The Importance Of Growing An Email List For Your Small Business

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Estimated reading time: 8 minutes

Find out why you should grow your email list and how your small business can greatly benefit from it.

Why Email List Is Important for Your Small Business

Why You Should Use Email Marketing

If you’re a business owner who’s new to online marketing, you might be wondering why you should consider email marketing. Most customers are already connected through social media, so why bother with email marketing?

Like everything else in your business, it is best to understand this strategy first before implementing it.

There is more to email marketing than creating your message and sending it out to your contacts. You will be able to maximize the benefits of email marketing when you know how to use it to your advantage.

Marketing via email allows you to be in control of the message you send out. It could be a marketing message for your customers in general or specific marketing messages for customers in the different stages of the buying process.

Through this strategy, you can deliver your message straight to your target audience’s inbox. These are the people who are more likely to make an impact on your business, and whom you should invest in.

It is important to understand the value of having a target audience and how email marketing plays a part in it.

What’s more, there are email marketing experts, such as Constant Contact that can help you be most effective with this strategy. They provide easy and affordable options for small businesses starting out or expanding their email marketing.

You can get your first month free with Constant Contact, then upgrade your plan to Email, which starts at $20 per month. If you’re looking to expand your usage, they also offer Email Plus, which starts at $45 per month.

Value Your Audience

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The fact that you are running a small business means you already have an audience. These are the people who show up at your store and events.

Don’t miss out on the chance to build relationships with your customers and prospects. Maximize the connection you’ve established by giving them an opportunity to stay in touch with your business whenever they’re away.

Sure, you can also do this by reaching out to your audience through social media. You can create your own business page on popular sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

The downside is, you don’t own your contacts in those social media pages — you’re only renting them.

The contacts that make up your fanbase through your social media pages are ultimately owned by the host site. Their rules control how you can send your messages and to whom you can send them.

Why You Need to Start Building Your Email List

On the other hand, when you build your email list, you create an email database that you own. It’s basically a distribution list that’s made up of people who are willing to learn more about what you have to offer.

One way to build your own email list is to actually give your customers and prospects an option to receive relevant information from you. That’s exactly what you’ll give them in the form of your targeted marketing emails.

With an email list of your own, you’ll have control over the message you send out. You can choose how and when you’ll communicate with your audience.

The great thing is, each email address on your list provides you access to your target audience’s inbox. This more or less ensures that the person receives your marketing message.

RELATED: How To Forward An Email To Separate Recipients

Why You Should Grow Your Existing Email List

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Having your own email list should not make you complacent, however. You should always find ways to grow your email subscribers.

An increase in your email list can also mean you are getting your message across to the right people.

By building relationships with them through your email marketing, you can influence them to become repeat buyers. In turn, the relevant offers and good customer service they receive will prompt them to spread the word about your business.

When you continuously grow your email list, you can keep your prospects and customers fully engaged. This means more opportunities to achieve top-of-mind awareness for a broader target audience.

This shows them you are there for them when they need your products and services. Your small business will also have more chances to go beyond the inbox and produce tangible results.

How to Build an Email List and Grow It

You can build and grow your email list when you consistently do these two things:

  • Cover your customer touch points
  • Remember to ask people

Signing up for your email list should be easy and uncomplicated. A best practice to follow is to make the opt-in form accessible in the places, or touch points, where people interact with your business.

You can have an online sign-up in your social media pages, on your website, or your blog. You can even give people an option to subscribe to your email list when they visit your store, your office, or your events.

Regularly covering your customer touch points will make it easier for you to add more people in your email list.

Another best practice is to always remember to ask people for their email address. While not everyone may be willing to share this, you will find that a lot of customers who seek you out would be glad to hear more from you.

Make this a habit so you can start building and growing your subscriber list.

One of the effective techniques you can apply is to offer an incentive when they sign up for your email list. It could be access to exclusive content or a coupon they can use for their next purchase.

Letting people know the content they can expect from you may also draw them to sign up for your email list, especially if it’s relevant to them.

Level Up Your Email Marketing

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Once you establish your email list and pull in more subscribers, you can start thinking of new ways to deliver your message.

Since you’re communicating to individuals who already have a favorable impression of your business, start building a deeper relationship with them.

One way you can do this is to learn what they’re interested in. You can run a quick survey in one of your emails to ask what kind of content they want to receive.

If you want a deeper insight into the members of your email list, start keeping track of how they interact with your emails. Demographic information can also help you streamline your message better.

Test out different content and run email campaigns so you can see how they respond to your messages.

When you aim to build a deeper relationship with your target audience, you’ll be able to learn their pain points. With this information, you can effectively position your business solutions to address their needs.

Planning of your content, their recipients, and the timing of their distribution will follow.

Not all businesses take the time to build and grow their email list. Targeted email marketing will give you an advantage over other businesses who only use rented platforms and contacts to reach their audience.

Watch how to build an email list in this video from The Deep End:

You can make email marketing work well for you when you invest time and effort in your audience. Take the first step to achieve this by building and growing your own email list.

This will open up more opportunities for other people to learn more about your small business. Soon enough, you’ll go beyond their email inbox and produce tangible results.

What steps are you taking to build and grow your own email list? Share them with us in the comments section below.

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