An Ultimate Guide to Creating a Business E-mail List

Marketing constantly evolves. It’s all about the marketplace tendencies. Ten years back, no online marketer was using e-mails as a marketing strategy. Today, e-mail lists are one of the most profitable resources of any possible offline or online business. E-mail marketing has truly evolved, and so have the tools that complement this trend.

Many successful webmasters and online marketers state “the money is in the list”. And they are right. They understand that e-mail lists are powerful weapons for creating a better revenue stream and for improving the company’s overall brand awareness. In order for any e-mail marketing campaign to be successful, there must be engagement between you and your e-mail subscribers. During this article we’ll examine the benefits of creating and maintaining an e-mail list. Moreover, we’ll present eight smart strategies for keeping your subscribers engaged.

Five Benefits of Having an Engaged E-mail List

The benefits of maintaining an efficient e-mail list are quite significant for your business. Let’s take a quick look at what it means to have a responsive e-mail list:

1. E-mails Constantly Grab Attention

If your subscribers are genuine, and that means that they’ve actually opted in your e-mail list on their own, they’re going to enjoy receiving relevant content on a consistent basis. Whenever you send an attention grabbing e-mail title, which contains awesome content, you are improving your long term relationship with your subscribers.

2. High Engagement Means More Trust & Professionalism

When your readers notice that you’re dedicated and active, they’ll gain more trust and perceive you as a trustworthy entity in your field of activity. When there is more trust, your sales activity will get an impressive boost.

3. Engaged List = Powerful Feedback

The feedback you’ll get will often set you on the right track. Without it, you can’t figure out where you’re going wrong, and you can’t really know what there is to be improved. By having a responsive and engaged e-mail list, you’re making sure that you’re receiving quality feedback every time you ask for it.

4. More Traffic

When you capture your subscribers’ attention, you are improving the chances of them sharing your content across social media platforms. Your e-mails could contain a link that leads to an article published on your blog. If they like what they see, they’ll share it around and improve your brand’s awareness big time.

5. More Sales

Let’s not forget about the main purpose of an e-mail list. Selling through the use of e-mail lists is a widely spread practice that many marketers use. When there’s more traffic and subscribers, you automatically get more sales. It’s a type of numbers game, but there’s one factor that can influence everything, and that’s the engagement of your list.

Three Steps to Create an E-mail List

1. Choose an E-mail Service

The first thing you have to do is decide what e-mail service you’re going to choose. There are many free and paid options out there like MailChimp, ConstantContact, AWeber, etc. Choosing one service best suited for you shouldn’t be a difficulty. According to your list needs, which include the number of subscribers and the type of content you’re going to send, you should select one of the specialized e-mail software.

2. Choose Your Content Type

Before even attempting to send e-mails to subscribers, decide what type of content you’re going to consistently send. It could be updates about new blog posts, exclusive offers, exclusive tips, and so on. You can also segment your list and allow your subscribers choose the content they want to receive. Do not ignore this process, as it’s going to influence your marketing campaign big time!

3. Start Promoting your List

An e-mail list can be promoted in lot of ways. You can use your website, blog, social media profiles, and also use paid advertising options. That means create an established budget and spend it in order to directly promote your e-mail list or blog.

Eight Strategies to Improve Your E-mail List’s Engagement Rate

There are certain strategies that will help you keep the engagement rate high. It’s best if you actually start applying the strategies instead of just learning them and keeping them on hold.

1. Consistent Schedule

In order to improve your e-mails open rate, you should decide specific timeframes in which you will consistently update your audience with content. If they know when to expect it, it is more likely that they’re going to open the e-mails and consume the information.

2. Choose the Right Frequency

You don’t want to spam your list, but you shouldn’t neglect them either. In order to hit the perfect balance, you must go through a trial and error process. Your goal is to find out the best number of e-mails per week/month. It all depends on your list, it’s up to their choice and you must adapt.

3. Give a Lot of Value

Engagement rate is extremely tied to the quality of the content you provide. It’s obvious that if the person is not receiving good tips that actually produce changes; no one would care about what you’re saying anymore. In order to prevent that, make sure that your content is extremely relevant and useful.

4. Make Your E-mails Impeccable

Clean, professional, and properly designed e-mails make a much better impression. You can optimize them yourself, or you could outsource the services.

I’d suggest the second option, as there are many professional services marketplaces such as NinjaEssays, Upwork, and Fiverr. There you’ll find lots of professional freelancers, who can design, edit, proofread, and optimize your e-mails; and they’re also real cheap. Check writing services reviews and choose the most suitable company.

5. Constantly Ask for Feedback and Suggestions

Besides the huge advantage of knowing what your list wants from you, asking for feedback is going to improve the relationship with your subscribers. You’re letting them know that you care about their needs, so they’ll be genuine and help you with productive feedback and answers concerning almost anything.

6. Create Real Connections

If you are keeping your list engaged, you get the opportunity to create loyal followers and subscribers. These people can always turn into powerful connections. Some may be doctors; some may be investors…who know? Make sure that you network in your spare time and create some real connections.

7. Segment Your E-mail List

Segmenting your list means separating all your subscribers according to specific characteristics. For example, if you have a pregnancy blog, you should send personalized e-mails depending on their pregnancy condition. Some soon-to-be mothers will be in their third month, some will be in their seventh. The tips are different, so segmenting your list is the best way you can make sure that your e-mails are relevant to all of your list’s members.

8. Exclusive Offers

What better way of stimulating your followers other than offering them discounts and exclusive deals? Promise them exclusive content and/or coupon discounts. They’ll have to join a specific channel (such as Twitter Profile, or Facebook group) in order receive the exclusive information.