Email Marketing is not sexy at all, however, if you ignore it in your marketing strategy, you are making a huge mistake.
Although there is nothing wrong with trying new ideas, do not abandon the tried and true. Email Marketing has been around since the fall of 1971. At times, it is not all that glamour at all. Depending on the creator behind it, it could be very appealing to some eyes but consistency provides one of the highest returns on investment, both in time and money.
Alright, so now let’s talk about spam. We all loath spam emails. Most of the time, emails that are always trying to sell us something are not very welcomed, at times. Overly salesy campaigns won’t find much success. You need to build a brand as well as the following audience and not necessarily selling something right away.
Building an email list is not easy and it may not happen overnight either. There are no shortcuts to a high-quality list - It takes time. One way of building a list where people may want to become a subscriber of your email marketing is by providing quality content and offers that attracts potential customers to come back for more.
Over the years, there has been advertised ways of buying a list of contacts for marketers. This will be a huge disservice to you and your business. To start with, most of those contacts [and probably all of them] won’t know you from a hole in the wall and they may report you as spammer, potentially leading you to be banned from some of the major ISPs [Internet Service Providers]. If this happens, you may be looking at a long time before you can use any of the email marketing services ever again. Bottom line…DON’T BUY AN EMAIL MARKETING LIST, period!
There are several safe ways to build a list. You can start by asking your family and/or immediate friends if they would be interested in subscribing to your newsletter. Explain to them that you are starting a new venture and you would like to have their support. Also, if you frequent business networking events, you can do the same. Once you meet someone and have an ongoing dialog, ask them for permission to have their names added to the list. [At the time of this writing, we are amid a pandemic so must of us are working from home]
If this is the case with you, and you think you are likable enough, then every time you get on a virtual meeting, you may want to ask the group if you can add their names to your list.
Don’t take it personally if some of them say no.
Friends that you have not connected within a while can be approached by sending them a brief email with an invite along with why you are asking them to join you. You never know, you may rekindle that friendship again and business may come from it.
Another source is your social media contact. Most likely you know more people there than in real life. If you have the basic LinkedIn service, then go thru all your connections and send them a brief message, NO SALES stuff, asking them to opt-in to your newsletter. By following some of these basic tactics, you may increase your subscriber list to a couple of hundred people.
You want to have strangers too. So, make sure your website has an easy way for visitors to sign up o your list. A certain percentage of visitors will always sign-up, either from an organic approach or from paid sources. This will allow you to build your list with interested parties that want to hear more from you and your company. Being too aggressive can be very damaging to your brand. Keep in mind, that “your brand”, it’s you upfront. Liking you and trusting you is where the game starts!
