5 Questions to Ask Before Building an Email List

Inarguably, emails have the best engagement rates, and a healthy email list is one of the most valuable resources of an organization. However, businesses continue to explore the best ways to build a list of quality subscribers. Here are a few questions you might want to ask yourself before attempting one.

  1. What is the cost of time and effort?

Building a list of emails that form your core audience is easier said than done. It involves both time and money. But, if you are already pressed for time, this can be a challenging mission to accomplish. The process requires the right set of thought, creativity, and content to persuade users to subscribe.

  1. What is the return?

Despite putting in your best efforts, if the list you built is not going to recoup for your efforts, then, Re-think! After all, every business is here to make a profit. If your requirement to build the list is not yielding favorable results, then you better do away with it.

  1. Is this an Ad-hoc requirement?

“Is this list going to be used often?” or “Is it for a specific purpose?” The answers to these questions will help you decide if you need to build your own list. If you are planning to use the list often enough to justify your investment of time and money, then it is time for you to get started.

  1. What is the quality of the list?

It is possible to build a long list of email IDs by employing various techniques like blogging, contest, pop-us, giveaways, etc. but the quality of these subscriptions matter too. Are you able to generate subscriptions from the right set for you to call it a reliable resource? If you are looking at acquiring a niche audience, quality is the primary factor to consider.

  1. Will it be updated and maintained?

It is important to keep a list, but more important is to keep it. You need to set aside time to frequently update and maintain the list. It is advised that email lists are refreshed once in three months. Another reason to remove inactive subscribers is the cost-saving on email service provider fees.

Email Data Group, a pioneer in B2B and B2C mailing lists, provides tele-verified email addresses of prospects from your target markets. Our data is segmented based on industry type, location, title, SIC code, etc., to suit your requirements. Contact us at 800-710-4895 or Email us at info@emaildatagroup.net to build a fantastic, customer-centric email marketing program.

Best Practices for Building an Email List

  1. Define your target audience

The key to building a high-quality email list is to understand your audience. There are various methods to gain insights into your audience’s interests including questionnaires, surveys, social media listening, website and competitor analysis, feedback forms, psychographic and cultural analysis, etc.
Frame an intense research process and cover different parameters that collect comprehensive information about your target audience. However, set the parameters that align with the goals and objectives of your campaign. Do not collect unnecessary data beyond compliance.

  1. Leverage your website to gain absolute consent

Your business website is the best source to gain direct consent from visitors. Provide valuable content in the form of blogs, and case studies and make the user visit your website. When a user visits the website, ask them for consent using pop-ups, notifications, newsletter subscriptions, and intent-based pop-ups to gain 100% consent from the visitors.
Websites are the easiest yet effective source to build a high-quality and compliant email list.

  1. Use a double opt-in process

Building a quality email list translates to collecting data that is valid and reliable. If the person is unsure about subscribing to your email list, then all the campaigns will reach the person who has no interest in your products/services resulting in reduced open rates.
Instead, use a confirmed opt-in process where users must confirm their email address after signing up. This helps in filtering out low-quality data and also helps to measure the accuracy of the campaign.

  1. Clearly state the value proposition of joining an email list

Clearly define the benefits and information a recipient will receive by joining your email list. An individual will subscribe for a long term if it aligns with their interests. By clearly stating the value proposition for signing up an email list, helps the intent of the campaign where your emails reach to the like-minded community.

  1. Classification of data

Generalized email lists lack quality and do not align with the objectives of every campaign. Segment the data as per the interests, behaviors, demographics, and other specific criteria that align with the objective of your campaign. A segmented email list is effective for targeted email marketing campaigns and allows personalization for each segmented target group.

Conclusion

Building a quality email list requires various parameters to be considered according to the objectives of the campaign. Usually, if businesses cannot invest in building an in-house database team, businesses opt for purchasing email lists from professional database vendors. We have gathered the best practices for building an email list. Let us know how these strategies worked for your email marketing campaign.

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Amy John is a marketing executive with over 12 years of experience in the execution of marketing and lead generation strategies.