How To Grow An Email List From Scratch And Why You Should Even Care

Many businesses don’t realise the importance of building an email list when they start out, this article will show why email is definitely NOT dead, and how it stacks up against other more popular channels. When businesses see these conversion rates and the potential revenue opportunity from email they often quickly change their mind about email!?

So to help you get started I’ve outlined 10 different methods you can adopt today to grow your email list from scratch.?

Why Email?

If you run a social media account, particularly Instagram, then my goodness I feel your pain!?

There is no doubt you will have noticed the ever-declining engagement on this platform and other social platforms. And if you don't run an account, the only way I can explain this drop is to compare it to that of jumping out of plane at 20,000 ft without a parachute, the G-force and speed you would plummet to your death is probably just about comparable to the speed of decline we have seen on these platforms. As someone grow my own business and running multiple social accounts, it's really challenging.

The below chart from Rival IQ shows the decline between 2020-21 but this is expected to more than double 2021-22.

Social engagement and reach has tanked. It’s vanished off the face of the ‘social ether’.

This is a huge barrier to entry and an obstacle for many small businesses and those setting up today. Despite this entrepreneurship is on the rise, 5.4 million applications were filed to form new businesses in 2021, the biggest year yet.

It’s not just small businesses, it is increasingly hard for established businesses to grow and continue to look to these channels as viable tools to reach their audience.?

Ultimately the challenge comes down to ‘visibility’ and to the fact that businesses have no control over whether their message is ever getting to the intended audience, which essentially means that often businesses can find themselves stabbing in the dark.

It’s no surprise that many businesses are throwing the towel in on social. I don’t blame them. I’ve found it excruciatingly painful, despite 12 years of experience doing this and knowing how to do it!?

I want to congratulate the brands that have been able to take a step back from these channels because the reason they have been able to do this is they have found another channel to effectively reach their audience.?

What is this amazing channel?

Well, it’s humble old email.?

How is this possible?

Well because email business them to get in front of their audience with their message and when they want to.

You’d be wrong to think that email isn’t a channel you need to prioritise right now.?

According to research, 78% of people check their email frequently throughout the day, 66% say that it’s the first thing they do in the morning and the average person checks their email about 15 times a day.??

Building an email list allows you to confidently share information about your business with an already engaged audience.?

Email marketing allows you to inform subscribers on everything about your business -? your products and services, offers, events, memberships or VIP programmes, ultimately helping you get sales and building long-term relationships with customers. Users who sign up to your email lists and double opt-in are extremely interested in what you have to offer and are far more likely to convert.

Email is also a valuable tool for nurturing individuals who might not be quite ready to purchase. You can use email to essentially ‘warm’ these individuals up to the idea of making a purchase as well as attracting previous purchasers.

Interested in how email compares to other platforms, and why you can’t afford to miss out??

We’ll let me show you the stark reality of how engagement stacks up.?

NB: A conversion rate percentage is the percentage of people who become paying customers.?

The table above shows a breakdown of the different conversion rates you can expect from each of your marketing channels.?

Just looking at the conversion rates for email!?

Email outperforms all the other popular acquisition channels, with a conversion rate of 5.32%, that’s 4.19% higher than these other channels.?

I would say that this data shows email conversion at the higher-end, according to Mailchimp 20% of users will open an email and 2-5% click-through. But still, that’s higher than any other channel.

But what if I also told you that email usually generates a bigger AOV average order value as well? In another report, 59% of respondents said that marketing emails influence their purchase decisions, and just over 50% buy from marketing emails at least once a month.?

If that's not enough, for businesses wanting to add email marketing to their toolkit the good news is email also delivers a better return on investment - for every $1 spent it generates $42 and according to the DMA, email sees a 4300% Return on investment (ROI).?

Are you sold yet?

With email, business owners can feel confident that their message has reached the intended individual, compared to social media channels AND it’s much more likely to convert.?

I’m not saying you shouldn’t use social media to promote your business, but if you’re not building an email list you’re missing out.

So, what do you need to start growing an email list?

You really don’t need very much. To start growing a subscriber list all you need is a website or a blog. If you don’t have either of these you can use a link tree to add a sign-up form. A sign-up form allows you to capture someone's name and email address, as well as further information to support your communication with those individuals. Examples of this include a birthday or product & service preferences so you can tailor your messages.?

You’ll then need to choose an email marketing service that will allow you to send multiple emails and allows you to store the contacts who sign up to your list.?

There are plenty of providers out there but at the early stages, you want to look for tools that will scale with you, allow you to automate your emails, provide segmentation options and has a clear analytics dashboard. Mailchimp and Klaviyo are good opinions when you’re starting out and they have free options

What can you do to start getting subscribers?

It starts with remembering that your email sign-up form should offer a value exchange. We can’t expect someone to sign-up for emails without a reason. Below I’ll share some tips about how you can start collecting subscribers and still give them value

1.? Add a newsletter sign-up on your website?

If you don’t already have a sign-up form on your website, then you’ll need to add one. This should be first on your list as it allows you to capture the contact information of individuals who visit your site and are already engaged.

Most website providers will give you a templated version so that you can add this as a block on your site. You usually find the embedded newsletter sign-up forms in the header or footer, or both.

Don’t forget to have a couple of lines of copy explaining what someone should expect if they sign up to your email list, will you send a monthly newsletter? Will you be promoting products? Or providing offers and discounts? The more transparent you can be the better.

And of course, under GDPR, you will need to make sure you are adhering to data protection policies and providing ample information on how you will process, and store data as well as a deletion policy.?

2. Add an email sign-up on your social channels

If your business has a social media account then you can add a link to sign-up to your newsletter in your bio.

This is quite tight for space usually so if you’re out of space, why not use a site link tree so you can share multiple links including one for your email lists.?

3. Add a pop-up on your website?

To grab the attention of someone visiting your site or a user about to leave you can use a pop-up to collect an email subscriber. A pop-up can be set up to appear on your website after a designated amount of time, when a visitor scrolls or when they are about to exit your site.?

Create an eye-catching design that’s on brand, using your brand palette, fonts, imagery and a logo.?

Aside from a pop-up, you could have a fly-out sign-up form instead. Really, they are very similar. A pop-up pops out, whereas a fly-out will fly onto the website either vertically or horizontally after a specified amount of time, or when a site visitor scrolls to a specific point on a page. They are both very similar in terms of engagement so it comes down to personal preference.

4. Create a ‘gated’ piece of content

Gated contact is when you have an email sign-up form in front of a piece of content.?

A great way to provide value and also encourage someone to sign up is by offering a free guide, tool or access to a video that’s only available if you provide an email address. Create a pillar piece of content that will stop people in their tracks. Consider the pain points of your audience and create something that will help them fix it.?

5. Have exclusive content or offers only available on email

Similar to the gated content, is there something that your clients or prospects really want? Could you provide that piece of advice or content exclusively via email??

It could be some advice, customer stories, discounts, sales, product launches, early access and loyalty programmes.

6. Run online events?

Another way to quickly grow your email list is to host a free training, webinar or product launch online.?

Create some training that relates to your brand niche. You need to pick a topic that is relevant to your brand so that even though you provide the event for free, you know there is value in that email address in the future. You’ll know that by nurturing them via email, in the future they might become a customer.??

7. Running a relevant competition

Running competitions or giveaways is a great way to attract users to sign-up to your mailing list. However, one caveat I always share with clients is - to ensure the competition prize is relevant to what you sell.?

There is no point promoting something that will encourage a whole load of people to subscribe to your email list only to then see them unsubscribe or worse mark your content as spam when the competition is over.?

If you run a giveaway that’s relevant to your brand, the individuals signing up to your email list are more likely to stay after the competition ends.?

8. Offer a discount?

One popular way to attract people to sign- up to your email is to run an offer or discount. You can promote this on your pop-up.?

However, you don’t always have to offer money off. There are other ways of providing value without discounting. Increasingly I’m seeing brands choose to switch discounts for donating to a charity or supporting a local cause or the community effort or planting trees and offsetting carbon emissions. What could you do instead of taking money off?

9. Use order or purchase confirmations to build your email list.?

If someone has recently purchased a product or service from you, use the confirmation email to encourage them to sign up for your email list. You could provide a discount code to a friend or a thank you for purchase. Don’t think you can only do this if you have a physical product, this is just as relevant for a service-based business.

10. Have an ‘email me when back in stock’ capture?

If you’re an eCommerce brand, have an email capture that will notify users when the item is back in stock. This is such an under-utilised email strategy. Not only will you be able to get in front of an engaged audience that is highly likely to convert when it’s back in stock, but it can also help you effectively plan what quantities to manufacture.??

Final thoughts

You don’t need to throw in the towel with social media yet, use these platforms to drive interest, share teasers, create FOMO and sneak peeks of your email content encouraging users to sign-up for emails.?

Email marketing enables you to build relationships with your customers, nurture leaders onto customers, and create relationships that last. In a way that no other channel can.?

It doesn't matter what kind of business you have, email is here to stay.

Email is a critical part of a successful marketing strategy and one that should be front of mind for all business owners.