Starting your email marketing journey: essential tips for creating a mailing list from scratch

You've just launched your business but are looking to establish an online presence. Or, maybe your website is attracting more and more people, and you want to accelerate sales. Every business journey is unique, but whatever your situation, building an email list is essential. In fact, email marketing is cost effective since you don't have to pay for print, postage, or ad space. More than 8 out of 10 marketers spend between 0 and 20% of their budget on email marketing. But on the other hand, email marketing is highly profitable, with an ROI that ranks among the best channels offering an impressive return of $42 for every dollar invested according to the Financial Post.

If you don't know where to start building a mailing list, you'll find all the information you need to get started quickly and efficiently in this comprehensive guide.

Mailing List Fundamentals

What is an email list?

An email list is a list of email addresses, often coupled with other data such as name, gender or location, gathered from people who have signed up to receive emails. Email lists are mostly generated by subscribing ("opt-in") through a website or a landing page, but other methods explained in the following sections can also be used to collect information.

Why is building an email list so important?

Before going into detail about the strategic and practical aspects of mailing lists, it's important to understand why email lists are essential, allowing you to reach your audience directly in their inboxes, bypassing intermediaries like social media algorithms. By sending emails, you have a high level of control over your communication: you know who is receiving the communication, and when, so you can tailor your content to your audience. And while 97% of visitors that leave never return to a website, creating an email list helps drive engagement by informing subscribers about new blog posts, updates, products, services, or events, directly driving traffic back to your site.

What are the best practices?

Mailing lists are an integral part of mailing strategies. The mailing list must be aligned with the company's marketing strategy. The objectives of the mailing list need to be defined: promoting products, sharing knowledge, increasing traffic to the website, building customer loyalty, etc. Without a quality mailing list, mailing campaigns are much less relevant. A quality mailing list is measured not only by the number of contacts present, but also by other characteristics such as :

• Data quality: the more complete and accurate the information, the easier it is to segment your list. It's not advisable to buy e-mail lists where the addresses supplied could abandoned, false, or spam accounts.
• Compliance based: It's important to ensure that every contact has given their explicit consent to receive emails. In the same vein, allowing contacts to opt-out easily, with a visible unsubscribe button for example, helps limit frustration and maintain a serious reputation.
• Transparency: Clearly indicating to subscribers what type of communication they will receive, and how often, builds trust.
• Maintenance: Having an email list that is inactive or overrun with bots is more detrimental than not having an email list at all. Cleaning the list regularly by removing inactive subscribers or incorrect email addresses helps increase engagement and loyalty.
• Quality content : Last but not least, offering interesting, informative, and valuable content to your audience will increase subscriber engagement and reduce unsubscribe rates. 

How to Build your email marketing list

The importance of Email List Forms

Your email list sign-up form is the cornerstone of your email marketing endeavors. On the other hand, getting an email address from a subscriber is no mean feat. That's why the best email sign-up forms are quick and easy to fill in. Sometimes, only subscriber email addresses are requested, which allows you to capture as many as possible. Here are a few tips for building a great email signup form:

• Email address : Obviously, the only mandatory and critical field that will allow you to contact the subscriber.
• Names: Collecting the subscriber's first and last name allows you to personalize your communications, and therefore increase engagement.
• Birthday: Knowing a subscriber's birthday can be used to send personalized offers or gifts, and can also segment lists according to the age of subscribers, enabling us, for example, to communicate on different products according to age differences.
• Gender: Depending on the industries, knowing an individual’s gender can help guide communications. For example, in the fashion industry, gender segmentation would allow product communications to be guided by this information. However, it’s important to provide a range of options like "prefer not to say" or "non-binary" to respect gender diversity and inclusivity.
• Phone number: Having the phone number allows you to develop omnichannel marketing strategies or contact the subscriber directly.
• Interests or preferences: This field enables a very high level of personalization, directly correlated to subscribers' expectations. This could be in the form of checkboxes or a drop-down menu.

For B2B companies, other fields can be added such as :

• Job title
• Company name
• Company size
• Company sector
• Department

Numerous fields can then be created, each with a mandatory or non-mandatory dimension. You need to think carefully about which fields to choose, and which will be mandatory or not. In email signup forms, embracing simplicity is key. It is tempting to include numerous fields in email signup forms, but it's crucial to understand that an increase in required fields typically leads to a decrease in form completion rates.

Strategies to easily build an email list from a website :

Building an effective mailing list involves several key approaches. To optimize email marketing efforts, consider these popular and proven approaches:

Embedded sign-up forms

Embedded sign-up forms can be considered the basic strategy for building an email list. Non-intrusive, they remind visitors that they can subscribe to a mailing list. Placing embedded sign-up forms on high-traffic pages (such as headers, footers or sidebars) increases the number of contacts within the mailing list.

Pop up utilization

Pop-ups can be an effective way of converting first-time visitors before they leave the website. Placing pop-up forms on the homepage offering discounts or promotional offers has a double advantage: it pushes first-time visitors to buy, and it increases the email list. If you see popups as obsolete, bothersome and outdated, you should know that the conversion rate directly linked to popups in 2023 was 11%.

Different types of pop-ups can be used. Here are 3 popular types of pop-ups:

• Welcome pop-ups forms: Welcome pop-ups play a key role in engaging new site visitors . They mainly appear within the first few seconds of a visitor's arrival on a landing page. To ensure these pop-ups are effective and not perceived as intrusive, incorporating a compelling call-to-action is vital. For example, providing a discount for the visitor's email address can significantly enhance the effectiveness of welcome pop-ups.
• Exit intent pop-up forms: These pop-ups can detect when a visitor is leaving the site. They will reduce the possibility of an exit, thus reduces the bounce rate. Discounts work quite well with this type of pop-up.
• Timed pop-ups forms: These pop-ups appear when a visitor has spent more than a certain amount of time on the website or a specific page. These pop-ups are particularly effective because they are aimed at visitors who already have an interest in the website, making them less intrusive.

Squeeze page

A squeeze page is a specific landing page designed to capture visitors' email addresses or other contact information by offering something of value in exchange, such as a discount code or exclusive content. Squeeze pages have just one goal: obtain the visitors information. The design should be minimal and straightforward with a clear CTA. Squeeze pages are particularly effective merged with targeted traffic sources like PPC campaigns, email marketing, or social media advertising.

Social medias

Social networks are an excellent way of redirecting visitors to your website. Many strategic approaches are possible to leverage the wide reach and engagement potential of these platforms. Some platforms, such as Linkedin, allow you to sign up for your mailing list directly within the platform through lead generation ad formats. It's also possible to create posts, encouraging each follower to sign up for mailing lists in order to enjoy unique benefits. Finally, using Instagram Stories, Facebook Stories, and live video sessions or webinars may be utilized to talk about the benefits of joining your mailing list by promoting a contest, giveaway, or even a limited-time special, driving traffic to a landing page where followers can sign up to take part.

Offline events

Growing your mailing list isn't just possible online. Many offline events offer opportunities to build your mailing list by leveraging face-to-face interactions and physical marketing materials. In industry events, conferences or networking meetings, bringing digital devices would allow people to join the mailing list by directly entering their email addresses. In physical spaces like stores, it is possible to encourage customers to subscribe to the mailing list.

Creating a mailing list with Google Contacts for free

Building an efficient mailing list is therefore vital to boost sales, and there are many tools available for creating mailing lists. Google Contacts presents an excellent solution for mailing lists, offering a free and straightforward solution. Google contacts compile and organize contact information, making it an ideal starting point for email marketing campaigns. The tool lets you easily import contacts from various sources, categorize them for targeted communications, and maintain up-to-date information - all within the familiar Google ecosystem. You can then couple Google Contacts with a free email tracker such as Mail Track for Gmail, for comprehensive performance monitoring, precise analysis of subscriber behavior, improved deliverability and more precise segmentation.