Geoff Roberts has a long history in digital marketing. He advises companies about how to improve their digital marketing game, co-founded Outseta, and served as the VP of marketing for Bizness Apps and Roambi. His consultancy, SaaS Growth Strategy, specifically targets companies in the SaaS space.
What would you tell marketers who are just learning how to build an email list?
When you’re first learning how to build an email list, the process can seem intimidating. You might not know exactly where to start.
Geoff offers three main suggestions for new marketers who need to build an email list from scratch. You can use these strategies to create strong relationships with your audience and to accelerate your list-building campaign.
“Set email list-building expectations up front”
Consumers are careful with their contact information. They won’t opt in to receive marketing messages unless they perceive clear value.
Geoff advises entrepreneurs to “make it crystal clear to visitors why they should subscribe to your email list and what they’ll get if they do.” He says, “A simple ‘Sign-up for our email list’ call-to-action is destined to fall flat on its face.”
I couldn’t agree more. People don’t just want to sign up for your email list. They want to get special offers, get insider information, and learn from your expertise.
Geoff uses his own lead-capture form from his website as an example of how to set clear expectations for your visitors.
This lead-capture form tells subscribers exactly what they get. They know how frequently they’ll hear from Outseta and what each email will contain.
You can do the same thing with your own lead-capture form. You might have a different email marketing strategy — sending just one email per month, for instance — and different incentives, but you have to be clear about your value proposition.
“Deliver as much value as you possibly can.”
According to Geoff, value is the machine that drives any email marketing campaign.
“Churn kills SaaS businesses, and the same is true when building your email list — the fastest way to grow is to make sure that, when you do get a new subscriber, they stick around and don’t unsubscribe.”
Geoff makes an excellent point that learning how to build an email list isn’t just about acquiring new subscribers. That’s just the beginning of the battle.
Once you have a subscriber, you must keep him or her happy. Follow through on the expectations you set forth when convincing subscribers to sign up.
Geoff goes on to say, “The good news is [that] the fastest way to get new email subscribers and to keep them around is to provide enormous value. Whether you are offering free tools, e-books, or blog posts — it really doesn’t matter. What matters is the quality of your offering.”
We’ve talked about lead magnets and value-driven email marketing before here on the Crazy Egg blog. When you generously give value to your subscribers, they’ll look forward to your emails, open them, and interact with them.
Geoff stresses the importance of solving specific problems and helping your subscribers achieve their goals. Figure out what your audience wants, then deliver.
“Don’t interrupt the visitor’s experience with irrelevant offers.”
Perfecting user experience is an important part of conversion rate optimization (CRO). You don’t want to interrupt or distract visitors when they land on your site. Instead, you want to serve up a fantastic experience that guides them to the action you want them to take.
For instance, Geoff points out popups as potentially distracting elements on a website. He recommends their use on e-commerce sites, but less so on SaaS sites. He says, “You won’t see any pop-ups on our website. While we may miss out on some emails as a result, my argument is [that] this benefits our brand [and] our credibility, and keeps the bounce rate of our site visitors down.”
When you interrupt the user experience, you risk bounces. Consumers don’t have much patience these days, so they’ll exit a site if they get annoyed.
This doesn’t mean you can’t use tools to help capture more emails. Geoff says, “I’d encourage you to use persistent bars at the top or bottom of your page for these offers, as they are less disruptive than pop-ups. Hello Bar is an easy-to-use tool that can help with this.”
What are the top one or two mistakes marketers make that turn off readers from subscribing?
Building on that last point, I asked Geoff about common mistakes marketers make when figuring out how to build an email list from scratch. He responded concisely with two major errors that can result in fewer subscribers:
“The top one that comes to mind is scraping emails off the web and entering them into an email list they didn’t sign up for. The second would simply be over-communicating with your list. Both hurt your credibility and result in your subscribers tuning you out or unsubscribing altogether.”
I feel the exact same way. My own email list is one of my most important marketing assets, so I don’t abuse it. People sign up for my list, and those are the only people who receive my emails. Additionally, I don’t send out an email unless I have something important to say.
More importantly, every email contains value. I genuinely want to help my subscribers, so I’m cognizant of their needs and expectations.
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