You might think that the most important click you could get online would be on the add to cart or schedule appointment buttons, but you’d be wrong. All those “like” and “follow” clicks are cool too, but they aren’t feeding leads into your business. 

Nope… the most profitable online click you can get is a person hitting that “subscribe” button and opting into your email list.

That’s right. List building is one of the best ways to ensure you will earn more customers, retain more customers, and wow more customers. (The wowing is important because you want those referrals).

Email is 40 Times Better than Facebook and Twitter Combined in Customer Acquisition

A McKinsey & Company study found that email is 40 TIMES more effective at acquiring customers than Facebook and Twitter combined. Five years ago, their survey found, “Ninety-one percent of all U.S. consumers still use e-mail daily, and the rate at which e-mails prompt purchases is … at least three times that of social media … (and) the average order value is also 17% higher.”

But in a more recent State of Email study from GetResponse found that for every $1 invested, email marketing generated an average of $38. Can you imagine a 3,700% return on investment on anything? But that is how powerful email marketing can be and why every business should commit to list building strategies that help them stretch their marketing dollars and still get real results.

List Building Options for Your Website

Below you’re going to see a list of ways you can use your website to build your list. But first, you need to understand that you’re not going to build the list of subscribers you need to generate leads and gain customers unless you present an offer good enough to trade an email address or phone number for.

The good news is that people are conditioned to give up their email address in exchange for almost anything of even the slightest value to them. So, the two easiest offers you can use to entice subscribers are useful content or discounted and free services. 

Valuable content would in the form of lead magnets or subscriber-only web content that provides tangible and immediate value, such as a how-to guide, reports, or checklists that address your ideal customer’s pain points. And discounted or free services could be a free estimate or consultation (that you probably would give anyway) or a discount coupon with a short expiration date to encourage immediate action.

Now that you know what carrots to dangle, here is a list of ways you can use your website for list building: 

• Landing pages
• Sidebar sign-ups
• Entry and Exit pop-ups
• Scroll boxes
• Sign-ups in the text of web pages
• Header sign-ups
• End-of-post sign-ups
• Contact sign-ups

List Building Off Your Website is Just as Easy

Those incentives you have to get people to let you into their email inboxes work just as well off-site with social media and paid advertising channels. 

On social media such as Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, you can use their ad platforms to collect signatures. Heck, Facebook lets you put a subscribe button right at the top of your business page.

You can also use paid advertising on search engines and review sites for list building. And expect a higher click-through rate on an ad saying you want to give them something for free than an ad saying you’ll take their money for a service. And then you’ve got prospects right where you want them, on your email list.

Whatever path you choose, it’s time to start your list building journey so you can leverage the most profitable marketing channel available for your business.