8 Ways to Build Effective Email Marketing List for Business

Email marketing might be your thing if you’re looking for new ways to promote your business.

It is an effective tool for forging connections and driving engagement that leads to sales.

But, to achieve those goals, you must have a robust email marketing list.

So how do you build an email list that works? You’re about to find out! Here are practical and actionable tips to follow.

1. Choose the Right Email Marketing Software

Selecting the perfect email service provider is a crucial step to ensuring your email marketing list yields the best results. Don’t just look for a platform that matches your business size, budget, and marketing goals. Look for email marketing software with features that can help enhance your campaigns.

A key feature of quality email newsletter software is list segmentation. With email segmentation, you can send targeted, relevant messages to specific groups based on their behavior, preferences, or demographic information. When you segment your list, you can drastically improve engagement rates and reduce unsubscribe rates. After all, you ensure that your potential customers receive content that resonates with them.

Your email marketing software should also make it easy for you to make this content visually appealing. You want software that can help you create beautiful newsletters because it can prompt subscribers to refer your brand and get other people to sign up for your mailing list.

Effective software should also provide detailed analytics to help you track open rates, click-through rates, and conversions. Utilizing a mail tester can further enhance your email marketing strategy by ensuring deliverability and optimizing email performance. This data is handy for refining your approach and understanding what resonates with your audience.

Of course, the email marketing platform you choose should be easy to use for all these purposes. That’s why a user-friendly interface is essential. You shouldn’t need a degree in computer science to create and manage your campaigns!

2. Craft Valuable Email Content

Creating visually appealing email content that resonates with subscribers isn’t enough. It should be valuable, too. Informative emails will make it more likely for your target audience to forward them to their networks. These networks are more likely to subscribe to your email list as well.

Creating unique, clickable content every time is not an easy task. But if you make your emails relevant and something that enriches your audience's day-to-day lives, you should do just fine. For this, you can offer educational content, insider tips, or even the latest industry news.

Make sure your emails are well-written. Use images and headers to break up text and make your content easy to digest. Check out the email above as an example.

To ensure your brand stays top-of-mind with your target audience, you need to be consistent. Create an editorial calendar and send your emails on a regular schedule to build anticipation and trust. Start with monthly updates, and if you have enough ideas, you can move to sending weekly newsletters.

3. Attend Industry Events to Get Sign-Ups

Events are excellent opportunities to get new subscribers. But you shouldn’t just attend any event to generate these sign-ups. You’ll need to zero in on events in your industry. This way, you can be certain the people who do agree to receive your marketing emails are actually interested in your email content.

To convince people to sign up, you need to make it easy for them to do so. There may be better ways to go about it than asking them to write their email addresses and names on a piece of paper. Writing takes time and effort. Passing along a paper and getting people to write takes time and effort as well.

This is where digital business cards can help. E-business cards can come with two-way information exchange features that make it easy for potential subscribers to share their emails with you via a contact form. With this innovative approach to networking, you ensure a great first impression that can convince potential subscribers you’re worth their time.

This strategy entails less effort on your part as well. If you add the business card to your Apple wallet, you spare yourself the agony of scouring through your image gallery looking for your e-card’s QR code or URL to share with your potential subscriber. You just open your Apple wallet from your iPhone and share the digital card. Piece of cake!

4. Add a Subscription Bar to Your Website

You can incorporate a subscription bar into your website for your email list-building efforts. This bar, typically placed at the top or bottom of the page, remains in view as users scroll, keeping the signup option visible without being too intrusive. Another popular placement for your email signup form is on the sidebar of your web pages.

You can easily add a subscription bar using a WordPress plugin like OptinMonster or Hello Bar. Simply install the plugin, customize your bar in the plugin settings, and activate it to start capturing emails right away.

Color and contrast play crucial roles in drawing attention to the subscription bar. Choose a color that stands out from the rest of your page but still aligns with your branding strategy.

Adding an incentive right in the subscription bar is also a good idea to boost sign-ups. This could be a free guide, a discount code, or access to exclusive content. Just a little enticement can go a long way in growing your email marketing list.

Oh, and keep your input fields minimal. Most often, just an email address and the first name are all you need.

5. Create Subscribe Landing Pages That Convert

A landing page is a stop along the visitor's journey where potential subscribers decide whether to engage further with your brand. It’s where they would “land” when they click on a social media post, for example.

You need a good landing page to drive subscriptions.

To build an effective landing page, start with a clear and concise headline that communicates the benefit of subscribing. This should be followed by a persuasive subheadline that adds more detail about what they’ll receive in exchange for their email address.

The design of your landing page should focus on simplicity and removing distractions. Keep the navigation minimal and the content centered around the sign-up form. Use eye-catching images or videos that relate to your message, and, again, make sure your form is short—often, just a name and email address will suffice.

Include social proof elements like testimonials or subscriber counts to enhance credibility. Reinforce the value proposition with a strong, clear call to action. We’ll discuss CTAs in more detail in the next section.

As a final tip, make your landing page mobile-friendly. Remember, over 60% of website traffic–and potential subscribers—comes from mobile devices. Test how your landing page looks on a tablet and smartphone to ensure it’s mobile-optimized for capturing those on-the-go sign-ups.

6. Have a Compelling Call-to-Action (CTA) for Potential Subscribers

A call-to-action is a prompt that tells the user to take a specified action. In this case, since your goal is to build an effective email list, your desired action is for website visitors to ultimately subscribe. So, with your CTA on your subscription bars, landing pages, or other parts of your site, you can either ask site visitors directly to sign up or urge them to avail of your lead magnet in exchange for their email address.

Whatever your strategy, know that you can only turn casual website visitors into subscribers with a good CTA.

Start by using action-oriented verbs like "Subscribe,” “Get," "Join," or "Discover." These words encourage immediate action and create a sense of urgency and excitement. In your CTA, you can also highlight the benefit site visitors will get if they take your desired action. Check out these examples below:

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If you’re struggling with writing engaging copywriting for your CTA, explore generative AI. This technology analyzes user data and behavior patterns to craft personalized and compelling copy.

Make sure your CTA button stands out on the page as well. For this, you can use CTA button or font colors that contrast with your page or button background (see below):

You can also make your CTA font size large and include a lot of white space around your CTA button.

Where you place your CTA can also significantly impact its effectiveness. Don’t hide it at the bottom of your page or in the corner. Instead, make it central to your content where visitors can easily find it:

Also, test different versions of your CTAs to see which ones perform the best. A/B testing can reveal subtle differences in wording, color, and placement that could make all the difference in your conversion rates.

7. Ask People to Share Your Emails

One of the simplest yet most effective strategies to expand your email marketing list is to encourage current customers to share your content. Adding 'Share with a friend' links or social sharing buttons to your marketing emails can turn your existing audience into advocates for your brand.

When your subscribers share your emails, they're essentially endorsing your content to their friends and family, increasing your brand's reach and credibility.

Remember to include a simple and visible sign-up link in every shared email. This ensures that the recipients can easily join your mailing list themselves, continuing the cycle of growth. The easier you make it for people to share and sign up, the faster your list of email addresses will grow!

8. Create a Referral Program

Referral program are another effective tactic to grow your email list. It can help you turn your current subscribers into proactive participants. Offer something valuable to encourage your existing audience to bring new subscribers on board.

Start by setting up a simple referral system where current email subscribers can earn rewards for each person they successfully refer. You can use platforms like ReferralCandy, Ambassador, or Friendbuy. These tools make it easy to track referrals, manage rewards, and ensure that both your new and existing subscribers receive their promised incentives.

Rewards could be gift cards, exclusive discounts, free products, extra content, or early access to new offerings—choose incentives that resonate the most with your audience.

Make the referral process as easy as possible. Provide subscribers with a unique referral link that they can share via email, social media, or even text. Most tools include automated tracking of referrals and rewards that can help manage the process smoothly and transparently.

Don’t forget to regularly post updates on social media accounts about your program.

You can also email reminders about how close subscribers are to earning their next reward can keep them engaged and motivated to participate.

Conclusion

Building an effective email marketing list is hard but not impossible.

Start by choosing the right software that can enhance your email marketing campaigns. Add a subscription bar to your site and create good subscribe landing pages. Make sure you have a compelling CTA for people to sign up as well, of course.

You can also ask people to forward your emails and create referral programs. To further ensure the growth and effectiveness of your email list, craft incredible email content. Attend industry events to get email sign-ups as well.

Apply these actionable tips and continuously refine your approach based on what works best for your audience.

With patience and persistence, your email marketing list will become a powerful tool in your business's marketing strategy.