Growing and maintaining your professional network is crucial for every business, big or small. With the digitization of business communication, most interactions happen online, and email is as effective as ever. Successful email marketing relies on a combination of automated tools, custom databases, and a personal touch, which only becomes more important in the age of ChatGPT. Keeping all related skills up to date is essential to maintain your market position and make a good impression on your audience.

Let us begin with a vocabulary of terms and concepts that you need to know when working with email lists.

• Gated content refers to any material that requires the user to provide their email address or other contact information before accessing it.
• A lead-generation offer is a valuable piece of content or incentive provided in exchange for a potential customer’s contact information, typically an email address (sometimes also a phone number).
• Incentives are rewards or benefits offered to customers to encourage them to take a specific action, such as signing up for a newsletter, making a purchase, or participating in a survey.

Is there anything new to add to the traditional skillset of an email marketing specialist? Many companies introduce innovations, such as developing custom online tools which can be used upon simple registration. Other companies host online webinars with experts in their field conducted over the internetrequire participants to register using their email addresses. Still, it’s essential to remember the classics. Let’s summarise the most effective ways to grow and maintain your email database.

1. Create bonus content that provides value to your audience

To attract visitors, you might first offer free content, which is found, for example, in company blogs. Some publish beginner advice on a topic, and then, to entice your readers to submit their email address, offer additional, more advanced tips as bonus content. This is the gated content we mentioned above. Others create more substantial lead-generation offers that involve even more valuable content, like a free ebook, in exchange for someone’s email address. This strategy helps build your email list while providing discernible value to your audience.

2. Use social media to promote content through your email sign-up form

Once you have created your compelling lead-generation offer, you need to spread the word as widely as possible. This strategy helps grow your email list by leveraging the reach and engagement of social media platforms like Facebook and X (formerly known as Twitter). Instagram can be challenging, as it doesn’t allow links in posts, but successful cases have used the “link in bio” approach and services like Linktree. In general, follow the social media channels that your audience prefers.

3. Offer exclusive incentives for signing up

Think of your lead-generation offer as part of a larger strategy to provide incentives to future clients and partners. When people know they’ll receive excellent sales and deals, they’re more likely to sign up for your emails. However, ensure these discounts and deals are relevant to your target audience. Also, maintain a reasonable level of scarcity and exclusivity, and don’t give everything away for free —you don’t want a bunch of freeloaders on your email list.

Providing incentives to sign up is an effective strategy for expanding your email list. These incentives can include:

• Discounts: Offering a discount on your products or services can entice new customers to join your email list.
• Free Resources: Providing free ebooks, videos, or other valuable content can attract sign-ups.
• Exclusive Offers: Promoting exclusive deals or early access to sales can motivate people to subscribe.
• Gift Cards: Retail companies offer gift cards as an incentive for joining their email lists, sometimes also in physical stores.

4. Host a giveaway

Running a giveaway can be an effective strategy to grow your email list. People are often drawn to contests, making them a great way to attract potential customers. Here are some tips on how to run a successful giveaway.

Various content platforms offer different contest plugins that provide entries for multiple engagement actions, such as email signups, social media follows, and blog comments. For example, you can randomly select a winner from your existing subscribers on social media as well as on your mailing list. This encourages people to sign up and stay subscribed for a chance to win. Many companies and brands run giveaways during holidays and on their birthdays.

Additionally, various randomizers are available on social media platforms. This is especially true on Instagram, where you can stream a video of the raffle in real time.

5. Organise and promote an online contest

A classic way to offer an incentive in a fun and interactive way is to organize and promote an online contest. An online contest can be seen as a more interesting kind of a free giveaway in exchange for participants’ contact information, such as their email addresses. This contest is promoted using your social media accounts, where public voting can also be enabled. This approach not only increases your email base but also boosts your social media following, creating a dual benefit for your marketing efforts.

6. Run a mailing list and invite visitors to join

Creating and running a mailing list is a highly effective content strategy, particularly for maintaining an email list. It does require some effort and a dependable email marketing platform. These platforms offer the necessary tools to manage your mailing list and create email campaigns. To begin, you’ll need to design a sign-up form to collect email addresses from your audience. This form can be embedded on your website, within blog posts, and on social media profiles. Be sure to emphasize the benefits of joining your mailing list, such as receiving exclusive content or discounts, as mentioned earlier.

7. Use popup email signup forms to grow your email lists

Popup forms are tools used on websites to collect email addresses from visitors. You may ask a web designer to add them to your website or use readymade options available on your website management system. These forms can also be used to present exclusive content or incentives to encourage users to subscribe to a newsletter. Exit-intent popups, a type of popup form, appear when a user is about to leave the site, increasing the likelihood of capturing their email address.

8. Attend trade fairs and collect email addresses in person

Offline events like trade shows offer valuable opportunities for professionals to network and showcase their products. Additionally, meeting your prospective partners and clients face-to-face and exchanging business cards creates trust and allows access to even more important decision-makers. By demonstrating your latest product or service at a fair, trade show, or professional conference, you can gather email signups directly from attendees. After the event, import these signups into your contact database and send a welcome email to confirm their opt-in to your mailing list.

9. Collaborate with other businesses to exchange and grow your email lists

Meeting new trustworthy business partners can also help boost your email list. First, you can merge your databases to increase your reach, for example, in different countries. You can use your email newsletters to promote each other’s products, services, or content. This can include guest blog posts, featured products, or exclusive discounts. Develop joint marketing campaigns, such as co-hosted webinars, contests, or special offers, which require email sign-up. This way, both businesses can collect emails from a shared audience.

10. Acquire an email list from a trusted online broker

Building your own email list is a task that requires time, dedication, and patience. To expedite the process, you can purchase a pre-compiled list of email addresses from a reputable company that specializes in collecting and selling such data. Trusted brokers follow legal and ethical standards for data collection, ensuring that the email addresses obtained are with consent and comply with privacy regulations.

You can read more about buying email lists in our blog here: How to Buy an Email Database?