Once you’ve created a website, you should think about ways to not only attract people to come back to your website, but also methods of getting them to return. Ultimately, the end game is getting a return on investment. The best method of getting people to keep their focus on you, is to build an email list. In this you’ll learn more about what it is, as well as reasons why you need to build an email list.
What is an Email List?
An email list is a group of email addresses that are gathered for marketing purposes. You can gather these by word of mouth, and ask people if they’d give permission to be added to an email list, or you can gather them through forms on your website.
You can either host your own email list software, or use a 3rd party email campaign service. The difference is that when you host your own email list on your web hosting, versus using an email newsletter provider, you manage everything. You may even run into slowing down your website, or being unable to email all of your subscribers, especially if your email list becomes quite large.
10 Reasons Why You Need to Build an Email List
An Easy way to reach a large group of people.
Email is important to people.
You can personalize your emails to people.
You control your list.
You can build trust with your list.
Email can be read on any device.
Easy and fast way to get people to buy.
Easy way to launch new stuff.
Easy way to get people to read your blog posts.
Easy way to interact with customers.
1. An easy way to reach a large group of people
There are well over 4 billion daily email users, so why not use email marketing? Like social media and your blog, it’s just another channel to potentially reach your audience. Also, the more your followers see you broadcast your messages, the more likely they’ll act on what you need them to do.
This coincides with the Marketing rule of 7. This rule basically states that it takes up to an average of seven times that a person sees a message, that will result in a purchase or other reaction. It makes sense to use multiple mediums for marketing, that way you increase your chances of people buying from you.
2. Email is important to people
Email is so important to people that 55% of people check their email some time before they go to work. This means if you’re scheduling your newsletter campaigns out,you probably want it to be sent when most of your email list is going to work. You may want to send out a survey to your list to determine when the perfect time may be, in order to send your newsletter.
3. You can personalize your emails to people
The great thing about sending out a newsletter is that you can personalize your email receiver’s experience. You can either utilize the newsletter provider tools to include the subscriber’s name or even use email segmentation. With segmenting your emails, you can send to specific subscribers that have indicated that they enjoy certain topics or products or interests more so than others.
4. You control your list
Aside from your website, your email list, you have 100% control over. This gives you the freedom to push content however you want, because people gave you the permission to send email their way. Their ears are already open to you, so all you need to do is press send after creating a newsletter.
Additionally, your email list can go anywhere with you. If you don’t like one newsletter service provider, then you can export your email list to another place.
5. You can build trust with your list
With each regular newsletter you send out, you can build your subscribers’ trust. It’s important to email them regularly, so you’re always in their ear, and they will eventually look for you over other places that don’t email as regularly.
6. Email can be read on any device
The beauty of email is that it can be read on every device, no matter how small or large. In fact, more than 50% of email newsletter campaigns are opened on a mobile device. Make sure your email newsletter template is responsive in design and even has a text only version. The more accessible your email is, the more people will open your newsletter.
7. Easy and fast way to get people to buy
Email lists are an easy and fast way to get people to buy, or do whatever you request them to do. In social media, when you post, it gets buried under everything out there, and time is not your friend. However, because email is important to a lot of people, and they usually check it often, your message will reach them on that method first.
8. Easy way to launch new stuff
Your email list is extremely interested in what you are selling, and it’s super easy to write a newsletter about your newest product launch, whether it's a product sold online or solely in brick and mortar stores. This is also a great time to collect data and feedback about how well your newly launched product is received.
9. Easy way to get people to read your blog posts
If you weren’t aware, you can get your email list to read your blog posts. All you have to do is tell them about it. That being said, if your email newsletter provider offers a type of RSS to newsletter campaign template, then you should utilize that. This type of template brings in some of your most recent blog posts, which means you can focus on writing a few paragraphs to your entire email list.
10. Easy way to interact with customers
Your email list is a great platform for interacting with your customers. With every email you send out, your subscribers can simply reply and send you an email. You could also ask for feedback and even host surveys.
In Summary
Now that you’ve learned some reasons why you need to build an email list, you should start on your own. In this case, there are plenty of newsletter service providers like: MailChimp, GetResponse, ActiveCampaign, Constant Contact, and more. As a note, MailChimp has a free forever account for up to 2,000 subscribers, which gives you some play room to learn.
If you already have an established email list and a newsletter campaign service provider, and haven’t been active, you should dust that list off and start scheduling out some newsletters. Try scheduling a newsletter out once a week at first.
