At KM, we’re always talking about coming up with new ways to continue marketing products and services—even when the budget to do so just isn’t there. Anyone who has done any email marketing knows the importance of your email list. Your list of email address for your customers and prospects is invaluable.
However, the problem with those lists is that they’re ever shrinking—clients move on, prospects find different jobs and sometimes people are just doing research. For those reasons, it’s extremely important to continue growing that list. Read on for some interesting—and free—ways to grow your email list.

1. Let’s start with Facebook—it’s the largest social media site, by far. While your company or organization might have thousands of Facebook fans, have you successfully been able to send email to those contacts? The solution is simple: add a signup form to your Facebook page that specifically collects your fans’ email addresses. A feature this simple is available right in our Enterprise Communication Network.

2. Provide value—time and time again, we preach that providing good content to your subscribers is what people want. Whether it’s discussing some frequently asked questions, or an article based on current trends, providing valuable content is of the utmost importance. While this point may not actually help to grow your list, making your subscribers happy by providing excellent value will help to reduce your average amount of unsubscribes.

3. Make the most of associations—many times, business or professional associations will either email something out on your behalf, or they’ll provide you with a list of members. If you can obtain a list of association members, you can engage them through email marketing efforts.

4. Make sharing simple—this point is also key to growing your email list. Include a “forward to a friend” option in all outgoing emails, which will allow people to pass on the valuable information you’re providing. This is an easy way to allow for sharing, which will result in additional subscribers. Also, we recommend that you include links to your social media pages—Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+. These are more places you can engage people and hope to collect their information for future mailings.

5. Keep track of your rate of unsubscribes—this is something that many of us forget to do, but it’s so important to keep an eye out for downward trends. Many email marketing platforms, like our Enterprise Communication Network, provide reporting that generates these numbers and percentages for you. Make sure to check your statistics after each email campaign to see if people are unsubscribing for certain reasons. Are you mailing too often? Not enough? Are your emails too sales-centric? These are all factors to take into consideration each time before you hit that send button.

Please feel free to contact us to find out more about how we can help with your marketing needs—email marketing, lead generation—KM can do it all.