Email is by far the most effective way to market yourself online. And small businesses have noticed… 81% of small businesses use email as their primary way of acquiring customers. And that’s because the average return on investment for email is $32 for every $1 you spend. So with 100’s of billions of emails sent each day (269 billion each day in 2017) your first step is to get a good email list. That’s where this article can help you. In this post, I’m going to go over 5 ways to build an email list from scratch.

1. Collect up all your past and current clients. An easy way to build your list quickly is to collect up the email addresses of all your old and current clients. You may want to also include all prospect, those who didn’t make a purchase from you. This is simple, and most of the time you can generate a decent sized list in no time.
2. Use a signup sheet. If you have a brick-and-mortar establishment, then having a signup sheet at your front desk is a great free way to start collecting emails. This can work especially well for doctor’s offices. Just ask the person to add their email address when they sign in.
3. Do a giveaway. Advertising for a giveaway with the requirement of the person enter with their email address is a quick way to get a stream of new email addresses. The giveaway doesn’t have to be anything fancy, just something people feel is high enough value they wouldn’t mind handing over their email to enter for it. I’d suggest giving away something in your business, such as a product, service, or a gift certificate. This way you also know the people signing up for the giveaway are interested in your services.
4. Create a lead magnet. A lead magnet is something you’re willing to give away to someone for free in exchange for their email address. An example of this would be a free industry report or a free checklist. The person is then signing up to receive the lead magnet by giving you their email.
5. Collect up addresses from your email. Go through your email and collect up all the email addresses. You’d probably be surprised at how many emails you can come up with.
6. Create a custom CTA for each blog. If you have a blog, especially a high trafficked one, you can create a custom sign up form for in each blog post to collect your reader’s emails. When done right, this can really generate a steady volume of emails.
7. Use exit popups. Adding a popup to your website that displays when a person goes to leave your website is an effective way of collecting emails. You can pair this up with the giveaway or lead magnet to increase the reason someone would enter their email address.
8. Facebook ads. Facebook ads are a very effective way to collect email addresses. In fact, here at Gallagher Website Design, we have software we built that plugs into Facebook and allows the email address to be pre-filled on your signup form as well as notify you instantly when someone enters their info.
9. Buy a list. Although this requires a little cash buying a list can get you up and running in no time. Just make sure the list is quality and that it has the right demographics of your ideal clients.
10. Scrape emails. This one might not be the most ethical if not done correctly, but can be very effective when done right. Basically, you would use a tool or software to harvest email addresses from a list or website. Make sure before doing this that it’s legal in your country and locality.
11. Add a signup form on your website. Adding a newsletter sign up form on your website can be a simple way to start collecting leads. Although, it’s becoming sort of the norm so I would suggest adding something that makes them perceive your newsletter as very high value. This way they are more likely to sign up. An example would be a newsletter for “30 ways for 30 days on how to make $100 a day”.
12. Collect business cards. Here is another simple way to collect emails that not too many people are using. Ask people for their business card. Chances are they’re more than willing to give you their card. Then when you get back to your office, take down their email address from their business card so you can add it to your email list.

If you have any question about how to get started or want some more specifics on any of the above points I mentioned, use our free evaluation link below.

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