Email marketing is powerful. GetResponse (you can get started with a free 30-day trial) makes it really easy, and affordable, to get started. With the resources provided in this tutorial there is no reason you should not be up and running within a day or two.
However, it is simply a tool. The amount you will be able to get out of it is relative to the effectiveness of your marketing plan and how well you know your audience.
I recommend email marketing for the introverted entrepreneur as well as the enterprising entrepreneur looking to leverage marketing automation in their business to keep leads hot and buying.
Why is email list building important?
Your email list can be your most valuable business asset.
For it to be useful, however, you need to make sure you’re continuously attracting new contacts to join your subscription, and that you’re engaging and nurturing them with your email campaigns.
On top of that, make sure your email list is of high-quality. You’ll want to focus on attracting people who will benefit from using your product or service and can become your customers.
How to build an email list from scratch?
In email marketing jargon, building an email list from scratch is called organic email list building. This means you find ways of reaching your target audience and ask them to sign up for your email marketing program. An organic list building strategy is permission-based, which means that only people who have expressed explicit consent are added to your list.
How to build an email list fast?
The fastest way to grow your email list is to run PPC ad campaigns and drive traffic onto your squeeze page. There, you’ll also need a lead magnet that’ll convince your website visitors to leave you their email addresses.
You can also partner up with other brands to co-promote each other’s content (e.g., ebook) or run a webinar together and share the mailing list afterward.
Basic email list building tools and resources
Web forms
A web form a.k.a. a signup form is an HTML form that is installed on a website to enable visitors to sign up. There are different kinds of forms to choose from, e.g., a subscription form, download box, scroll form, fixed bar, lightbox, or an exit pop-up.
To build a web form, you can either code it from scratch or use a list builder, like the one built into GetResponse.
There, you’ll find various templates to choose from and an intuitive editor that’ll let you customize your web form to fit the style of your website.
When designing your web form think about the quality to quantity ratio. If you want to reach a specific target audience (e.g., to generate B2B leads), you might need to create a longer web form asking for more details: company name, company size, position, etc.
Example of a long webform designed to collect email subscribers.
On the other hand, if your goal is to reach a broader audience (e.g., to reach potential ecommerce customers), you might ask only for basic information like name and email address.
The rule of thumb is that the longer the form, the fewer people subscribe. The shorter the web form, the more subscriptions you get, but you can’t be sure how many people actually meet your criteria. The trick is to know your goal and ask only for relevant information to balance the quality/quantity ratio accordingly.
Landing pages
A landing page, also known as a “lead capture page” or a “squeeze page”, is a single web page that is designed with a single call to action for high conversion. In email marketing landing pages are most often used for lead generation.
Example of a short squeeze page containing only two fields – name and email address – and offering a free ebook.
Once again, there are many ways you can build landing pages but the most convenient one is to use a landing page creator.
Landing page creator available in GetResponse comes with mobile-optimized free landing page templates, intuitive drag and drop editor, and multiple other features.
Webinars
A webinar also known as an “online seminar”, “web conference”, or an “online meeting” can serve as a great way to build an email list with high-quality contacts. The idea is simple – you offer valuable information for everyone who signs up to your contact list.
Carefully planned webinar content will certainly attract your target audience. You can promote your webinar via other online marketing channels to maximize outreach.
Lead magnets
A lead magnet is something valuable for your target audience that you offer in exchange for contact information. The goal of the lead magnet is to incentivize subscription and maximize the number of targeted leads captured via a web form.
Lead magnet examples
Ebook
Guide
Report
Checklist
Resource kit
Framework
Educational materials
Example of a free guide created specifically with the brand’s target audience in mind.
There are of course other types of “freebies” or “opt-in bribes” you can offer.
The key point here is that if you want to grow your email list, you need to create content that your audience will want to trade their email addresses for.
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