How to grow your company's email list in 7 easy ways (and 1 way to avoid)

Last month, CEOs from four of the largest publicly traded tech companies—Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Tim Cook of Apple, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, and Sundar Pichai of Google—endured chippy grillings before the US House antitrust committee. The head honchos answered Congress’ testy questions through virtual link-up, defending their activities and assuring their policies do not violate competition laws. The committee’s dressing down would ring hollow by the next week. Three out of these four companies recorded a profit in 2020’s dismal second quarter, and all four beat their earnings expectations.

Great for them ... What does this have to do for your business: the little guy? As covered in this previous post, you’re probably giving these guys your lunch money. If Amazon sells your products, the company will charge you storage and fulfillment fees (these are especially costly if your products are not selling). Apple sets the rules for independent software developers in its App Store, including a 30 percent cut of in-app purchases and subscriptions. Add to this, Facebook and Google have cornered the online advertising market, collecting 70 percent of all online ad spend.

So, where can your business go to reach its customers directly without having to deal with these four bullies? Email is the best solution.

Email is a one-to-one communication format. Companies with curated and reliable email lists can get their products and ideas sent straight to their customers for little-to-no cost. If done well, people will read your content and buy your products directly from your website.

If your business is starting from scratch, how does it begin adding names to an email list? Well, we have a few ideas to help you out. Stick with us, and your company will be growing its list in no time.

But first, consider what can you give away for free

Before going forward, try to think about what you can give your customer for free to build trust and loyalty. There’s a different answer for every business. You might own an ice cream shop. Giving away a free cone valued at less than $4 is not going to cost your business much, right? So, how many $3.50 cones could your business give away at once without hurting profits? 

Does this analogy not work for your custom door installation business? Manufacturing bespoke doors and overseeing labor for installation might not be something you can just give away. But perhaps your customers ask for help with things like squeaky hinges or repairing door knobs. Can you spare a couple of minutes to make a how-to video every week?

The point is you should start listening to your customers questions and think about how to solve them. What would they like to hear about from you? If you can walk in their shoes or anticipate their needs, you have more content to put in your email. People will start to look forward to seeing your email their inboxes if you have something to offer as well as something to sell.

6 easy ways to grow your company’s email list

Now that you’ve taken some time to think about your customer, here are simple ways to start growing your list.

1.    Build the foundation

As with all big endeavors, you’re going to need to start somewhere—so start with small steps. Begin reviewing your company’s email address book and put together a list of your suppliers and customers either in a spreadsheet or a document file. No need to stop there. If you feel comfortable with it, put the emails of friends and family on the list.

Once you have this list of names and addresses together, draft a cheery email to see if they would like to start receiving regular emails with your business’ news, sales, and content. In addition, you could also ask what they’d like to know more about in your business or your industry. You could ask if they would recommend any personal referrals. You may also want to follow up with a link to an opt-in form (more on this later).

In addition, start thinking about how you can collect addresses offline. Start asking customers if they’d like to join your mailing list after every sale. Incentivize your employees to collect emails. If you have the capital, create branding material. Put a link to opt into your email list on business cards. Keep this effort top of mind and make it as simple as possible for your customer to sign up.

Think creatively! Reach out to people individually. Never let a good opportunity at the register or some marketing event pass you by. Have a personal email template with an opt-in link ready to go so the process can be automatic.

You might only have 25 names to start off, but these should all be solid people who have opted in. They will be a great foundation for your list.

2.    Opt-in campaigns

When you are making a list, or even re-purposing an old one, it’s best to start fresh. Everyone on your list needs to have “opted-in,” or consented to being emailed. At a minimum, it’s good to make sure everyone on your list wants to receive your company’s emails. A healthy open rate makes sure your content resonates with your target audience. If you’re doing business in the European Union, taking emails without consent opens your company up to its strict anti-privacy laws. 

While this might seem like a chore, checking your list every six months to cull emails from your list ensures the right people are interested in what you’re sending out. Most email service providers offer check-in campaigns. This is a good opportunity to see if the people on your list still want to receive your emails as well as an easy way to receive feedback.

3.    Put your call to action EVERYWHERE

A call to action (CTA) is a major buzz word in the advertising. What it means is a clear, decisive action you want your audience to take. In every piece of content, you must envision the next action you want your customer to perform. If this is to build your company’s email list, your content and the way you present it both need to reflect that goal.

The next step is to start putting this goal front and center. There should be ways to join the list on all your company’s online media. Put this on your website’s homepage. Create landing pages designed for customers to add their names to your list quickly. Add plug-ins to your website so a form pops up as their scrolling on your website. Make it the sign-off on your blog post.

4.    Write quality content for your emails

By now, you should have some ideas to start a smaller list. It’s time to figure out a marketing strategy to provide valuable emails on a consistent basis. Sure, your customers want to hear about you and your latest deals or projects. That said, circle back to what was mentioned in this post before. What are questions people are asking you, an authority? These can just be little tips, clarifications, or anything else you can explain in a few minutes. This in itself is a great strategy to use in growing your email list.

The content in your email should be informative, entertaining, persuasive, or any combination of these three points. Producing compelling content at a regular pace is a great way to become a perceived expert in your field (also known as a thought leader). If your emails are good enough, they will be passed around. 

5.    Gated content and lead magnets

While it’s good practice to produce content for free, don’t confuse this with giving everything away. You should also approach content from another angle. Start thinking about topics you could talk about as if you were writing a term paper—something more specific meant only for people really interested in your area of expertise.

Going back to the examples earlier, if you run an ice cream shop, you can provide your step-by-step recipe for making your newest flavor at home. If you are the custom door installer, you could explain the best type of door materials for different uses and locations. You can then write these ideas in an e-book or a whitepaper. You would then only share the download link if the interested party provides you with their email address.

This type of content is called gated content or a lead magnet. The prospective customer gets the info they want, and you get a fully opted-in address—win-win! You can then create whole marketing campaigns to generate real sales through this type of content.

6.    Sales and contests

Announcing a sale or a contest might be one of the easiest to obtain emails on a conditional basis. If your business is involved with direct sales, it’s worth considering this method.

Email is one of the best ways to announce sales. If you are a B2C company, find an incentive depending on the product you sell. Give percentage or price-break discounts for your customer’s next purchase just by joining your list. Then keep the customer interested by offering flash sales as subscriber exclusives. 

Contests can also be viable, especially if you sell high-value items. Again, what can your business afford to give away from free? It can be something tangible or a free use of your expertise. Going back to our expensive custom door fitter example, you might not be able to give the whole door away, but perhaps free installation or free consultation would be enough to entice customers to join your list.

Be sure you’re clear on how you’re obtaining these addresses—the sale and contest participants must know the catch to these offers is you’ll be adding them to your email list. Also note these new prospects might be your next loyal customers. Make sure they’ll get something out of your emails before they invite you into their inbox.

7.    Social media

“Wait … you said you were trying to get us off Facebook!” Touché—I did. That doesn’t diminish how useful social media can be as a lead-generation source. If you have a large following on any of the major social platforms, by all means write a post with a link to opt in for your list. You can even begin an ad campaign to generate leads. Understand which platform caters most to your audience, and let them know the best way to get updates about your business is through email.

You’ll now be in better position to retain those customers. With social media companies tweaking their algorithms and choking organic engagement, your customers might not see your business’ updates on their social feed. Migrating traffic over to email will keep you immune from any funny stuff on social media platforms. Let’s not forget about MySpace—while highly unlikely, a couple of bad business decisions or a changing demographic could make Facebook just as irrelevant.

Whatever you do—DO NOT BUY YOUR LIST!

It used to be easier to get started with email as long as you had a few bucks. Marketers still scoop up emails without permission and cobble together email lists for sale. Times have changed. Buying your email list is a waste of money.

As email providers have gotten smarter, they have started to pay attention to spammers. They do this by keeping track of a sender’s bounce rate. This means if “johndoe[at]yahoo[dot]com” hasn’t been checking his email for years, email providers are smart enough to know you shouldn’t be sending him emails regularly. The providers will start designating your emails as spam after too many bounces back.

This is why an opt-in component for your list is so important. If your email keeps getting sent back, these providers will lump you in with those scammy people promising to pay you in Bitcoin. If you’re flagged, no one will be able to read your content, and you’ll just have to start all over again with a new account and a new list.

Once you start, keep going

The best marketers know sending good emails delivered at regular intervals is the best way to gather a following and grow interest in their businesses. You don’t need a wheelbarrow of money or intimate knowledge of a social algorithm to ensure those aforementioned tech titans leave you alone. All you need is grit and empathy to start communicating to your customers with an online tool they use every day.

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