Lead Generation and Why Your Email List Matters

A woman walks outside, looking at her phone with a smile on her face.

Getting in front of your customers, both potential and actual, can be a struggle. 😞 If you’ve ever poured time and resources into crafting a social media strategy and had almost nothing to show for it, you’re not alone. Despite all the options for businesses on platforms like TikTok and Instagram, the algorithm isn’t always kind.

But there’s good news: you have at your disposal a marketing tool that has a much better chance of success and you have control over it, unlike the algorithms controlled by the fickle social media gods. Let’s talk about why your email list should be the backbone of your marketing outreach.

Why building your email lists matters

If you aren’t currently sending out a newsletter (or you are but haven’t done much with it), you might think that your email list doesn’t really matter. But the truth is, it’s one of the few avenues by which you can communicate with folks who might want to buy from you without having to trust some external system to be on your side.

Ownership and control

You own your email list, which makes it an invaluable resource for finding new customers and advertising to folks who have bought from you before. Social media followers might feel like a similar resource, but you don’t own your follower list. In fact, if a social media platform decides to shut down your account, you may have no way to ever recover that list. ❌ That’s a lot of information and work lost forever.

The unfortunate truth is that social media platforms don’t have to explain when they decide to shut down an account, and they don’t always give users ways to appeal or dispute the decision. We’ve seen a lot of folks lose large followings for no apparent reason, and they’re left trying to rebuild from the ground up.

There’s also visibility: you can do a lot of research to figure out the best time to post on social media for your intended audience, and many platforms allow you to pay for ads that will be served to folks who fit your ideal clientele. However, there’s no guarantee that the people most likely to buy will see your post. The algorithm may not choose to show it to them, or they might just not use the platform that day or scroll far enough to see it. It’s a game of chance. 🎲

With email marketing, you know that your email will get to their inbox (unless it gets caught in a spam filter, but that’s another topic altogether). Now, there’s the possibility that your recipients will delete it without opening it—or, if they’re like Valerian copywriter Amy, they might have nearly 2,000 unread emails in their personal inbox 😳—but the delivery has a much higher likelihood than social media posts.

Customer engagement 🤝

Frequent communication and points of contact with your audience are good for business. People tend to forget when they haven’t interacted for a while, so staying in front of your ideal audience is an important part of staying at the front of their mind when they need something from you.

If you’re wondering what you would even email your list about, consider: new products, educational materials like tutorials or how-to articles, future plans and goals, sharing stories to make people feel connected, sale announcements, or a list of recent blogs. All these items might not be interesting to every customer, but even if someone skims your email, they’re more likely to engage than if they hadn’t gotten an email from you at all.

Customization

Email lists are typically stored in a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system, and these platforms allow you to sort and organize your list in ways that a social media followers list cannot. You can analyze behaviors like open and click-through rates or perform A/B testing to perfect your approach.

This kind of organization isn’t just useful in analyzing customer behavior, they also allow you to send more targeted communications to segments of your list. This might look like sending out a discount offer to people who haven’t purchased from you yet or sending an email letting folks who have purchased a certain product know that you’ve made improvements.

Tailoring your email communications to customer habits and demographics can mean better conversion rates. 📈

Lead nurturing 🌱

Your website is doing its best to get people to buy your services or products—or at least it should be!—but not everyone will be willing or able to purchase right away: they might lack the funds or they may simply need to collect more information before they make a purchase. However, letting them leave your website without prompting them to make some kind of connection may mean that they never make it back to you. 

While you’d ideally like people who visit your site to purchase from you, that doesn’t mean it’s the only thing you can ask of them. If folks aren’t ready to make a purchase for whatever reason, asking for their email address and a couple of personal details can make a huge difference and open a pathway for you to move them closer to conversion into a paying customer.

When comparing giving an email address to making a purchase, a lot of people will be willing to take this smaller step in hopes that they will still get something of worth from you. You can make it worth your while by creating campaigns that nurture them as customers.

How to get people to sign up 🤩

Although it can sometimes be as easy as just asking, it’s a good idea to also make signing up for your email list attractive. Absolutely have that sign-up form in your footer or somewhere on your site, but consider adding some secondary CTAs with a bit more oomph behind them!

Incentivize the in-group

If you can make your email list feel like an exclusive club, you’re on your way to success! 😎 People get a lot of emails in their inbox every day, and everyone has a different threshold for what makes signing up for a new list worthwhile. 

One way to make your list worth it to folks who might have a higher threshold is to use email signups to unlock desired resources like PDFs, product trials, blog content, discount codes, or early access. Think about what you offer (or could offer) to folks for a low cost and then consider replacing that cost with joining your email list. If you have some well-thought-out pathways and email campaigns, it will be well worth the exchange!

Make sure these offers are present throughout your site and other marketing materials. Don’t come up with a really great lead generation strategy and then hide it in one single place on your site. 🔍 Remind people of what you’re offering and give them a lot of opportunities to get it.

Prove your worth ⚖️

Some people may hesitate to sign up for your email list if they think you can’t deliver high-quality content. This is one of the reasons why we think good, strategic blogs are a must for businesses. Your longer-form content will prove that you can supply great insights and make your newsletter or mailing list more attractive.

Don’t get greedy

There’s a temptation to ask for too much information in an email sign-up. Sure, ideally you’d love to know their name, location, age, interests, how they found you, what products or services they’re interested in, etc. But each question you ask adds a barrier that people have to overcome. If you ask one too many things, your form is going to be abandoned and you’ll get nothing.

We recommend you ask for an email address (something they’ll be expecting to give you since they’re signing up to receive emails) and their first name. (To stay on the right side of ever-changing legal requirements, you’ll probably also want to have them check a box for agreement to your privacy policy.) This probably doesn’t feel like much, but you’re just trying to get your foot in the door, not learn everything about them.

To optimize, make sure that your form is easy to use and works correctly. Keep the form brief, and avoid trying to upsell with intro text or an over-the-top thank you message. If you decide to have them confirm their sign-up by clicking a link in an initial email, make the text of that email incredibly brief and to-the-point. In all, if they’ve decided to give you their email address, make it as frictionless as possible. 😌

The work begins once you have their name and email: you can create drip campaigns and special offers to draw them closer or incentivize sharing more information. Don’t try to make that initial sign-up form do more than it’s meant to. 

Was it worth it?

There are three things that really matter in making people glad they joined your email list: quality, timeliness, and personalization.

You may feel tempted to not really give any quality content away for free, but it’s actually a great business move to offer some of your best stuff for free. ✨ If you offer lackluster content in exchange for personal information like name and email address, people will probably feel like your interest in them only reaches their wallet. On the other hand, if you give them something that is actually useful or educational, they’re more likely to feel positively about you and return when they need something else. 

If you promised some kind of reward for signing up, make sure that comes in a timely (if not immediate) manner. You don’t want people to come away with a bad taste in their mouth, feeling like you tricked them into signing up and then they had to wait around for the thing they wanted. ⏲️ This is a place where automations become really important for your business. Don’t make it something that you have to deliver personally; instead, set up automations that will send the email, download, or scheduling link right away so that you can take full advantage of the momentum you’ve built.

Finally, use that second bit of information you gathered! Open the email with a greeting addressed to them personally, or include their name in the subject line of the email. It’s not likely that anyone will believe that you really sat and personally wrote to them and only them, but a little touch of personalization still goes a long way in catching their attention and making them feel like you care.

🌿

Your email list is easy to overlook or underestimate, but it’s a crucial component of some of the most impactful marketing you can do as a business. If you haven’t been building a list—or you have one and haven’t been making much use of it—we can help! Whether it’s website integrations, CRM setup, or even the content itself, we’ve got you covered.

Schedule a consultation if you want to start making that email list work for you!

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Next Steps: Sync an Email Add-On

To get the most out of your form, we suggest that you sync this form with an email add-on. To learn more about your email add-on options, visit the following page (https://www.gravityforms.com/the-8-best-email-plugins-for-wordpress-in-2020/). Important: Delete this tip before you publish the form.
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This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.