Compass Rose Consulting

10 Do’s and Don’ts of List Building

By Donna Price, Marketing Strategist & Business Consultant

list buildingDo’s & Don’ts of List Building

**MOST IMPORTANT: DO Build a LIST. DON’T Rely on your social media platforms to be your list!!

Before I dive into the 10 do’s and don’ts it is critical that you understand that getting people FROM your social media TO your list is critical. You cannot count on the social media platform to be there. You can get kicked off the platform, or put in “jail” and losing access to your followers can be detrimental to your business. BUT when you move people FROM social media to your list through opt-ins, you are still able to engage with them.

Do’s:-

1. Provide the audience with lots of opt-ins: – Just because e-mail marketing is permission based, its not like that you cannot go creative in your list building techniques. Do try that it is easy for your subscribers to find the link on your home page or the other web pages. Your opt-in form should be short and precise. Also use a double opt-in list so that it will ensure that your customers really want to receive your mail.

2. Use segmented (via tags) e-mail list: – Its necessary that you reach out your targeted customers. Using demographics, customers likes and dislikes the mailing list can be divided. This will help you in targeting customers according to their interests. Always try to communicate in a manner that appeals them. Your existing opt-in list is the best source to expand your upcoming opt-in list.

3. Consider the 4C’s: – The matter you write should be Clear, Concise, Compelling and Customer-centric. The audiences are not interested in listening to your sales pitch. They need to save time, money and effort. Your content should be short and attractive enough to convince them to sign-up and also it must be useful and beneficial so that they are ready for more.

4. Connect via Social Media: – Use all other social-media to connect with the audience. It is the fastest and easiest way to build-up your list. Post your articles, free offers etc to your social media channels. Let your followers, connections, friends KNOW what you are doing and what you offer so that can connect to you via your email list. It maximizes your reach.

5. Keep your list private and clean: – Your list should be free of abusive content. You should not send something that would lose your customers trust. Use a list cleaner to get rid of any bad emails on your list. Having a recaptcha on your opt-in page can help with this.

Don’ts:-

1. Do not rent or purchase e-mail list: – As a responsible marketer you should not do this ever. To you it may seem as a time saving task but will decrease your status. Also it may happen that people won’t even open your mail. Always build your relationship from the start. Your audience should always be aware of what they are getting into.

2. Don’t forget to create a separate landing page: – a successful e-mail list building process requires a well-organized strategy. In this, creating a separate landing page is one of the important tasks. A separate landing page should be dedicated to your Opt-in form. Promote your free product or provide with some discount offer that will benefit your customers.

You can check out my different landing pages:

3. Don’t lose patience: – List Building and management can be a time consuming task initially. But, losing patience can prove to be a bad sign for you. Once you are into this process, you will surely come up with higher opening rates and remarkable responses. With all this you will enter into healthier and a successful marketing campaign. You have to provide VALUE to people. If your open rate is LOW then you need to look at what you are providing. What is the subject line, what does the article offer inside? Does it speak to your target market’s problem. Does it solve the problem?

4. Don’t kick off the replies: – Communication is a two-way process. So never send mails using donotrevert@etc.com etc. It doesn’t leaves a positive impact on the customers when they open their mails and especially when you are not a very renowned organization. Always be friendly and send mails with your company name. Always reply to people that email you. Do NOT have a no reply email. I just experienced this with a company the other day. They sent me an offer and the link didn’t work. I sent them an email and their reply was: “this account is not monitored, reach out to our support desk at this link….” It puts the customer in the position of going through many more steps to get to you. Not cool.

5. Don’t share irrelevant information: – The customers are not interested in reading what they dislike. Never show the information which is full of non-purpose ads or which is irrelevant to them. Only send the useful content to which is valuable to them so that they get attracted.

What is your first step in this?

Saying hello!! Always start with hello. It’s a relationship. So start building one — authentically.