Email marketing is a vital tool for businesses, and can make a huge difference in your yearly revenue collection. Companies worldwide use email marketing to great positive consumer response. In fact, 44% of email recipients say they made at least one purchase last year based on a promotional email. Of course, in order to make full use of email blast marketing, you need to have an email list from which you can pull (in addition to following some general rules for email blasts).
Investing the time to grow your email list is worthwhile to a business owner. The more email addresses you have, the more likely you will grow your business through email marketing. In this post we will break down the different ways to collect email address to grow your business’s email list.
Related: Email Marketing for Small Business Owners (free eBook)
How to Collect Emails In-Store
If you own a brick-and-mortar location, one of the best and easiest ways to collect email addresses is when customers are already interacting with your company at your store! By cleverly connecting with your customers while they are physically available to you, you can collect a lot of email addresses. But in order to do so, you need to proactive about. There are many ways you can tweak your store for email address collection. Here are some examples.
One simple and low-key method is to set up a fishbowl with a free offer from your business. Encourage people to drop their business cards into the fishbowl in exchange for a chance to win. An in-store promotion or raffle is a good option to do, either regularly or centered around holidays or special events. Depending on your target customers, you may want to offer pre-provided entry cards for people who might not carry around business cards.
A suggestion box or comment cards with a space for name and email address is another way to collect email address in store. This serves not only as an opportunity to collect useful customer feedback, but also lets you reap valuable email addresses for your list. Make sure that you follow-up with the customers who fill out your forms and thank them for their feedback.
As customer check out at the register, ask them if they’d be interested in signing up for your email list in order to receive special news and promotions. Another great technique is offering to send customers’ receipts via email. This is particularly popular in tech-savvy stores who’ve made use of iPads. Not only do you get more email addresses, but you save paper. It’s an eco-friendly win-win for both you and your customer! Before sending out mass emails to these customers, however, be sure to brush up on email marketing laws for small businesses so you’re not spamming customers.
How to Collect Email Addresses at Events
Networking is an essential part of building wealth. Similarly, networking is a great way to build your email address list. Networking is an important aspect to growing any business, so take advantage of social situations by promoting yourself.
Hand out business cards and collect email addresses in return. Be sure to follow up on all your new connections with a “nice to meet you” email with a great subject line that indicates that the email is a personal communication and not spam. For the best networking email writing strategies, check out our post on networking and introduction emails.
Collecting Addresses at Trade Shows and Expos
Trade shows and expos are excellent venues for promoting your business and great for collecting email addresses. You’ll be able to interact at once with other businesses and new customers. While trade shows and events are becoming more and more high-tech, with so many attendees, WiFi can often be unreliable. Online survey and information collecting apps are useless when the Internet connection breaks. Don’t risk losing out on dozens of potentially valuable contacts.
How can you collect email addresses at events? Probably the single best way to collect email addresses at trade shows and expos is through offline means. One great method is to set up an offline form or survey that will store contact details safely on a mobile device. This device will work without an Internet connection and will keep data safely stored for future use.
Another clever idea is to host a contest or raffle at your booth. You can do another fishbowl type of scheme, or run a contest that requires contestants to provide certain information; primarily a name and phone number.
Collecting Emails from Your Website
Your company’s website is the foundation of your online presence and essential for a business to grow. If you’re like many modern day businesses, you may not operate offline at all. Building your email list should be a top priority for your business and your website is a great vehicle for doing so.
How to collect email addresses on website? You have many options. One popular option is to use a call-to-action to encourage visitors to provide their email address. You can do this through the use of contact forms, appointment request forms, or popups. Give visitors an incentive to sign up. One great way to incentivize visitors is to offer a special coupon when they sign-up for the newsletter. A 10 to 25% discount code will not only snag you an email sign-up, but will also serve as a call-to-action, encouraging your new visitor to make a purchase form your website.
Collect Email Addresses Using Social Media
Social media platforms are great venues for collecting email addresses growing your email list. Over 90% of consumers check their email every day, making it more likely that your target audience will see your emails before your your social media posts. That’s why it’s well worth it to move social media fans and followers to your email list.
To collect email addresses from social media, set up a simple email sign-up button on all your social media channels. Use an image to create a call to action tab to entice people to click and subscribe. Popular email marketing platforms, like ThriveHive, MailChimp, and Constant Contact, also offer email-sign up options.
Social media channels are also a great place to promote the incentives for email sign-ups offered on your website. A discount, exclusive content, free sample, special thank you, or a coupon are all incentives your business can share on your social media platforms.
Another option is to host webinars to gain subscribers to your email list. Advertise your webinar on Facebook, Twitter, and anywhere else you post actively. Use this list of email addresses, belonging to people clearly interested in your business, to perfect your email blasts.
Growing Your Email List with Content Downloads
Many businesses create premium content for their followers and subscribers. It’s a way to promote your own products while simultaneously offering your customers valuable VIP material. From eBooks to infographics and long form articles, there is a limitless array of content you can offer.
Of course, don’t offer this content willy nilly. Gate each piece of content with a sign-up form landing page. With such forms, visitors simply spent 10 seconds filling out their name and email address in order to unlock the content. You get another email for your list, and they get access to your exclusive content. In the end, everybody walks away with more.
Now that you know how to collect email address to grow your email list, get to it! Remember to follow up with introduction emails and email newsletters promoting your business. For more help with email marketing, download our free eBook below:
