Covid-19 has shattered all our lives, yet it’s uniting families unprecedentedly. Statistics have shown that many people are online than ever, encompassing 59% of the world’s population. It is an opportunity for online business opportunities to engage more and build their brand. A small online business can connect with its customers by creating an email list. An email list allows direct contact with customers.
I know what you are thinking; direct contact and COVID-19. Direct contact does not mean physical contact. It means exchanging product ideas and honest feedback with the customer. Social distancing rules are there to protect us from Covid-19. Through email, an online business can learn more about their customers, raise brand awareness, and generate more revenue. Frequently, an online business faces a common dilemma, building an email list. Through the right channel, the process can be less painful. How can an online business or individually run a company creates an active email list?
An online business can build an email list with Facebook Ads
Over the decade, social media has been the new social hype, with many creating an online marketplace and selling their artisans and wares. Facebook has emerged as a powerhouse for targeted ads, generating millions of dollars for online companies. To build a substantial email list, a company could create a Facebook Ads campaign, with engaging content about its products. For example, let’s say a digital marketing agency called ThatLifeStyleNinja is building an email list. ThatLifeStyleNinja needs to understand the question all the customers have been asking. It can then help answer the problem with an interesting solution. By addressing the customers’ pain points, ThaLifeStyleNinja will get the customers to subscribe to their mailing list.
Build an email list for online business with the adage
An adage says that value begets value. Let’s walk through another example of, for instance, Salesforce building an email list. By giving its customers valuable solutions, Salesforce can get customers to subscribe to their mailing list. Salesforce’s emergence was to solve the challenges faced by companies installing standalone computer platforms.
Salesforce made the software available to the masses of companies, on a 24/7 basis, over a global cloud computing infrastructure. Now it provides customer relationship management service and also sells a complementary suite of enterprise applications focused on customer service, marketing automation, analytics, and application development. Through adding value, it is easier for Salesforce to call out the need for their software through a Facebook Ad campaign and get the prospective customers to sign up for the mailing list.
Build an email list for online business with A/ B testing and Facebook Ads
Through adding value, an online business can easily explain what they do and build an interesting email list. In the Facebook campaign, you could give the product details for free as a pdf download in exchange for their email address.
The idea behind the building mailing list using Facebook Ad campaigns is that a business creates several low budgets campaigns. After creating campaigns A, B, and C, the company can test ad campaigns that perform the best or generate more emails. For instance, Campaign A captured 100 emails with an Ad spend of $5 per day, and B caught $200 emails with the same ad spent. The A/B test shows that B’s message worked the best, and people resonated with it. After observing that B’s message attracted more emails than A, your business should increase the Ad spent or the budget. The trick is to find a message with a low acquisition cost, stick with it, and attract more prospective customers.
An online business can build an email list with a sales funnel
After building an email list, it is crucial to create an automated sales funnel or purchase funnel. The sales funnel, a consumer-focused marketing model, illustrates the theoretical customer journey toward the purchase of a good or service. In email marketing, the business sends introductions about their product within the initial email. The introduction email is there to raise brand awareness, leading to conversion or sale in sequence. An automated sales funnel acts as a free lead magnet, providing upsell opportunities and sales of new products. The thumb rule is that a combination of highly targeted Ads and a sequence of well-structured automated emails is a powerful combination to grow a business.
Set Up a Pre-Launch Page
It is also essential to build an email list from day one. With an email list, a business is one step away from a sale. However, collecting emails requires tenacity and adequate preparation. Your business should create a landing page for product validation to build an email list. The goal is to invite visitors to stay informed of the product’s development process and get updates. When prospective customers enter their email addresses, it’s an opportunity for your business to build a relationship. It is also your goal to deliver value and maintain constant communication frequently. When your company launches a new product, your mailing list should be the first to know.
When you do this, it is an incentive for your subscribers to feel the value and invite their friends to join your program or service. Pre-launch pages are essential, and online businesses can use Klaviyo or Constant Contact for free. Another hack to gain more email subscribers from a pre-launch page is to offer a stronger incentive. For instance, you can propose a 10% discount for everyone who subscribes within a specific period. When you provide an excuse, you add value to your service, attracting more people who believe in your products.
Collect emails from sales and customer accounts
Customer accounts are valuable to businesses as they contain essential private data such as email addresses. Since customers share relevant emails and information, you can follow up, reminding them to purchase another product or service. Through customer accounts, buying history is more comfortable to track. The purchasing history of a customer is essential in offering to upsell opportunities. Through a sequence of emails with email services providers such as Klaviyo, you can collect emails from the customer accounts.
After receiving the emails and building your email list, you can then reward your current subscribers to bring new customers. In sharing profits and sales, your business fosters a community that will generate more traction and revenue. Services such as PayPal allow their customers to use guest checkout when making payments but offer them an opportunity to create their accounts. A business that gives customers a chance to create an account at check out wins in the long run.
Place Opt-in forms across the site.
These days many sites are revenue generation tools with many advertisements. A lot of them have pop-up forms at the footer and the header. Your business can also build its email list through placing pop up and sign up forms across its site. The strategy is to use an exit strategy to attract back the customer. When the customer is leaving the page pop up appears asking for their email address. Through pop-ups forms, an online business can build an email list while promoting its products. Third parties such as Constant Contact provide customizable email campaign templates. A combination of customizable campaigns and pop-up forms helps online business grow their email list.
Many online shoppers are reluctant to give away their email address for free through a pop-up form. The best way is to offer a discount for your service once the customers sign up with their email addresses. It is essential to follow up with an introductory message to build a relationship with new customers. After the introduction email, an online business can then engage with the customer offering services. Many businesses face challenges with placing opt-in forms in the right places. Here are also some suggestions on where to put sign-up, pop-ups, and opt-in forms.
An online business building email list should put opt-in forms in these three areas.
Header
Place a sign-up form as a sticky header. As customers scroll down your website, the sticky header reminds them to sign up and receive exclusive content.
Navigation and Footer
Customers can also navigate through the website, and the sign up will be on the navigation sidebar of each page. Sign up forms on sidebar navigation are great also for educating your customers about your brand. Sign Up forms on footers are useful for reminding prospective customers about the value of your business’s content.
Blog / Page Resources
Customers value your brand, and they sign up because they see the potential partnership. As an individual, also offer a value proposition to your subscribers hard to resist. A value proposition gives the potential subscribers an incentive to join the family. It is essential to have a Blog or Resources page where new websites for visitors can subscribe to your mailing list.
Email list building for online business with Resource Page content
Content marketing is all about adding value. When an online business commits to add value, it can educate its customers about its products. Through content on the resources or blog page, an e-commerce company can attract customers. The advantage of creating a resources page goes beyond raising SEO rankings in search engines. An online business that put sign-up forms of resource pages builds a massive email list. It captures potential customers searching for information.
An e-commerce business needs to take care of one basic pop up form. It is the exit-intent pop-up form. This pop-up form shows when a visitor moves their mouse off the website towards the search bar. The exit-intent also shows when the prospective customer presses the back button. An exit-intent pop-up form gives customers a chance to join your mailing list. It is also a second chance for your business to collect the customers’ email.
Speed up Email Sign-Ups with Lead Magnets
Marketing is finding the easiest way to communicate your business’s story to your customers. It is also the only path to give a value proposition to convince people to buy your services. The first step is to build an emailing list to talk to all these people and share your story. Through exclusive deals and discounts, your business acts as a lead magnet attracting thousands of potential customers.
Reasonable deals attract people, and it is essential to give valuable offers to your potential customers to get their email addresses. An online business benefits more by building an email list. It can even cover the margins lost by offering exclusive discounts and offers. Though deductions affect sales margins, they’re essential to keeping prospective customers. Many potential customers engage with discounts and end up in your sales channel. It is vital to invest resources to keep them.
Provide access to educational content
Another way to build a massive email list is through running sweepstakes or producing tonnes of educational content. Content centered on a specific niche brings qualified prospective customers together. As a small online business, you can engage these customers with exit intent, pop up forms. Also, through discounts, customers are likely to subscribe to your mailing list. Many blogging platforms use content to appeal to their readers’ emotions. They put a ‘subscriber to the mailing list’ as a call to action on the footer of their blog or resources page. A call to action on the footer of a blog post grabs emails while the reader is still processing it. Besides, sharing additional content with customers creates a mutual relationship with the customer. To collect many emails using informative content, produce free chunks of material that contain a tangible value.
Ask for an email in person.
It is essential to aim for survival and outcast competition. An online business should build a massive email list to outlast competitors. It also should provide tangible value to its customers. For instance, it is essential to ask for your customers’ email addresses when you ship their orders. As a business, you can also send small discount cards with customers’ products. The customer can only redeem the discount on when they provide subscribe or create an account. The example also shows how to reward customers through discounts to get their email addresses.
Conclusion
The article introduces tonnes of ideas to build a mailing list. It is up to you to apply this knowledge and increase your revenue potential. What is the next step after this article? The next step is to sign up for free email services such as Klaviyo, Omnisend, and Constant Contact. The services are a way to build your email list and engage with your current and prospective customers. There are also many marketing services out there, and it is crucial to choose the ones with the most impressive results. Check out
Sign Up of Klaviyo
Generate more customers with Constant Contact
Send more warm introductory emails with Omnisend
