Email marketing could be a viable way of growing and expanding your business, as it may communicate important news to clients that they wouldn’t otherwise know, serve as a constant reminder of your services, deepen business-consumer relationship and make your sales process easier and more productive. One of the most essential elements of an email marketing campaign is a list of addresses showing how successful you are and how well you can start a conversation with targeted customers. Once you have started to use email marketing services, building an email marketing list should be your second step.

According to email marketing analysts, about 30% of subscribers are estimated to be removed from mailing lists every year. A Yahoo!Mail representative once said that user’s engagement is one of the key criteria of the sender’s reputation and worthiness of their services. Recent research on a retail company has shown that nearly 40% of their subscribers on the email marketing list were disengaged customers many of whom didn’t open newsletter emails for 90 days, whereas another 30-45% of the list took a few actions within the same period of time. Some experts believe that switching your email marketing campaign to the client-centred policy could be a perfect solution to engage a much larger segment of the audience. Here are a few valuable tips on how to streamline your efforts to create a mailing list of engaged customers.

Make it eye-catching

The way an opt-in form is located within your web page could have a direct impact on the number of subscribers. The easier it is for people to see that you have an email marketing list, the more users may sign up. It should capture the user’s attention, so placing it front and centre and using graphics might pay dividends in the end. If there is an online shopping system or a contact form on your web site, providing a checkbox on those forms may be a good idea. Users can opt in, once they have completed other activities on your site. According to Internet marketing expert Dr. Ralph F. Wilson, putting a sign-up form on every page of the site and at the end of each article is likely to draw the user’s attention and increase the size of your email marketing list.

Include a privacy and confidentiality statement

It might be valuable to place a statement on every form that you will never share personal information of your subscribers or use it for other purpose rather than your mailings. This way you may gain confidence and trust of clients whose contacts are on your email marketing list as well as promote further relationships with them. Consumers might also appreciate if you inform them about how often they will be receiving emails from you.

Ask for permission

Even though your address list contains a great many contacts that would like to subscribe to your email marketing services, asking for their consent officially could win you a reputation as a trustworthy business. You may send them an introductory message to inform about an email marketing list you have built and let them know what kind of information you will be sending them. If they are interested in subscribing to your services, use a purpose-built link to guide them to the confirmation tool and opt in automatically. Once they have signed in, send them an immediate confirmation or ‘welcome’ message as a second step to earn their trust.

Use the magic word ‘free’

Offering subscribers something free might help you catch a lot of potential clients and add them to your email marketing list. This may be a free report, e-book, a discount coupon, entry in a contest or another incentive that would help expand your list and facilitate your email marketing campaign. Make sure they understand that they will get a free service only if they agree to receive mailings from you. You should point out that they may opt out any time they want.

Add a ‘forward to a friend’ tool

If you are looking to enlarge your mailing list, ask your clients to encourage their friends to subscribe to your email marketing services. It may also work well. Giving your subscribers a possibility to share a message could be easy and simple as forwarding a newsletter to a friend might be done with the click of a mouse.

Send quality emails

Overloading a subscriber with mailings may force them to click the ‘unsubscribe’ button. Keep to your word regarding the number of newsletters sent per week/month, unless you have an important message to deliver. Avoid sending the same email twice, as it may undermine their confidence in quality of your email marketing services. Finally, make sure they receive relevant information they have subscribed to.