The reality is that email marketing databases naturally degrade by approximately 22.5% every year. This occurs for a variety of reasons – including contacts switching companies, getting rid of old email addresses, or opting out of receiving communications from your company. As such, a critical part of your marketing strategy has to be continuously adding fresh contacts to your email list to replace the ones you’ve lost.
Before we get into the six best practices for growing and replenishing your company email list, we first want to go over the two common mistakes that need to be avoided at all costs:
1. Don’t purchase an email list.
Purchasing an email list is considered spam, and it’s not the way to build a following. Because these lists don’t contain loyal customers and friends, they aren’t going to help you accomplish your company objectives in the long term.
2. Don’t send out emails without permission.
Make sure you’ve gotten your contacts’ permission to communicate with them before you begin sending out emails and newsletters. Otherwise, you can expect spam complaints, a decrease in your open and click through rates, and a damaged reputation.
Now that we’ve addressed the mistakes you’ll want to avoid, here is the right way to grow your company email list:
1. Leverage pop-ups.
Although many marketers feel that pop-ups are disruptive, they are actually a terrific way to grow your email list. A clean and sophisticated design that offers relevant, valuable content in exchange for the visitor’s email address has proven to be extremely effective in encouraging prospects to convert.
However, if you’re still wary of traditional pop-ups, we recommend a scroll-triggered CTA or an exit intent pop-up. A scroll-triggered CTA initiates when the reader is engaged and scrolling down the page. Rather than taking over the entire screen, it slides into view from the side. An exit intent pop-up initiates when users are about to leave your site to offer them a compelling reason to stay. In addition, you can customize your pop-ups in a variety of ways to ensure that they are less disruptive. For example, you can specify a delay or configure your pop-up to only appear once per session.
2. Try the sticky bar.
If you are completely against pop-ups, the sticky bar is the next best thing. It’s an opt-in bar that sticks to the top of the page and follows the visitor’s scroll. It’s much less intrusive than a traditional pop-up, but still encourages visitors to convert.
3. Use in-content subscribe boxes.
In addition to leveraging pop-ups and sticky bars, we recommend inserting subscribe boxes right in the middle of your blogs and articles. This reminds visitors to sign up for more content while they are engaged and clearly interested in the information you’ve already published. If you don’t want to disrupt the reader’s flow, you can also place this box at the end of the post.
4. Try the Twitter Lead Generation Card.
This option asks your company’s followers (and your competitor’s followers) to sign up for your newsletter or download premium content directly within a tweet. To be successful, your card should communicate the value prospects will receive after converting; an image that grabs their attention; and a simple and actionable CTA.
5. Share the link to your signup form everywhere
Link to your signup form and give visitors the option to “sign up for your newsletter” wherever possible – on every page on your website; in your email signature; in your “Contact Us” form; on your social media pages; and on your checkout page.
6. Reach out to your current customers.
If you already have a database of customers but they haven’t yet opted in to receive emails from your company, reach out and ask for permission to stay in touch. Simply send an email to these contacts; explain the benefits of signing up to receive regular updates, content, promotions, and invitations; and invite them to join your company newsletter.
Further reading:
Source: Why Cold Calling Doesn’t Work
HubSpot, Database Decay Simulation, https://www.hubspot.com/database-decay