Building an Opt-In Email List 101
For anyone involved in online marketing, building an email list is crucial. However, due to recent laws designed to protect consumers from unwanted emails, an email list is only legal if it is “opt-in”, meaning the person receiving the email has to give consent to receive mass emails from you.
Here are some tips on building that opt-in email list quickly and effectively:
Make it as easy as possible
The main page of your website should have a sign-up form. This form should have a box to enter an email address and agree to receive emails from you. If you have an e-commerce site where a customer will be checking out, include a checkbox during the checkout process for customers to sign up and receive emails from you. If you are planning to use a third-party email service provider to handle your email list, make sure they provide code or HTML that you can insert to your site to include this opt-in box for you automatically.
Privacy is key
Make it clear to your users that their privacy will be respected. Email privacy is at the heart of most email regulations. Ensure the comfort of email subscribers by letting them know that you will not be sharing their information with anyone, and you will only be sending them emails as described. If you can, try to provide email frequency information for them, so they know what to expect from you.
Plan a giveaway
Contests are great ways to generate interest in an email list. Announce that you are giving away a prize to email subscribers in the coming weeks. Advertise it in every avenue you have available to you. This will help bring in new subscribers and give you additional exposure.
In addition, you don’t even need to run a contest. Have a free report or ebook available that anyone can download if they subscribe to your email list. This is a very successful model. Then include a link to download the report once they confirm their subscription. Again, most email service providers have the ability to do this automatically for you.
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