In the past, the concept of an email list would have sounded somewhat familiar to you. You might have heard of “email marketing” or “e-blast” or “spam”, and rightfully so: those are all forms of email lists, and the reason you know them is because they are fairly easy to create and maintain. Unfortunately, as the ways we communicate change, so do the methods used to grow and retain an email list. To truly understand how to use an email list to its fullest potential, it is important to take a step back and understand the basics of email marketing before diving in.
Why Email Lists Are So Useful
Before we begin our email list tutorial, it is important to establish the reason why you would want an email list in the first place. As we discussed in greater detail in our h1 title, using an email list allows you to target your ideal customer and encourage them to take action (i.e., make a purchase). An email list isn’t just a place to collect names and addresses, as most people think; it is a tool that, when used correctly, can help you grow your business.
Keep these reasons in mind as you go through this email marketing tutorial, which will teach you how to get the most out of your list.
What Is Email Marketing?
Simply put, email marketing is the process of sending commercial messages to people through email. Although the term might sound somewhat vague, it covers a fairly large scope. It can simply mean sending an email to a list of customers to remind them of your business or offer them special discounts or deals. However, with so much competition, the lines between personal and professional often blur, and businesses that specialize in email marketing can get pretty creative.
What Is Email List Building?
Depending on what you are trying to achieve, you might want to focus on building one type of email list or the other. To make it easier for you to understand, let’s discuss the two main types of email lists:
- Active Lists: These are the lists of people who have opted-in to receive your messages. When someone enters an email address into your form, you have now gained that person’s consent to send them marketing emails. They are not your entire list of potential customers, but they are a good place to start.
- Passive Lists: These are the lists of people who have opted-in to receive your messages, but have not yet acknowledged receiving them. When you send out a bulk email, it is reasonable to assume that a percentage of your audience will not recognize the brand, let alone remember it. When you send them a message, you are essentially nagging them to take action. Although you might consider this list to be the same as the Active List, the difference is that you have already taken the initial step of getting their attention.
How Do I Get My Hands On An Active Email List?
An active email list is fairly easy to get your hands on. All you need is a good email service and a form on your website that collects email addresses. One of the most popular services that allow you to build an active list quickly and efficiently is Aweber. You can set up an account with Aweber in less than five minutes, and once you have, you can start building your list.
To get started, click here to go to Aweber’s website. Once you are on their home page, click on the Get Started button to the right of the screen. This will take you to the quick start guide, where you can follow the instructions to create your first form.
How Long Does It Take For My List To Go Active?
Once you have a form set up on your website with a simple entry for email addresses, you can begin sending out emails to your list. However, you should not expect your list to change immediately into an Active List. As humans, we tend to be pretty slow to adopt new things, especially when it comes to changing our habits. So, you might have to wait for a while before you can meaningfully add new customers to your list.
What Type Of Content Do I Need To Send?
When you are just getting started, you might want to limit yourself to sending out information about your business and what you offer. For instance, you could send out an email with the heading “New Listing Alert!” followed by a brief description of what your website is about and a link to it. This will give your list a sense of urgency and hopefully make them want to action quickly. Just make sure that you keep things simple.
Are My Customers From All Over The World?
In the past, the world was a lot smaller, and email marketing was fairly limited in terms of reach. In 2019, with the advent of the internet, smartphone apps, and social media, everyone and their uncle is likely to be on the receiving end of an email marketing campaign. However, that does not mean that your target audience is limited to one geographical area. With online marketplaces and social media, people from all over the world can be your customers. Just remember that depending on your industry, your customers can live all over the place. So, it is important that you reach out to them globally.
How Do I Measure The Success Of My Campaign?
You can easily track the results of your email marketing campaign using Google Analytics. Simply log in to your account and make your way to the “Behavior” dropdown. From there, you can choose “Email marketing” and then choose a specific email marketing campaign that you ran. This will take you to a place that shows you the results of that particular email marketing campaign. From this point, you can choose to look at either the opening or the click-through rates of your messages.
There are many different metrics that you can choose from. If you want to learn more, simply choose an email marketing campaign and then click on the “Admin” tab at the top. This will take you to the Google Analytics dashboard, where you can see all the metrics for that particular email marketing campaign.
What About The Costs Of An Email List?
One of the main concerns that most business owners have when it comes to expanding their reach through email marketing is how much does it cost? There are a few different fees that you need to be aware of when it comes to creating and maintaining an email list. First, there is the initial setting up cost, which is one time only. Next, you will need to determine how much you are willing to spend on sending out emails to your list. There are several different services that you can use to send out emails for free, but you will need to look for one that has a good reputation and offers a suitable amount of storage for the number of subscribers that you have.