A thriving email list is an asset. It's a channel for building trust and rapport with your audience and a source for repeat purchases and customer advocacy. 

This guide outlines nine email marketing list-building strategies you can use to increase your company's reach, personalize customer interactions, and grow sales. 

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Why is building your email list important?

Email is an invaluable electronic communication tool for digital marketing teams. It can offer a reliable channel to deliver value, increase engagement, and reduce churn. 

Organically growing your email list can attract new subscribers and convert them into long-term customers. With powerful email marketing strategies and compelling incentives, you can leverage email to influence the buyer's journey.

What are the best email marketing list-building strategies?

Implement these strategies to build a thriving, valuable email list.

1. Put your copy to work 

Many businesses overlook the value of content that's already published on their website. This content can be remixed to build your email list. 

Companies build a rapport with their customer base by creating valuable content that demonstrates expertise, bolsters credibility, and encourages engagement. 

Putting your copy to work involves creating select content pieces — such as comprehensive guides, industry insights, or other resources — and offering them in exchange for an email signup. The content should be high-quality, optimized for SEO and social media, and feature strong calls to action (CTAs). 

This strategy offers the chance to get feedback from your customers — make sure to ask and review all replies that come in. You can also review content engagement and conversion metrics to know what's landing and refine your strategy further. 

2. Drive social media traffic

This strategy involves driving traffic from social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn to a compelling landing page designed to gather emails. 

Formats include contests, giveaways, lead magnets, and customer testimonials. Messaging should clearly and compellingly articulate the value of signing up. 

This strategy can be paired with incentives for advocacy, too. For example, after entering their email, a subscriber can be prompted to share the campaign or content on their social media channels. 

3. Create high-performing pop-ups and opt-in forms

Website pop-ups and opt-in forms can quickly turn visitors into subscribers. You'll need compelling copy and a clear value proposition. 

Crafting a high-performing email opt-in or pop-up form requires more than just a designer's eye. Site visitors may prefer a specific email sign-up form placement, phrasing, or timing, which you can determine through A/B testing. 

4. Optimize your lead magnets

Lead magnets and gated content provide countless opportunities to demonstrate value to your target audience and enhance your email list. 

Whether you promote a webinar, podcast, online course, or even a free e-book, the goal of lead generation is to provide real value in exchange for your audience's attention and email address.

Promoting any lead magnet requires compelling language and a strong call to action. Demonstrate the lead magnet's value by highlighting the pain points it addresses, the goals it helps customers achieve, or the knowledge customers gain through participation.

5. Develop email referral programs

An email referral program uses a similar approach to the social media sharing method above — only, the activity happens directly in inboxes. These referrals are powerful tools that can lower unsubscribe rates, improve deliverability, and increase open rates and click-through rates.

Personalizing the referral process can help existing customers feel recognized while creating a positive first impression on new customers and potential customers. Using social proof is often effective in encouraging referrals.

6. Leverage on-site notifications 

What if your business could create a connection before customers sign up and manage an email subscription? 

On-site notifications are a way to deliver marketing messages to website visitors. This channel can complement building your email list. 

An on-site notification can look like a little bell that appears near the top of your site, typically across a banner. The symbol should feature an unread notification that contains messaging about submitting an email address. Companies can also use these notifications to push new products or services, advertise a rewards program, or invite further customer interactions. 

7. Advertise contests and giveaways

Introducing a contest, giveaway, or other form of gamification into your email list-building practices can be effective.

Creating relevant, high-performing contests and giveaways is a tried-and-true method, and the formula is usually the same. You can take these contests to another level with some creativity and clever marketing. 

One example of a high-converting contest is to have participants sign up for an account and create a wishlist of desired products. Winners would receive certain items on their wishlist, and each account created would provide valuable data for tailoring your services to consumer preferences.

8. Integrate convenience at checkout

Customers who complete a purchase on your website represent a successful conversion, but they may not be a part of your email list — yet. Encouraging customers to create an account during checkout encourages an ongoing relationship with your business.

You can promote email sign-ups at checkout by offering benefits like exclusive discounts and deals. Customers may also value the ability to track an existing order, earn rewards, or sign up for alerts about new product releases.

Combining purchase data with subscriber data offers many opportunities for smarter marketing campaigns — you can share more relevant offers based on what a segment of customers likes to buy. 

9. Maximize industry relationships and cross-promotion

The key to cross-promotion is aligning your company's values with those of a similar brand. 

These partnerships are inevitably industry-specific and require a mutual understanding between companies. However, sharing resources to attract customers can result in greater engagement from interested communities, which increases both companies' subscriber count. Businesses can even tap into new markets or niches that drive sales and company growth. 

The bottom line

Expand your email list to maximize your marketing efforts, improve e-commerce sales, and increase customer engagement. The email marketing list-building strategies above can help you turn a small, loyal base of customers into a thriving community of long-term clients. 

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