Trying to Grow Your Permission Email List?

Trying to Grow Your Permission Email List?

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Trying to Grow Your Permission Email List?

If you just started your business, or if you just launched your own website, you most likely don't have a permission email list to send to. So how do you get one? You could always look into renting one but that process is highly frowned upon.

You are better off starting from scratch and growing your own.

Ways to grow your opt-in list:

1. Place your email newsletter signup form on your homepage. Make it quick and easy and only ask for information you need to begin.

2. Link to your signup form from every page of your website. By adding a link to your footer, or side navigation, it does not matter what page visitors are landing on.

3. Place a link to your email signup form in your email signature. The signature is an overlooked place for making contact with potential customers.

4. Add the link to your signup form in all the invoices your company sends. Just like the email signature, this is often overlooked.

5. Post free whitepapers or helpful articles on your site. There is a good chance they will get downloaded like crazy if you offer them for free, and with no registration. Then inside your whitepaper, place your own advertisement to your newsletter.

6. Be creative by offering free giveaways to a lucky subscriber. This can be a company shirt, hat, coffee mug or something really crazy. If you provide a service, offer special deals or discounts for that person once they join.

7. Send out personal, one-to-one emails to all your clients, and ask them to "please signup to your newsletter". Everyone is so busy these days, you just might refresh their memory about your business and what you are about.

8. Add a checkbox to "signup for our newsletter" anywhere on your website that someone will go to contact you.

Already have a fully grown permission email list?

If you already have a permission email list of customers that you have been using for another business then you just need to know how to use it properly. Just because they are already your customers in one regard, does not mean they want to start receiving your email newsletters for a new business.

If you just assume they would want your newsletter, and you subscribe them to your list without their permission, you're just going to irritate them. You could even be reported as a spammer.

If you have an e-commerce store, you are probably sitting on a very large email list of customers who have purchased something from you in the past. But if you have not emailed them anything in a long period of time, you shouldn't send them any emails out of nowhere. It does not take many customers to forget who you are and report your campaign as spam. That could lead to the worst of scenarios, being blacklisted.

What should you do in this situation?

It is pretty simple, but surprisingly few email marketers follow through. The excitement about sending out the first campaign is too great and they throw being polite out the window.

If you have a list of customer email addresses but don't have permission to start sending them your email marketing, just ask for permission.

This would be referred to as a "re-introduction email" and it can be very effective, while still remaining polite. Just create a personal note and write it like you'd write to a friend.

Bottom line, do whatever it takes to remind them who you are and how they got on your list in the first place. If you stick to this formula you should prevent them from mistakenly reporting you for spamming.

Another best practice to consider is called confirmed opt-in (COI), also referred to as confirmed subscription or closed-loop opt-in. The logic behind this practice is that no email newsletters are sent to anyone until that person has taken an action to indicate their desire to receive future email mailings from you.

With confirmed opt-in practices, you may end up with a smaller mailing list but the mailing list you will have will contain a much more engaged audience.

Use marketing automation with built-in permission protocols

Simplify your email marketing process with SimplyCast to grow your permission email list with applications like forms, landing pages, SMS marketing and more with opt-in protocols to ensure you have engaged, COI recipients. Sign up for a free 14-day trial today.

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