Basics of list building using lead magnets

What is an email list?

An email list is essentially a list of emails that a business has collected from people who would like to receive information, updates, discounts, and other details about your business in a digital format that is sent to their email inbox. 

In other words, these are the people who may not have a need for now to solve the pain point that your product offering solves, but they do see a possibility of buying the product in the future.   Or, simply they like what you do and want to hang out. They have an open mind to explore what they would like to do with your product offering.

Email lists are important because email marketing is the best way to connect with potential customers as compared to other traction channels like social media. In fact, you are 6x more likely to get higher click-through rates through emails instead of tweets. Also, email is 40 times more effective at acquiring new customers than Facebook or Twitter.

What is email list building?

In order to take advantage of connecting with customers through your compiled email lists, you need to work on email list building.

Email list building is the act of getting more people to subscribe to your emails.

How do you build an email list?

If you want to generate leads online, then your business needs a lead magnet.  This is true, whether you run a small blog, podcast, membership site, or a full-on eCommerce website.

Why? Because email is a very personal thing. People aren’t simply going to give you their email address without a good incentive, even if they like your brand. As a marketer, it is your job to give them a compelling reason to do so.

This reason comes in a form of lead magnets offered as freebies.

What Is a lead magnet?

A lead magnet is a free resource that attracts potential customers for your niche to click on. By using this free content, people are more likely to sign up for your email list and eventually become paying customers.  The lead magnets can come in a variety of formats usually in the form of a digital product such as an ebook, video, quiz, checklist, webinar, an audio file, and more.  

What that means is, the potential customers get something of value from the lead magnet, against sharing personal email ID, and the business gets something of value, and everyone wins.