Remember when Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp were all down at the same time? It left some business owners, especially online business owners, without a way to reach their clients for hours. 

Founder and Managing Director of Lucralux Marketing, Rickman Warren, says that is why it is important for companies to have a mailing list. 

A mailing list is one of the easiest, most effective ways for business operators to reach their clients, digitally. It gathers contact information such as names and email addresses from customers so that businesses can send out updates or new promotions. 

Speaking on #MoneyMovesJa with Kalilah Reynolds, Warren said that email marketing is effective because almost everyone on the internet already has an email address. 

According to Warren, emails also have greater reach and open rates than any other digital platform. 

In marketing, reach refers to how many people have seen an advertisement or post and what percentage of those people fall into the target audience. 

“Take Facebook or Instagram, for instance when you publish a post, your maximum reach before you start spending money on paid ads is about six per cent,” Warren said.

“So if you have a 100 people following on Facebook and Instagram, your maximum reach, on average, is six per cent of that. If you send an email and you have 100 people on your list, then 100 people will get your email,” he added.

Warren emphasized that while everyone on the mailing list might not open the email, open rates, that is the number of persons clicking on a post, are much higher for emails. 

“Your open rate is going to depend on how well you use email marketing, but on average, open rates tend to be anywhere from 10 to 30 per cent. Fifty per cent for companies who are using it super effectively,” he said. 

On that note, Warren said that it is essential that companies make the idea of joining their mailing list as attractive as possible by offering incentives. 

“You want people to look forward to the emails that you send them… because people are inundated with emails; you have to give them a reason to sign up to receive your emails,” he expressed.

He said incentives such as discounts codes, early access deals and limited-time offers are a great way to get people interested in joining the mailing list.

“Always think, ‘what’s in it for the subscribers?’,” he added. 

He noted, however, that it is a delicate balance as too much information can overwhelm subscribers causing them to unsubscribe. 

Attracting people to the mailing list 

In addition to garnering interest through incentives, Warren said having an effective landing page is just as important in creating a mailing list. 

A landing page is a stand-alone website created specifically to gather customers contact information as part of a marketing or advertising campaign. 

Warren said the landing page can host a form or a link to a form where visitors can opt-in to receive emails. 

He added that it is best to create separate landing pages and mailing lists for different uses. 

“So if you’re offering a ‘how-to guide on something then have a landing page for that and then if you’re also offering a course on something else then have a separate landing page and mailing list for that,” he explained. 

Warren said that how often emails should be sent depends on various factors, such as what is being sent and how engaged the audience is.

“Generally, you don’t want to be sending more than once a week but it does depend on what you’re sending,” he said.

He suggested testing multiple formulas and analyzing the statistics to find what works best. 

“Send once a week and see what your open and response rates look like. Send twice a week and compare… you can test and look at the data to see what works,” he said. 

Personalizing emails will also lead to better response rates, Warren said. 

During the collecting contact information stage, he said, a separate field should be created for first and last names. That way, when it comes time to send, the software can personalize the email to a specific receiver. 

“If you start off the email with the person’s name, right off the bat you’re going to get a better open rate,” Warren said.

He added that creating subject lines that pique subscribers curiosity or offer some scarcity also help open rates.

For example, “Investors did this to make more money”, or “Limited-time offer; Grab this deal before it’s gone”.

He noted that the use of words like “free” may trigger spam filters for some email engines; sending your email to the promotions tab or junk folder. 

Warren recommended sites like ConvertKit and Mail Chimp for user-friendly ways to create and manage landing pages and mailing lists.

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