What is the importance of building an email marketing list?

Hi there. Building an email list is crucial for online marketing. The stronger a business’s email list, the less they are forced to rely on SEO, paid ads, and other difficult or expensive marketing tools as a source of traffic and income.

According to surveys, email marketing alone drives more than 35% of total sales online. Present-day marketing strategies for most online ventures, and even offline, depend a lot on email lists. Let’s discuss why that is.

In the recent years, there has been an increase in the number of companies that use email lists as a marketing tool. That does not surprise me at all. Assuming you are aware of the basics of email lists, what they are, the ways in which they can be built, etc., let’s glance over the five reasons why building an email marketing list is important:

1) Easy contact with prospects:

With an email list, you can easily reach a prospect at almost any time. Want to deliver a message about a new product you’re launching? Send an email to your list. Moreover, the prospect can also know about your company and its products at the time of his/her convenience. It’s not like with traditional advertising, which is drive-by and easily missed.

Obviously the effectiveness of this marketing tool depends on how well you craft the content of the email to engage the prospect and grab his attention. That said, email is far more convenient than the traditional methods of sales and marketing, and is incredibly rewarding for those who learn the skills involved and take it seriously. Like, I remember when I used to cold call prospects for companies. Most of the time, people didn’t listen to me, and why should they when I am contacting them sight unseen? With emails, the chances of a prospect to have a look at your offer, get to know your business, etc. are better because email is curated, private, and protected. The trust factor is much higher, and yet the barrier to entry of earning that trust is surprisingly low because email is integrated massively with our online lives. That is the perfect middle-ground through which you want to access potential customers.

2) Better ROI:

The successful implementation of email marketing, after you have a good email list, yields a better ROI than many other marketing methods. Several surveys suggest email list subscription is one of the most lucrative channels for customer acquisition.

3) Better focus on prospects:

There are many features that email marketing provides, beyond what you might first imagine. One such feature is segregation. You can separate the subscribers who have shown interest in different products, services, etc. based on the emails they open, the links they click, the manner through which they subscribed, and other trackable data, and accordingly pitch them and deliver better value to them via adding them to segments of lists, excluding recipients who aren’t relevant.

Recently, I have been experimenting with apps that notify me about  VIP prospects the moment they read my email, to perform a fast, relevant follow-up of my own accord, and start a real conversation. If you run a business with even just one employee or assistant, imagine setting them to be on a standby mode to respond through your email in this manner, and then direct those who respond to a phone call, skype call, etc. with you to close a deal. Put simply, email shouldn’t be treated as a generic list of the same kinds of people. Segment your subscribers by interests and importance to your revenue, and set up systems to interact with them accordingly.

4) Increases the number of return visitors to your website:

Pretty self-explanatory. Websites need regular visitors to be worthwhile. Everyone is working hard on this aspect, getting traffic, especially return traffic in the form of fans. You may somehow manage to get visitors to your website for the first time, but the next big challenge is to get those visitors back to the website again. The key to this is relationships. Sending emails can help you in this regard, building familiarity and giving people a chance to know, like, and trust you.

5) Higher monetization value:

A great email marketing funnel has a high rate of conversion than almost anything I’ve ever seen. You can monetize it by pitching multiple products at the same time, in different tiers of value and price, mostly on autopilot through the use of autoresponders. On a side note, be cautious and think about how your emails might come across. Sometimes pitching multiple products at the same time creates inconsistencies. For instance, once an email subscriber buys a certain product that they only need to buy once, such as an online course, I want that tracked so that they never get any emails asking them to buy it again, and instead get emails about how to make the most of the course. It’s incredible how many people who are passionate about email marketing and make lots of money with it, and yet they don’t do this when it could improve their sales for virtually no added effort.

Some entrepreneurs are of the notion that building lists take a lot of time, which distracts from other business activities. I partially agree with that. No doubt, list-building takes time (or a serious budget) but offers long term benefits. The times have changed, and now you can do that relatively quickly and for minimal cost, with a method like List Warrior(LW). Building an email list from scratch with a specialized method is like building a bridge, so you need not swim again and again to cross a river. Once it is done, be ready to reap the benefits.

In conclusion, email list building is of prime importance in the present era of digital marketing. If you don’t have a list, start building one. The basic tools are all free or cheap, and the tactics are pretty easy to understand.

Please feel free to reply if you have any questions.

Good Luck!

Thanks,

Cleo