Building a healthy email list is a successful way to warm up your potential customers so that they are ready to buy.

The health of your email list fuels the success of your business. Particularly with first-party data becoming so important to businesses and marketers. The disappearance of third party cookies in 2024 makes your email list a key channel for interacting with prospects and customers.

In fact, the '2021 State of Email Report' found that 37 percent of brands are increasing their email budget and only 1.3 percent are cutting back. That alone shows the importance and power of email marketing.

In this blog, we reveal how to build a quality email marketing list and offer 5 top tips on how to effectively segment and target your list with examples.

The great benefits of email marketing

On average, email generates an ROI of $36 per dollar spent, higher than any other digital marketing channel, according to Litmus.

And it's not just the ROI that is impressive, email also offers businesses of all sizes the opportunity to connect with customers in a real way; after all, people chose to receive communications from your brand.

With 99 percent of email users checking their inbox every day and some of them checking it 20 times a day, according to Optinmonster, it is a medium that people feel comfortable interacting with.

Not only can you contact people with new offers and promotions and drive traffic to your site, but you can also retarget them based on the content they have interacted with. This means you can create personalised content that is more likely to generate conversions by segmenting your email audience.

Email is also cost-effective. Sure, there may be setup and database administration costs (depending on the size of your business) to consider, but once you've chosen a provider, you can get started right away.

The ultimate multitasking email marketer is the value provider, the relationship builder, the sales closer, the news sharer, the brand ambassador and the deal revealer. So, let's see how to get started.

How do you build a quality email list?

There are several ways to build an email marketing list. However, to build a list of quality customers and prospects, you will need to master the art of intention.

What this means is that it is better to try to capture the details of users who are really interested in your brand, product/service or content. You could have a huge database, but there is no point in having it if half of them are not interested in your business.

Segment and target your list

Not all your customers are the same and should not receive the same messages. Segmentation in your emails is important to add context to your different types of customers and ensure that your customers receive a message that is relevant to them at a point that makes sense for their buying process.

You can then create customised and personalised messages that respond to your customers' specific problems while addressing their wants, needs and requirements.

The two most effective ways to segment your prospect list are by "who they are" and "what they have done".

The "who they are" refers to demographic data such as age, gender, income and location.

The "what they have done" refers to the actions they have taken on their website.

For example, one potential customer might have downloaded a brochure, while another might have opted for a specific offer. Any decent email marketing provider will allow you to segment your list with ease and automate your campaigns to send to your different types of customers at a time of your choosing.

Let's look at some simple but effective tactics to grow your list with contacts that count.

1) Give gifts that your customers want and need.

You can't expect your prospects to give you their confidential details without offering you something of real value. It's one of the best ways to generate new email subscribers and boost your lead generation numbers.

But here's the thing: you can't just offer any old freebie, it must be important to your target audience. To identify the most desirable giveaway for your target audience, you need to create and consult your target personas: here is a buyer persona template if you need help creating your own.

Once you know the needs, pain points and preferences of your customer base, you can choose the giveaway that best solves your audience's main problems.

Here's a great example of Apple Arcade offering 3 months free games to their customers who have a new device.

2) Create an online competition

Another smart way to entice prospects to give you their email details is to create and run an online competition that appeals to the competitive nature of your audience.

3) Use add-ons to capture leads

There are tools that can create pop-ups on your website to generate leads at that crucial point when your visitors are about to leave.

Why not create a form that offers a free gift (such as access to a closed white paper) or provides details on why the user should subscribe to your newsletter? You can customise the pop-up to match the content of what a visitor is reading.

Use email to generate leads and convert prospects

Email offers a cost-effective way to engage prospects and customers with personalised content. DMI's email marketing short course covers everything you need to drive successful email campaigns. It explores data strategy, content creation and email design along with testing, automation and optimisation. Sign up today to boost your email marketing.

If you need help with the creation of your mailing strategy, don't hesitate to contact us! We will help you through the whole process.