By: Lisa Wozniak

Do You Need To Populate Your List To Be A Good Marketer? Well, I guess that depends on your marketing strategy. If your goal is to create a following of potential customers who will become raving fans of your business, then the answer is a resounding yes! However, this doesn’t have to be a difficult or an expensive endeavor. Some of the most effective ways are often the least expensive. With just a little time and effort, you can have people signing up on your email marketing campaign in no time. Some of these items take no money at all and some can be done with a small cash output. Ultimately, you’ll want to market your email campaign with a combination of the two. For now, let’s get started with your free options.

Populating your list for free:

Free marketing includes using social media to attract people who are interested in your niche to visit your website or landing page.

  • Blogs – Blogs are a great way to drive traffic to your sign up page. By posting regularly about your niche market, your blogs can include hyperlinks to your email marketing sign up. If you post regularly on social media, you can occasionally include a post promoting your blog articles that contain a link to your email marketing sign up page.
  • Posts – Your social media posts can also occasionally be promoting your email marketing sign up page.
  • Forums/Chat Rooms – are another great way to market your email marketing list is to mention your list as a means of helping people during networking events such as chat rooms and forums.
  • Contests – If you have a cool prize that you’re willing to offer, you can host a contest on your social media platform where you will randomly give away your prize to someone who has entered through your email campaign. For example, if your contest is running on a Wednesday and Thursday, your social media posting could offer your prize to someone enters through your contest by signing up for your newsletter by midnight on Thursday. Winners will be announced by noon on Friday. Keep in mind your prize does not need to be expensive. It can be an video that you’ve created, a infographic, or even a pdf file of a report that you’ve generated. For more details on hosting a social media contest you can read my article, Key Steps to Hosting a Facebook Contest.
  • Cover Photos – Posting an advertisement on your social media platform profiles is a great way to market your email list. It’s the first thing that people see when they log on to your page!
  • Email Signature Line – by posting a link to your email sign-up sheet within the signature line of your email, it will remind people every time they get an email from you.
  • Voice mail – The voice mail of your business’s phone number is another great opportunity to market your business. Especially if you are receiving calls from people who are calling for information. It allows you the opportunity to get them on your email list where you can establish yourself as the leader in your industry.

Advertising your list:

With a little cash output and some savvy creative work, you can dramatically increase the speed with which you populate your email list. Here’s how:

  • Google Ads – A Google ad is a digital ad that will advertise any portion of your website that you want to drive traffic towards. They can be done fairly inexpensively and Google has a great tutorial to help you launch your ad campaign. My example below shows what a Google Ad will look like when searching for dog trainers. Each of the options listed come at the top of the search because they are ads.

Google Ad Examplehttps://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=dog+trainers

  • Social Media Ads – These ads can go a long way to increasing the exposure you need for your email marketing campaign. Some can be done for a little as $3 a day. However, I have to caution you; you really will get what you pay for with social media advertising. An ad running at $3/day is not going to give you very much exposure and you’re not likely to get the traction you’re hoping for. A good rule of thumb is to start at $10 per day and work your way upward as your business grows. Even if you can only afford to run your ad for a week; doing so at $10 per day is going to be much more effective than $3 per day. You’ll also want to make sure that you do not have too much text on your images as some social media advertising will put a cap on how much is allowed. You’ll also want to do Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising as opposed to Pay Per View (PPV) where possible. Pay per click advertising will only charge you if your ad has been clicked on and people click through your pages. With PPV advertising you will pay for a certain number of impressions that will appear in your social media platform newsfeed. PPC advertising will end up being less expensive and more productive for your email marketing campaign.

Regardless of which avenue of paid advertising you go with, make certain that you are choosing the correct demographic for your campaign. It pays to do a little bit of research before running your ad to ensure that you know exactly what your demographic and niche is to make certain you are reaching those who will be most receptive to your ad.

We’d love to hear how you are populating your list and the ideas that are having the most impact for you. You can also learn more about List Building by signing up for our FREE ebook, EZ List Building. While you’re there browse around our website. We have lots of tools and tips to help you grow your business!

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