Business

How to build your email list for maximum customer growth

By The IFTTT Team

February 19, 2024

How to build your email list for maximum customer growth
  • If you're like most of us, you often open your inbox to a slew of pesky emails from brands you follow.

    Despite being occasionally bothersome, these emails are remarkably efficient in persuading individuals to explore a novel product or service provided by any given company. Additionally, if you are interested in growing your own company, crafting an effective email list is a must.

    This guide will cover the steps to create an effective email list that can generate website traffic without appearing excessive or spam-like. To capture attention, it is best to send promotional emails that are both appealing and concise, thereby reducing the need for a large volume of emails.

    Don't worry, we'll go over exactly how to achieve this.

    To finish, we will introduce IFTTT, our automation service that can make manually editing your email list a thing of the past. In a few clicks, you can see why we are a trusted platform for millions of worldwide users, (plus, we're 100% free to get started.)

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    Why should I build an email list?

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    The simple answer is this: email marketing is essential for engaging your target audience and customer base. An effective email list strategy will lead to more conversions, more sales, and ultimately a larger ROI. Plus, it's significantly cheaper than traditional forms of advertising!

    By building up your list, you are better able to track user data and trends. This allows you to customize your emails more accurately, reaching specific customer segments that are most likely to buy your product or service.

    The data doesn't lie: users on average spend 138% more on a product when marketing emails are used, in comparison to when no emails are sent.

    Understanding how email marketing works

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    Email marketing works well because the majority of potential customers check their inboxes daily. So when your brand's name pops up, it gets the user thinking of your products even if they don't immediately buy them.

    For example, when a customer subscribes to your email list and provides their information, you can send them emails related to your product or service. It's important to craft messages that will draw attention and inform the customers about what's new with your company.

    Here are the milestones of building your email marketing campaign:

    Building an email list: The first step in email marketing is building an email list. This list should consist of people who have expressed interest in receiving emails from your business.

    Segmentation: Once you have an email list, the next step is to segment it based on various factors such as customer behavior, preferences, demographics, or purchase history. Segmentation allows you to tailor your message to fit the unique needs and interests of different groups within your audience.

    Creating the email: After segmenting your list, you need to create the email you want to send. This involves crafting a compelling subject line, engaging content, and a clear call-to-action.

    Sending the email: Using an email marketing platform, you can schedule and send your emails. These platforms also allow you to automate your email campaigns, so you can send targeted messages at the right time.

    Tracking and analyzing results: After sending the email, it's important to track and analyze the results. Most email marketing platforms provide analytics such as open rates, click-through rates, bounce rates, and conversions.

    Key factors in a good email marketing campaign

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    Creating a successful email marketing campaign involves several key factors. Here are some crucial elements:

    Know your audience: Understanding your audience is the first step to any successful marketing campaign. This knowledge allows you to create content that resonates with your subscribers and meets their needs.

    Quality content: The content of your email is what keeps your audience engaged. It should be valuable, relevant, and interesting to your subscribers.

    Personalization: Personalized emails tend to have higher open and click-through rates. This could be as simple as including the recipient's name in the greeting.

    Segmentation: Segmenting your email list allows you to send targeted emails based on specific criteria such as demographics, purchase history, or behavior.

    Measurement: Tracking metrics like clickthrough rate and conversion rate can help you understand what's working and what needs improvement.

    Steps to building the best email list possible

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    If you want to have the most optimized email list possible, the reality is that you will have better success using third-party apps than trying to manually research and add addresses. A huge factor in email list building is the concept of automation, which means that email lists can be built, edited, and analyzed all behind the scenes while you work.

    A note on automating email lists

    Automating your email list is a powerful strategy to streamline your email marketing efforts and maintain consistent communication with your subscribers. It involves using email marketing software or tools to automatically send emails to your subscribers based on specific triggers or schedules.

    An excellent tool to get started automating your email lists is IFTTT. IFTTT is our free automation platform that lets you connect the apps and devices you already use, allowing them to work seamlessly together. With IFTTT, you can easily create automated tasks like sending emails when new users sign up for your email list or collecting user data to segment your email list. More on that later.

    Email list building steps for success

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    1. Create a clear value proposition: Before people sign up, they'll want to know what's in it for them. Make sure you clearly communicate the benefits of subscribing to your email list. This could be exclusive content, special offers, industry insights, or more.

    2. Set up a subscription form on your website: Your website is one of the best places to collect email addresses. You can place a subscription form on your homepage, blog page, or any other high-traffic page. Make the form simple and easy to fill out.

    3. Use social media: Promote your email newsletter on your social media channels to reach a wider audience. You can also run paid ads targeting your ideal audience to build your email list.

    4. Implement a double opt-in process: A double opt-in process requires new subscribers to confirm their email address before they are added to your list. This ensures that your email list only contains people who are genuinely interested in your communications.

    5. Use a tool like IFTTT to automate your email list: IFTTT is a great platform to set up automated tasks, such as sending emails when new users sign up for your list. You can also use it to collect user data and segment your email list by adding tags or categories.

    6. Regularly clean your email list: Over time, some people may stop engaging with your emails. Regularly cleaning your email list, by removing these inactive subscribers, can help improve your engagement rates and deliverability.

    7. Respect privacy laws: Always ensure you're compliant with privacy laws like GDPR and CAN-SPAM. Be transparent about how you will use subscribers' information and always provide an option to unsubscribe.

    Automating email lists with IFTTT

    IFTTT is one of the cheapest and simplest solutions on the market to keep your email list up-to-date and clean.

    With IFTTT, you can automate the process of collecting data from user signups, segmenting your email list, and much more. Read on to hear about our mission and the top picks for automations to use for your email list.

    What is IFTTT?

    IFTTT, an acronym for "If This Then That," is our free web-based service and mobile app designed to boost productivity by automating tasks. It works by creating connections between popular apps and services, allowing them to work together seamlessly.

    The basic idea behind IFTTT is to create "applets" or sets of instructions that trigger when certain conditions are met.

    Founded in 2011, IFTTT has been used by over 25 million individuals to automate both business and home tasks, saving time and increasing efficiency. It's commonly used to connect disparate services and systems, making all products and services work well together in a way that instills user confidence. Best of all, it's free and only takes a couple of minutes to set up.

    Top Applets for creating the best email list

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    Import Leads from Google Sheets to Mailchimp

    Subscribe new Google Ads leads to a Mailchimp list

    Get a Notification For Jot Form Submission

    Validate an email address in TuxMailer when a new contact is added in Google Contacts

    Browse our entire library of Applets here, including our new AI tools. Remember, signing up for IFTTT is completely free and only takes five minutes.

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