V10.9: Developing Marketing Lists

Inbound marketing success hinges upon how well you cultivate your list. Unfortunately, your email database decreases around 25% each year, so it is vital to keep it up to date and on point. Make sure to produce valuable and interesting content and constantly work to grow your email list.

Here are seven ways to build your list:

1. Remarkable Email Content: This is imperative. If you want people to continue to subscribe to your list and forward it to their contacts, you need to be continuously creating amazing material.

2. Online Webinar: Host an online webinar and use this to collect email addresses at registration. It is important to keep your webinars interactive and engaging in order for potential subscribers to want to keep up to date on your content.

3. Online Contest/Survey: This is a great opportunity to drum up more emails for your list. Create a contest or post a survey that requires an email to participate. My personal choice is having people fill out a survey in order to be entered into the contest. This way you can get valuable information through the survey and collect emails at the same time.

4. Referrals/Shares: This has to do with your remarkable email content. By having informative and appealing material your current email subscribers will want to share it with their colleagues, friends and family and other contacts. Include a ‘share’ button or an ‘email to a friend’ button in order to promote them to do so.

5. Create Multiple Email Subscriptions: Create multiple email subscriptions in order to target a more specific audience. Your email subscribers might not want to be apart of a general list, but a more involved one. Create an op-in option so that people can sign up for newsletters or other more targeted material.

6. Lead-Gen Offers: Create a lead-gen offer such as an ebook or whitepaper. Require an email address in order to download the material.

7. Use Social Media to Promote Offers: Use social media, such as twitter [link to your twitter] to promote offers and giveaways. Once again, require them to input an email address in order to participate.

These are all great tips for growing your list, but it is just as important to keep your list up to day. Over time people move companies or switch emails. Having current contacts is absolutely essential to any successful marketing business.