11 ways to (legitimately) collect e-mail addresses (Part 1)

If you’re starting down the road of e-mail marketing, you’re going to need to build an e-mail list. In this post, I’ll share 12 legitimate methods of collecting e-mail addresses for your e-mail database thus starting your e-mail marketing campaign.

1. Ask for it on the first enquiry. My recommended phone answering protocol suggests you collect e-mail addresses on the very first phone call. If done with confidence, most people will provide it without a fuss. Once you get it, you must enter it into your database immediately, ensure it’s spelled correctly, and ideally use it to send a message thanking them for the call. Whenever a customer calls you, use their e-mail address to find them in your database – it’s a unique identifier, and it provides you with another opportunity to get their e-mail address if you weren’t able to get it the first time.
2. Ask for it at the point of sale offering something of value. If your customers visit you, asking them for e-mail addresses in person is a must. There are many reasons you can give them (described below) to compel them to do so – ranging from filling in an information form, subscribing to your newsletter, entering a contest. Obviously, you will need to offer them something of value in return or else you won’t get many takers.
3. Add a pop-up to your website offering something of value. Usually, a much larger percentage of your web visitors will land on your home page than on your ‘contact us’ page. If you want to get more e-mail addresses from web visitors, create a pop-up that asks for their details on your home page. You’ll want to offer them something of value in return (a free report, a discount voucher, etc…), have them fill in as few fields as possible (first name and email suffice), and only show the pop-up on their first visit. A web designer should be able to do this quite easily.  This step is important for the e-mail marketing process.
4. Add a form to every page of your website. With every click on your website, you’re losing visitors. Reduce their trip to one click by adding a form to every page of your website and you may see your enquiries increase. Again, the shorter the form, the more numerous the form submitters.
5. Add a newsletter subscriber box. A derivative of the web form above, a simple first name and e-mail address is all you need to personalise a newsletter that markets your products or services. Again, tell would-be subscribers why your newsletter is worth subscribing to.

I’ll share another 6 ways to collect e-mail addresses in my next post.