3 Proven List Building Strategies to Start in 2017

No matter what types of marketing you’re looking to explore in 2017 - from direct marketing to email marketing to Facebook ads - building a strong list of potential customers is a great way to get a customized message out that motivates people to buy.

But where do you begin if you don’t have a list or if your list is too small?

Here are three proven list building strategies that you can start in 2017 to build your list so you can start using it to get more sales.

Offer Subscriber Incentives

You could offer a coupon, a discount, a free ebook or another incentive that makes sense for your business to encourage people to subscribe to your email list.

Generally, people don’t love having their inbox full of emails, but if you can offer them an immediate benefit for signing up, you’re going to see that many more people are willing to give up their email address. Just remember these few tips:

• Choose an incentive that is very relevant to your business and the potential customers you want to attract. 
  
  
• Verify that the email address is real before giving away the goods.
  
  
• Carefully communicate that people will be getting regular communication from you when they sign up for your incentive.
  
  
• Deliver the incentive as soon as they sign up. 
  
  

Create a Viral Giveaway or Contest

Another creative way to grow your list is by running a giveaway or contest. All you need is a relevant prize to give away and somewhere to share it.

The key to having this become viral is to add something that not many people think to do, which is an incentive for sharing the contest.

Here’s an explanation of how this worked for Noah Kagan, founder of AppSumo, from the perspective of Josh Earl, an entrepreneur.

“He sent out an email, inviting me and everyone else on his email list to enter a giveaway he was running for five of Seth Godin’s most popular books.

All I had to do to enter was put in my email address.

After I entered, he sent a follow-up email asking me to confirm my entry, and offering a way that I could increase my chances of winning.

The email included a “lucky URL” that I could share with my Twitter followers and Facebook friends. For each person that entered after clicking my lucky URL, I’d get three extra chances to win!

Now I had an incentive to plaster my lucky URL all over the Internet, turning me and the rest of the contest entrants into list-building ambassadors and driving ever-increasing amounts of traffic to the giveaway.

Here are some additional tips for creating a viral giveaway or contest: 

• Again choose an incentive or prize that is highly relevant to your specific audience but is also in high demand. 
  
  
• Make it a requirement that people join your email list – that’s the whole point of running it in the first place.
  
  
• Incentivize people to share in any way possible, on Facebook, Twitter, via email; anywhere they can share the link!
  
  

Content Upgrades

Our last proven way to boost your list in 2017 is with content upgrades. The basic idea is that by entering their email address, your potential customers can gain access to special content that is highly relevant to what they’re reading at the time.

For example, if you read our article: Never Forget The 5 Key SEO Principles

You might have noticed that at the end of the article, we included a way to check your SEO for free. All you had to provide was your Name and Email.

This is because if you’re interested in search engine optimization (SEO) for your website, you may also be interested in seeing how your website is currently ranking and be willing to join our list in order to see it.

This is just one example of how this could work. You could offer an expanded, in-depth article on the same topic, a free ebook on the subject, free templates or recipes or much, much, more depending on your industry.

List building is just as important today as it has been for years, and it’s not slowing down. There are so many advantages to having a strong list to communicate with, and sell to. Now is the time to start building a profitable list for your business if you haven’t already.