How to Create Your Email List
In this day and age of stringent privacy laws such as GDPR, it is advisable not to buy bulk email lists. These lists can be outdated and may result in recipients marking your emails as spam. Instead, build your email list over time.
Broadly speaking, there are three ways to build your email list:
Events
Events are the traditional way of collecting email addresses. You can set up booths at venues and attract visitors to your booth and capture their contact information. Collect business cards or have a paper/digital sign-up form.
Social Media
If your brand has a high follower count on social media, leverage this audience to build your email list. Engage your followers with compelling content and offer access to exclusive content like templates and e-books in exchange for their email addresses. Conduct seasonal contests for which email verification is necessary. Use relevant hashtags to promote these contests and expand the reach of your content beyond your followers.
Web forms
If you don’t have a website for your business, start by creating one. Place opt-in forms on your website where website visitors can enter their information to access resources or to register for a product demo. To get visitors to sign up on a web form, offer incentives like eBooks, case studies, free webinars, discount coupons, etc.
Having an “enter your email address” field on the form is not enough. Your recipient must agree to receive communications from you. A best practice is to give them the option to choose the frequency of email communications from your business. You can also request the type of content that would interest them, say promotional emails, product updates, blog articles, etc.