Email marketing is an extremely effective marketing technique and the relatively low cost means it can deliver excellent return on investment. On average, every £1 spent on email marketing can see a return of over £40.
Sounds good, doesn’t it? Sadly it’s not quite as simple as putting an email together and sending it out to the world. In order to take advantage of the power of email, you need a strong email marketing list, and when it comes to email, quality is just as important as numbers. You could have a hundred thousand people subscribed to your emails, but if none of them are interested in your business, you won’t see results. The more people you have on your list who are genuinely interested in what you have to say the better results you can get.
So how can you increase the number of high quality subscribers who will be delighted to receive your emails in your inbox? Here’s a couple of tips for building your list…
Make it easy to sign up
Making it as easy as possible for people to sign up to your emails should help increase your subscriptions. There’s two parts to this – firstly think about the placement of your email sign up box. Visitors to the home page may not be ready to commit to signing up to your newsletter as soon as they arrive on your site, so ensure there’s opportunities to sign up throughout your site.
Secondly, make the process of signing up as easy as possible, try to remove any barriers to sign up. Don’t make the sign up process too long and don’t ask for too much information straight away.
Demonstrate the benefits
Make it as appealing as possible to sign up to your emails by highlighting the benefits of becoming a subscriber. Will they receive discounts or useful information, for instance?
Try testing different copy to see if that has an impact on the number of sign ups. Visitors who weren’t tempted by your ‘email newsletter’ may be keen to subscribe to ‘Insider updates’ or ‘Marketing tips’.
You could also offer targeted incentives – such as a free guide or white paper – to attract the type of people you want on your list. This can work extremely well when used in conjunction with related content, for example an accountant may offer a free self assessment checklist at the bottom of a guide to self assessment tax returns.
A note on compliance
It’s important to grow your list in a way that complies with data protection laws. Ensure that you have permission to email everyone on your list, you should also be clear and transparent about what subscribers are signing up for. If space allows, let subscribers know how often they’ll hear from you and provide reassurance that you won’t be selling email addresses.
Let us know how you get on, and if you liked this blog, why not sign up to our monthly email to get more articles like this in your inbox!
