Having a strong email list is critical for small businesses. Email marketing is an excellent way to build close relationships with customers and get their attention. However, one thing that many small businesses may find a bit frustrating is developing an email list. How do you get subscribers? How do you comply with policies? In this article, we take a look at all this and more.
The Value of a High-Quality Email Subscriber List for Email Marketing
There are a wide variety of benefits when it comes to email marketing for small businesses. In fact, 77% of marketers have reported an increase in email engagement over the past year. While discussing all of these would require an entire blog to themselves, here are some of the major features:
- High return on investment
- Ability to tailor marketing to different segments
- Strengthen relationships with customers
- Increased sales
- Improved brand awareness
- Enhance social media engagement
- Highlight products & services
As you create a quality subscriber list, you will see improvement in the metrics that govern the assessment of your marketing campaigns like open rates and click-through rates. While your content is the major driver of these, building a quality list plays an important role too.
Tips for Growing a High-Quality Email Subscriber List
One of the first questions for most small business owners is how to grow an email subscriber list. Here are three basic tips to begin to master.
- Create a Compelling Signup Form
The most basic step to email subscription success lies with your signup form. Be sure to create a concise, attractive, and user-friendly form. Collect only the information that you need. Be sure to optimize the viewing for both mobile and desktop versions. Finally, pay attention to where you place it on your website. Having your subscription form on landing pages and other areas where it can easily be seen by viewers will increase subscription rates. - Implement an Effective Call to Action
A great strategy for driving subscriptions is to leverage effective CTAs. Your CTA copy should be persuasive, engaging, and relatable. Give customers a reason to subscribe. Tell them what’s in it for them. Include easily visible buttons that link to the signup form. A great way to engage users with strong CTA copy is to utilize A-B testing. Develop multiple forms of copy to test on users. The ones with the higher subscription rates will help you determine what language and arguments work best for your audience. - Leverage Website Popups
Another good way to increase email marketing subscriptions is to utilize website popups. This is an effective way to capture the attention of your audience and give them the opportunity to sign up. Like any other CTA, you want it to be centered on the user and easy to navigate. However, another consideration is to find a balance between your conversion goals and the overall user experience. Many users do not like popups. Thus, using them only in select areas of your website may help achieve this balance.
Using Lead Magnets and Incentives to Bolster Email Marketing Signups
Once you have the basic principles mastered, it is time to explore other methods for encouraging visitors to sign up for your email lists. Let’s take a look at how you can leverage lead magnets for this role.
What is a Lead Magnet?
Unless you are well-versed in email marketing, you may not be familiar with the term “lead magnet.” Basically, a lead magnet is some type of incentive that you can use in order to have people subscribe to your email marketing list.
There are many different types of lead magnets and the most effective one will likely depend upon your specific type of business and the needs of your customers. Typical lead magnets can include webinars, eBooks, templates, discounts, or some other item your customer values.
Crafting an Irresistible Offer
The core characteristic of a lead magnet is that it should be something that provides value to the customer. A lead magnet should not just be for show but should have quality to it. This will not only get the customer to subscribe but also strengthen your relationship with them by providing quality content for free.
Many email marketing specialists will help showcase the value of this lead magnet by providing a sample of what the user will get upon subscribing. This is a way to highlight benefits and further increase signups.
Promoting Lead Magnets
Once you’ve developed a lead magnet (or several), the next step is directing customers to them. There are many great ways to do this. First, you should have a unique landing page and signup for each lead magnet. This not only helps you be organized but can also strengthen future efforts to segment messaging.
Next, integrate lead magnets into your existing communication mediums. Highlight them in social media posts, include a call to action at the end of a blog, or weave them into other content that you produce. Strive to be genuine instead of salesy and you’ll better resonate with viewers.
Ensuring Compliance with Email Marketing Regulations & GDPR
While you gather your subscriber list, you want to ensure that you follow all relevant laws and policies. Below are some tips on how to do this effectively.
Understanding Email Marketing Regulations
You may run into email marketing regulations at the federal or state levels. One of the most notable is the CAN-SPAM Act. This act dictates many rules of email marketing such as identifying messages as ads, telling recipients how to opt out of future emails, not using false header information, and honoring opt-outs promptly.
More about the CAN-SPAM Act can be found on the FTC website. Ultimately, this and most email marketing regulations focus on providing transparency and not misleading consumers. It is important to consider these in the design of your email subscription mechanisms.
Navigating GDPR Guidelines
Another important piece of legislation to be aware of is the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which effects any subscribers located in the European Union. The overarching goal of this law is to provide data privacy controls and protect user information.
When it comes to email list subscriptions, GDPR requires that consent be freely given by customers, requests be presented in easy-to-understand language, and people can withdraw consent at any time. Additionally, children under 13 must give consent with permission from their parents. Again, being transparent and obtaining explicit consent are the key takeaways.
Building Trust through Transparency
Customers want to trust the businesses with which they interact. Transparency provides a great way for you to strengthen that trust. Be authentic about what you use customer data for and how it is stored.
Thus, you should definitely create a clear privacy policy and terms of use. This not only helps you communicate your data usage policies to subscribers but also can help strengthen your ability to abide by various regulations.
Maintaining and Engaging Your Email List
Once you have successfully built the mechanisms for a high-quality email list, your major focus should be on maintenance and engagement.
Regular List Cleaning
When we say email list maintenance, we mean regularly cleaning up your list. Be sure to promptly remove subscribers who opt out to adhere to data privacy policies. Additionally, inactive subscribers can be removed as well. Meanwhile, you can also identify dormant subscribers by providing them with special offers such as a one-time coupon or discount in hopes they will reengage.
Craft Relevant Content
If you are able to deliver valuable information to email list subscribers, they will continue to read your emails. Thus, be sure to craft engaging content that is centered around the interests and needs of your customers. This is a great place to highlight blogs, videos, and other informative things.
Additionally, consider incorporating segmentation. In this practice, certain groups of customers will receive certain messages. This can help you increase your effectiveness at putting engaging content in front of subscribers while better-tailoring emails to resonate with more customers.
Building a high-quality email list can vastly strengthen your email marketing efforts. This process involves implementing a number of tried and true strategies while remaining up-to-date and in compliance with laws and regulations. Incorporating the strategies discussed in this article in a way that fits your business’ needs can help you begin to excel at email marketing! If you need help strengthening the effectiveness of your email marketing, trust Moin Agency!