How to Build an Email List from Scratch: 11 Incredibly Effective Strategies It costs more to attract a new customer than to keep an existing one. Focusing on customer retention is a valuable long-term solution for increased revenue and sustainable growth, and building an email list will help you reach those goals. Cultivating customer loyalty is not easy, but it is possible by continuing to offer valuable content. While there are many ways to do this, email marketing is one of the most powerful ways to reach your target audience — if done correctly. We'll explore: Attributes of a Good Email List How to Build One Email List-Building Tools Qualities of a Great Email List Before setting out to build an email list, we'll need to go over some best practices first. Here are a few qualities to shoot for creating and maintaining an email list. The list should be: 1. Permission-Based First and foremost, your email list should consist of people who have willingly and explicitly given consent to receive emails from you. Never buy an email list. No one likes spam, so keeping with this basic principle ensures you’re following marketing compliance guidelines and maintain a positive reputation. 2. Accurate and Current Email addresses should be valid and accurate. To make this happen, commit to regularly removing invalid or bounced email addresses to maintain deliverability and engagement rates. 3. Relevant to Your Audience Subscribers should have a genuine interest in...

Responsive Emails: Designs, Templates, and Examples for 2023 Have you ever opened an email on your phone and the image was low-quality, the text was too small, and the call-to-action button was broken? Those are all flaws of static email design. Responsive emails are the answer. Given that more than half of U.S. residents look at email marketing messages on their phones, you need to optimize your emails for multiple screens, including mobile and tablet. Responsive emails use fluid images and tables to remain flexible across different screen sizes. Ultimately, they deliver content designed for each user’s optimal experience. Though responsive emails can be designed using CSS media queries, you don’t need any coding experience to make one. Creating a responsive email isn’t just a job for coders. Here, we’ve lined up some best practices and ready-to-use templates, as well as a quick tutorial about the fundamentals of responsive emails. What is a responsive email? Responsive Email Design Responsive Email Design Examples Responsive Email Templates Responsive Email Best Practices Getting Started with Responsive Emails Responsive emails are also more accessible, as they allow subscribers to read on their preferred device. To illustrate, here is how a promotional email I received looked on desktop. This email has awesome imagery, shoppable icons, and is nicely formatted. When I open the email on mobile, this is what I'm greeted with. I still have the same information and the...

Email Blacklist: How to Get Off It (By Avoiding It In The First Place) In the email marketing industry, sending spam or unsolicited bulk messaging can taint any organization's brand. It can prompt mailbox providers to filter their messages to the spam folder or place them on an email blacklist. In this article, we're going to explain what an email blacklist is, how to avoid getting placed on one, and how to tell if you've been blacklisted. What is an email blacklist? How to Avoid an Email Blacklist How to Check if You're On an Email Blacklist How to Get Off an Email Blacklist Some blacklists, like Spamhaus, are credible and widely trusted, so if a brand is on one of these blacklists, it’ll heavily impact their sender reputation. Other blacklists, likeNoSolicitado, are less credible and trusted, so if a brand is on one of these blacklists, it won’t affect its sender reputation nearly as much. When referencing blacklists to determine a brand’s deliverability, mailbox providers weigh their influence by credibility and not just if they’re listed on them. How to Avoid an Email Blacklist A wise email team leader at HubSpot named Jess Swazey once told me, “The easiest way to get off an email blacklist is to never get on it in the first place." In light of this Yoda-esque wisdom, here are four best practices for avoiding email blacklists. 1. Only email...

How to Whitelist an Email in Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, and More Imagine waiting for an important email, never receiving it then discovering it in your junk folder months later. That’s pretty frustrating. The same can happen between a brand and its subscribers – wasting a marketing team’s time and resources. In this article, learn how to whitelist an email on all major email providers like Gmail and Outlook. If you’re a marketer, discover ways to encourage your subscribers to do so. Table of Contents What is a whitelist email? How to Whitelist an Email in Gmail How to Whitelist an Email in Outlook How to Whitelist an Email in Yahoo How to Whitelist an Email in AOL How to Get Subscribers to Whitelist Your Email Address Best Email Practices Beyond Whitelisting 1. Click the gear icon in Gmail and select "See all settings" from the Quick settings menu. 2. Navigate to "Filters and Blocked Addresses" in the top menu. 3. Select "Create a new filter." In Gmail, whitelisting an email actually involves creating a filter. 4. Add a specific email or a whole domain in the "From" field. The "From" field is where you'll specify what's getting whitelisted. In Gmail, you can specify either a specific email address...

19 Tried-and-True Lead Magnet Ideas and Examples Magnets, in marketing, are an effective technique for gaining a prospect's contact information. The problem is these magnets can take a lot of time and energy to produce. Podcasts, e-learning courses, video series, and contests all sound great – but who has time to create them all? In this article, I'll reveal 19 lead magnet ideas you can create today by repurposing content you already have. Before I share lead magnet examples, let's quickly review the conversion path that turns website visitors into leads – and the role email marketing plays in this process: Call to Action (CTA): This is the button that website visitors click to access the resource you're offering. Landing Page: This is where your lead magnet captures information provided by the visitor. Once visitors click on the CTA, they're brought to a landing page where they fill out a form with their name, email address, and any other relevant information you've deemed important. Thank-You Page: The visitor-turned-lead now lands on a thank-you page with information on where to access their resource and is added to your mailing list. Kickback Email: The kickback email is your follow-up message to the lead a short time after the exchange takes place. This email marketing campaign starts a conversation with the lead to keep them engaged with your business. Every blog post in your archive has the potential to generate new leads for your...

4 Easy Steps to Get a Custom Email Domain There are a few things in life that can earn you that "official" status. For me, it's anytime I see someone with a blazer or suit. I think "Oh, that person is definitely handling business today." Probably because in Miami, the only time anyone subjects themselves to multiple layers in this heat is for official business. Online, a verification badge gives you some official points. A great-looking website takes it that much further. But a custom email domain? Well, that's peak official. It signals structure and organization. Let's talk about the benefits of getting a custom email domain and how to get one. Personalized email domains can be used for both your employees and the departments in your company. There are two types of personalized email domains: A regular custom email domain – This includes an inbox and has all the features of a regular email service. A forwarding email domain – This is only a customer-facing alias used to forward emails and doesn't have an inbox. Ex: You set up support@yourcompany.com and have all emails sent to that address forwarded to martina@yourcompany.com or martina@gmail.com. If you're a small business and don't anticipate a high volume of emails, you can start out with a forwarding custom email domain. It looks professional and you don't have to sift through a separate inbox, as all emails will go to another inbox. However, as your company grows, you'll...

39 Simple Ways to Grow Your Email List I have some bad news — your email marketing contact database degrades over time. Your contacts’ email addresses change as they move from one company to another, opt-out of your email communication, or abandon an address they only used to fill out forms on websites. As a marketer, it’s your job to make sure you’re constantly adding fresh contacts to your email lists so you can continue generating growth. While purchasing emails is an option, it’s not always the best way to go about this. In this post, discover high-quality strategies to help you grow your email list to ensure that you have a large audience of subscribers eager to hear what you have to say and likely to make purchases and contribute to your business growth. Sometimes called subscriber lists, email lists can get smaller if members unsubscribe and grow as you continue to collect more and more addresses through lead generation. If you’re not working on building your email list already, or you’ve run out of ideas on how to do so, here are 39 simple ways to grow your email list. Please note that, with these methods, it’s essential to allow people to opt-in to receiving additional emails from your company, as some may not be interested. 39 Creative List Building Techniques How To Grow Your Email List Using Email 1. Create unique email content. Want to retain your current subscribers and have them help you grow...

The Simple Guide to Creating an HTML Email When you create an email using a drag-and-drop or module-based tool, you're actually generating an HTML email. There are two main types of email you can send and receive: plain text emails (these are exactly what they sound like — any email that contains just plain old text with no formatting) and HTML emails, which are formatted and styled using HTML and inline CSS. HTML emails are easy to spot — most of the styled, multimedia marketing emails in your inbox are HTML emails. As a marketer, you've probably compared HTML emails versus plain-text emails and realized that there are different benefits to each type. HTML emails aren't inherently better than plain text emails, and in different situations, both types can be part of a successful email marketing program. Here’s what an HTML looks like on the front-end. Click on the HTML button to see the code behind it. See the Pen HTML Email Template from HubSpot by Christina Perricone (@hubspot) on CodePen. In this article, we'll cover how you can get started creating HTML emails, regardless of your experience level and comfort with coding, and share some free templates you can use. Let's dive in. How to Create an HTML Email Good news: You actually don’t need to know how to code to create an HTML email. Most tools that create and send email (like HubSpot) will offer pre-formatted, ready-to-go HTML templates that enable you to...