Email Marketing: Building an Opt-In Email List

In the email marketing world your success is largely based on not just the size of your opt-in email list, but the quality of people who have signed up to receive your emails. Building an effective list can be easy if you follow these three steps:

1.       Incorporate a sign up form on your website. Make sure this is in a very visible area on every page, so that people can sign up at any time while navigating around your site.  Also make sure that you include a sentence or two that makes signing up for your email newsletter appealing to those visiting your site. Something along the lines of “Sign up for our monthly newsletter to receive announcements on special offers, or events at ABC company” is generally appealing to most people.

2.       Include a sign up form at the front desk of your store, ask every customer that comes in of they would like to join your email newsletter list, and explain to them briefly the benefits of joining your  list. Ensure them that they will only receive pertinent information about your business, and will not receive any SPAM emails. This is a great way to make sure that you are staying in contact with your current customers and creating customer loyalty.

3.       Start a blog relating to the product or service you offer and include a newsletter sign up form at the bottom. Make sure your blogs are insightful and original so that people are interested in them and will be willing to sign up to receive additional information from you.

4.       Actively participate in forums that closely relate to your business and add a signature on the bottom directed to a sign up form for your newsletters. Much like the blogs, make sure that your forum posts are insightful and make people want to receive your newsletter.  

5.       Attend trade shows related to your business and encourage people to sign up for your newsletter by explaining to them the benefits of being a part of your mailing list. This can be a very effective way to reach out to prospective customers. For steps two and three be sure to sign people up as soon as possible on your website so that a welcome or thank you letter is sent to them quickly.  

Once people have signed up to receive your emails be sure to have a welcome note ready that explains what they can expect in the future from your newsletters and be sure to contact them as soon as possible. (Email Designer has an automatic response feature that sends out your welcome/ thank you letter immediately once someone has signed up for your email list on your website.) By doing this you will encourage people to look forward to receiving your newsletter, and will increase the likelihood that they will open and click through your newsletter.

 Building an opt in list can be tedious work and can take a while to build, however, a quality list will bring in amazing results and make all of your hard work worthwhile.