If you don't have the luxury of working for a company with an established email marketing program, you're likely to have to build your list from scratch. While it's always nice to have a big healthy email list to work from, you need to change your perspective and see this as an opportunity to create a quality list that isn't comprised by dubious practices that happened before your time. Viewed in this way, you have ultimate control to follow best practices and implement processes that ensure you have a healthy and profitable list for the long term.
Of course, following best practices requires some discipline. Your natural reaction is to grow your list as fast as possible by any means necessary. However, when building a list from scratch, it's best to focus on organic growth. Adding a bunch of unqualified names from purchased lists or other risky sources will only serve to hurt you where it hurts most -- i.e., response rates, spam complaints, and sender reputation. Damaging your sender reputation not only affects your ability to deliver emails to your target customers, it takes a good deal of time and effort to build it back up again.
The good news is that there are several ways to grow your lists organically that will enable you to amass a loyal following of happy customers. The first thing you want to do is put a sign-up link on every page of your website -- and don't hide it with small text or bury it at the bottom of your page. Put it in a prominent position that won't get ignored. As you drive people to your website through various marketing and advertising programs, there should be an obvious path that leads respondents to a simple form for opting into your list. Making it easy to sign up is key, and that involves careful consideration about the number of steps that you require and the amount of information you request.
While requiring some contact and demographic information is essential for future targeting efforts, you need to make sure you don't require so much that it keeps people from filling out the form. The amount and type of information you request should also be in line with both your business and consumer expectations. First, take the time to identify the type of information that you require and then any additional data that would be nice to have. Next, build your form based on the required information and a carefully selected number of fields to collect key profile data. Restraint is key, as you can always go back and ask for more information as part of another event or promotion.
Finally, be sure to track form abandonment rates. If they seem high, try tweaking the form to improve your rates. If you have the capability, running an A/B test on your form can be very valuable. By doing some simple testing, you can find the number and mix of questions that provide the greatest number of form completions while still meeting your data needs for sending relevant messages. You also want to make it very clear how you will use the information you collect and provide an active link to your privacy policy. By being transparent, you can build a level of trust that will help convince someone to share their information.
Now that you've got your website working for you, you might want to consider a "refer a friend" program for active members. These types of programs can be a powerful tool for attracting quality customers, as word-of-mouth referrals typically have a much greater impact than static advertising. Plus, a member who is willing enough to participate will likely be an enthusiastic and effective promoter within their social groups. Once again, you want to make this process easy and provide a decent incentive (e.g., a gift certificate or coupon for so many registrations). Using a tool that allows members to access their web email accounts will help increase participation.
Additionally, you can always leverage your partners on joint promotions that encourage people to sign up. However, you will want to first make sure that these partners embrace best practices in the same way that you do and have a valid unsubscribe process. The worst thing you can do is build an association with a company that is known for sending irrelevant messages or -- worse -- spamming its list.
Finally, if you decide to take advantage of list rental services, be sure to carefully review the company's reputation and practices for obtaining email addresses. You will want to find out how long it's been around, where it get its names (i.e., type and quality of sources), its list maintenance practices, CAN-SPAM compliance, and the ability to track its sources with opt-in date and site name. If everything checks out, remember to keep this list separate from your house list and send messages from a separate IP address until they've opted in to receive your communications.
By embracing organic growth and carefully leveraging other tools at your disposal, you'll soon be on the way to building an active and profitable list that will pay dividends for a long time to come.
Good luck, and good sending.
Spencer Kollas is director of delivery services for StrongMail Systems.