Seven Strategies for Expanding Your E-mail List

Options that Provide Superior Results Compared to Renting

Marketers of accounting and valuation firms have long used e-mail marketing to nurture new and existing prospects. But what is the best way to develop a good list in the first place? This article provides seven proven strategies for building your firm’s e-mail list faster.

Marketers of accounting and valuation firms have long used e-mail marketing to nurture new and existing prospects. But what is the best way to develop a good list in the first place? Here are seven proven strategies for building your e-mail list faster.

More digital marketing tips like these can be found in Hinge’s How-To Guides from Hinge University, our online learning platform.

Strategy 1. Fight the Temptation to Buy or Rent a List

This may seem counter-intuitive, right? After all, since you are going to be sending e-mails regularly, would it not make sense to buy a list? To put it simply, no. In the era of increased legislation, utilizing a purchased e-mail list is illegal. Of course, you can still rent a list legally in the United States. But at my firm, we advise against that as well.

There are many reasons to not rent a list, but in this post, I will focus on just these three:

1. Almost no one on a rented list will know who you are, making it far more likely that you could be flagged as a spammer. That, in turn, could make delivering e-mails from your address more difficult in the future.
2. All the major e-mail service providers work hard to prevent their clients from appearing on e-mail “blacklists,” so they do not allow you to use lists that you did not build organically.
3. You will enjoy far better engagement and conversion rates by using a list of people who want to be on your list.

Strategy 2. Make the Most of Your Existing Contacts

Start with individuals who are already in your business network. Many of these people are already clients and are comfortable doing business with you. Some may have even already recommended you to others. Encourage your contacts to share and forward your e-mails to their own networks.

Include social sharing and e-mail-to-a-friend buttons in your e-mail template. Also, feature a “subscribe” button to help you close the deal when these new individuals receive your e-mail.

Strategy 3. Leverage Your Website

If your firm has already created valuable educational content (such as whitepapers, guides, and eBooks), you already have great material to offer in exchange for visitors’ e-mail addresses.

Place each piece of this type of content behind a registration form. Then create an offer for each piece of premium content and place these offers on popular pages of your website. Make sure to include a clear “call-to-action” button, so that readers will know exactly what to do. Research has shown that including such a button can make a tremendous difference in terms of audience response.

Strategy 4. Promote Online Events

Hosting events such as webinars can help position you as a thought leader. These events also provide an opportunity to gather attendees’ e-mail addresses as they register. To boost attendance, make sure to share links to these events on your website and social media platforms.

Strategy 5. Make the Most of Partnerships

Strategic partnerships are an excellent way to reach a broader audience and grow your list. However, you will probably find that most partners will not simply “hand over” their e-mail list. More likely, they will agree to send e-mails to their list on your behalf.

The key to successful partnerships, of course, is that you must be prepared to reciprocate. If the e-mails you are asking your partner to send are promoting content or events requiring registration, you can capture many new leads. There may be other possibilities in partnerships as well. For example, you could co-host an event, or you could pool your resources to do a research study or develop valuable new content together. Such arrangements are win-win propositions for all.

Strategy 6. Keep Social Media in the Mix

In a relatively short period, social media has become the preferred medium for savvy marketers. If you are not already present (and hopefully, visible) on at least one major platform, start creating your presence right now. Social networks such as LinkedIn and Twitter are easy to use and are effective tools for sharing valuable content with qualified prospects who are not yet on your e-mail list.

Be sure to include links to not only to your “gated” content, but also to pieces requiring no registration at all, such as timely blog posts, news, and events. To keep people from seeing you as a self-interested spammer, be sure to share a lot of content from outside your firm, too.

Strategy 7. Make Registration Simple

Registration forms are essential to using valuable, long-form content to develop new leads. Be sure to keep the forms short—research has shown that the longer the form, the smaller the number of people who will complete it.

At a minimum, you should collect an e-mail address, which will allow you to send follow-up educational and promotional e-mails. Think carefully about whether and how you would use additional information about your prospects. For example, if you want to personalize future e-mails, you will need a name (make sure to ask for first name and last name in separate fields). Or, if you plan to segment your list in order to send variations of your e-mail messages to different audiences, you may want to gather the person’s industry or job title also. Asking for a phone number or address should be done only as a last resort, because it could scare off many people who dread receiving unsolicited visits, mail, or calls.

So, there you are: seven strategies for building your own e-mail list and becoming a successful e-mail marketer. For more ideas and guidance on practical marketing techniques to implement at your firm, be sure to check out our Quick Start Kits and How-To Guides on this and many other marketing and branding topics at Hinge University.

---

Lee W. Frederiksen, PhD, is Managing Partner at Hinge, the leading branding and marketing firm for the professional services. Hinge conducts groundbreaking research into high-growth firms and offers a complete suite of services for firms that want to become more visible and grow.

Dr. Frederiksen can be contacted at (703) 391-8870 or by e-mail to LFrederiksen@hingemarketing.com.