to face for any reason, ask for their business card. Offer yours. Set a glass bowl on the counter in your store or the reception desk in your office, and ask visitors to drop their cards in it. Offer some incentive to do so — a free product or service, gift card, etc. Use your own business cards to further drum up emails; add an offer on the back of your card that encourages people to sign up to receive your emails.

3. Host an event

Stage an event — lunch gathering, topic talk, book club or whatever works to get people in the door. Drop invitations at nearby businesses, post the notice on your front door, and advertise in local media. Ask people to RSVP with their email addresses.

4. Invite people to ‘join the club’

Offer a birthday or anniversary club that allows people to “enroll” by providing their email address and relevant date. Reward them with a special offer for signing up, and follow up with something else special, such as a discount coupon, on their birthday or anniversary date.

5. Organize a giveaway

Using snail mail and/or your existing email list, send people a postcard asking for email information and offer them a reward for providing it.

6. Drum up emails with direct mail

Sometimes you have a physical address but no email address. Send a direct-mail offer they can only get by going to your website and joining your email list.

7. Try some telemarketing

Throughout the day, you and your employees probably interact with many customers and prospects on the phone. Before you hang up, always ask if they would like to join your email list. Give them a brief statement of the benefits of enrolling — for example, exclusive offers and discounts only available to email subscribers.

8. Optimize your website for opt-ins

If a customer or prospect visits your website, they’re already at least somewhat interested. Don’t miss the opportunity to add them to your email list. Include email registration forms on every main page of your site, as well as on the pages for popular products and services.

9. Build with your blog

Your blog provides a great way to build a personal relationship with customers and prospects — and to gather their email addresses. Consistently end blogs with a call to action that encourages readers to sign up for your email messages. Require blog visitors to provide an email list in order to leave comments, and set it up so that they have to actively opt out if they don’t want their email address included on your mailing list.

10. Engage through social media

Social media participation can allow you to reach new audiences and make new connections. Stay abreast of trending topics that are of interest to your customers and prospects. Use social media to encourage people to visit one of the channels where they can sign up for your email list.

11. Don’t give up on bounce backs

Everyone hates to see the dreaded bounce-back alert in their inbox. If you have snail-mail information to match an email address, send a postcard asking the contact to provide you with an updated email address so you can stay in touch. Consider rewarding them with a discount or freebie for taking the time to respond.

12. Piggyback on a colleague’s efforts

Consider sharing email lists with neighboring businesses. Offer them space in your newsletter in exchange for including a link with your opt-in form in their newsletter.

13. Don’t let website visitors get away

If a visitor gets through your entire website without opting in, grab them one last time before they go. Set a lightbox to appear asking for an email address whenever someone is about to navigate away from your website or blog.

14. Create an online community

Platforms like BuddyPress for WordPress make it easy to set up a community and foster interaction between your brand and your customers. Include a sign-up form for your newsletter on every page of the community.

15. Leverage ‘email only’ specials

Reward your loyal email followers with specials that are only available to subscribers. Encourage them to forward the link to your sign-up page to friends and family.

16. Don’t forget your own email

Be sure every email you send has an opt-in form so that anyone who receives one of your emails via forward from someone else, can sign up directly to be on your list.

17. Use Foursquare

Offer a reward for customers who buy something from you and show that they checked in at your business on Foursquare using their mobile device. When they do this, they’re telling everyone in their network that they’ve done business with you. Each month, reward the person who gave you the greatest exposure by offering a discount, and asking for their email address.

18. Be active on blogs and forums

Frequent the blogs and forums your customers do and offer insightful comments. Include a link to your website where visitors will find your opt-in form.

19. Get employees involved

Reward employees for collecting valid, testable email addresses. Remember to have them obtain the person’s consent before giving you the email address for your list.

20. Encourage customers with a daily deal

Daily deal sites can be useful for retail or local service businesses. Offer your discount (daily deal) through the site for a limited time and ask anyone who wants to grab the deal to provide their email address in exchange.

21. Word of mouth still rocks

Ask current and new customers to refer new subscribers to your list. Sweeten the deal by offering them a discount as a reward for valid, confirmed and consent-backed email addresses.

22. Encourage forwarding

When you send an email, include a forward-to-a-friend link in case recipients want to forward your content to someone they think will find it interesting. Make sure the link directs newcomers to a page with your opt-in form.

23. Serve up a sandwich board

Sandwich boards are nothing new, but what about using one in a new way? Place one on the sidewalk in front of your storefront or office to advertise your newsletter and offer a reward to anyone who signs up. Invite customers into the store to enroll, or give them the web address where they’ll find your opt-in form.

24. Use receipts

Customize your credit card receipt with a field/line where customers can jot down their email address while they’re signing. Or, simply ask them to write their address on the back of the receipt. At the end of the day, enter the addresses into your database and send out a welcoming email.

25. Take it to the street fair

Spring, summer, winter, and fall — your community probably has at least one street fair or similar event throughout the year. Participate in the event and collect email addresses right at the fair. Sweeten the deal by offering new subscribers a discount on their first (or next) purchase in exchange for sharing the email with you.

26. Encourage competition

Sponsor a video contest in which customers create a one-minute video about why they like your business, products or services. Ask them to send the videos to you and post them to your Facebook page. Invite visitors to vote on which video should win a cash or merchandise prize. Include an email opt-in on your Facebook page. Be sure to follow Facebook’s rules regarding contests.

27. Go mobile

When you’re out in the world at a tradeshow, business meeting or other public forum, use your smartphone to collect email addresses. And be sure to include an email opt-in with your business’ mobile app. If you offer the app for free download through your website, “charge” users the “price” of their email address in order to download the app.

28. Inside-the-box ideas

If you ship products, it’s a perfect opportunity to expand your email list at no cost! Include an inbox request on a card inside every package you ship. Be sure to tout your “email only” offers and direct recipients to your website’s opt-in form. After they join, redirect them to a page where they’ll receive their first promotional offer.

29. Make it more than just a bill

When you send out an invoice, include an option to sign up for email communications with you. Again, sweeten the deal by offering an incentive such as a discount or free shipping on the next order as a reward for providing email addresses.

30. Signs of the times

Include a link to your opt-in page in the signature of all your emails, personal and professional.

31. Network for emails

Join your local Chamber of Commerce or another business networking group. Email the member list (if it’s opt-in) about your services and include a link to sign up for your emails and newsletter.

32. Download freebies

That e-book or buying guide you created to establish thought leadership in your industry can also help build your email list. When visitors to your website request a free download, ask them to complete your opt-in form in order to download.

33. Speak up for yourself

Speaking engagements are a great way to establish your company as active in the community, but you can also weave into your talk the idea that more information can be found on your website. Offer free consultations in exchange for signing up for your newsletter and emails.

34. Giving it all away

Every month, offer a giveaway of a valuable or fun item to anyone who signs up for your email list.

35. Subscriber-only access

Everyone likes the feeling of being in on something exclusive. Offer your email subscribers something only they can get. It might be a special discount. It could be access to a video, e-book or another piece of useful content. Promote the availability of this exclusive access in order to encourage more email enrollments.

36. Give them subscription options

People like more choices, so consider creating subscription levels that let people sign up to receive content that’s relevant to them. For example, if you sell widgets and tax advice, provide three options on your opt-in form that allow users to sign up to receive info about widgets, info about tax advice or both. Further customize by allowing them to designate how frequently they’d like to hear from you — weekly, monthly or only when something really special is going on. People may be more likely to sign up for your email list if they have some control over the content they’ll receive.

37. Don’t forget the power of print

Add a QR code (a bar code that people can scan with a smartphone app) to print ads, direct-mail post cards and other printed marketing materials. Use the code to allow people to opt-in to your email list simply by scanning the code.

38. Leverage testimonials

Make your opt-in form extra convincing by including testimonials from current email subscribers touting the quality of your content.

39. Create a teachable moment

Are you an expert in something people want to know about, like weight loss, home improvement, cooking, etc.? Promote an exclusive online email course available only to subscribers.

40. Reel them in with a scroll box

Visitors to your website might overlook the call to sign up that you have at the top of every page, but it’s harder to ignore a lightbox or pop-up. Scroll boxes pop up on visitors’ screens after they’ve scrolled down a certain length of the page. The box encourages them to sign up for your email list. They can be effective for encouraging a user who’s already shown interest in your content (by staying on the page long enough to scroll) to sign up for your email list.

Building an email list takes time and is critical to marketing success in the digital age. What tactics do you use to collect more emails?

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