Best Email List Growth Practices for AI

List growth and email address acquisition seems to always be a central topic (and sometimes a source of anxiety) amongst marketers. The question most frequently asked on this subject is “how do I grow my email list effectively without compromising the quality of the subscriptions?” Many articles have been written on the subject highlighting such tactics as SEM, sweepstakes, co-registration, affiliate, display advertising, eAppends and even email list buying. While some of these tactics work, opinions vary on each in terms of cost and most importantly, effectiveness. The best advice I can give in terms of email address acquisition is to work with people who have experience from your side of the fence and have them perform an audit of your current email acquisition model. Partnering with an email marketing agency will yield the best results.

That said, there are 5 key principles to apply when looking to acquire new email addresses for marketing purposes.

1. Make it Intuitive. Do a Grandma and Grandpa test. Take someone you know who is not very Internet savvy (I like to use my parents) and ask them to go through your process of signing up for email. If they do it with no help, and find it intuitive and easy, then you know your process is not complicated. Often folks within an organization are too close to the business when it comes to the experience, so having someone who is in no way affiliated with your company go through the process, can yield huge insights and help fine tune your registration or email sign-up process.  
2. Make it Easy. If you have to look for more than 15 seconds to find the spot on your site to subscribe, people will leave.  
3.  Make it Simple. The subscription experience for your user should be thought of like the experience of a guest at a party in your home. The first 15-20 seconds is the most important. Do you make them feel welcome and comfortable? Do you take their coat and introduce them to all the party has to offer? Or do you let them in the door, fingerprint them, and push them quickly into an unfamiliar room to fend for themselves?
4. Make it Count. Ask for my address, you’d better use it. Ask for my preferences, you’d better honor them.  Ask for my date of birth, you’d better send me an email on my birthday. You get the point – don’t ask for stuff you will never use.
5. Make it Social. Offer incentives to subscribers to get friends in their social network to sign up.  

Email acquisition can be as simple or as complicated as you make it.  Remember though, it’s your party and your subscribers will very quickly decide how good of a host you have been.

Stuck and don’t know what to do next?  Email us at Trendline and we can help.