Nine tips for building opt-in lists

What separates you from spammers? For a start it's your integrity, your honesty and - let's be frank - your disarming good looks. The only place you want to see spam is between lettuce and bread in your hurried lunchtime sandwich. And only then, if they've run out of everything else.

More than that, it's your dedication to only bulk emailing prospects who have given you permission to do so. And your commitment to letting customers and list members opt out. In short: you respect your list members and obey the law.

Here are our tips for building your opt-in list:

1. Give people a reason to opt-in
Whether it's special offers, whitepapers or newsletters, you have to offer something in exchange for a precious email address. We recommend publishing a regular newsletter - it's the best way to build rapport.

2. Make building your list part of your business
Use your business cards, website, sales calls, tradeshows, email signatures and mailings to promote your newsletter. Seek permission to send marketing emails at every opportunity.

3. Motivate your team
Make it part of everyone's job to build the list and give appropriate rewards for securing opt-in permission.

4. Only collect the data you need
Lengthy forms deter prospects from signing up, so keep it simple and ask for more information once you've established rapport through your regular mailings.

5. Make your digital communications viral
Encourage newsletter readers to send the newsletter to their colleagues, and include sign-up instructions for those who get the newsletter second-hand. Promote your other publications in your whitepapers.

6. Keep evidence of opting in
Not always possible, but if there's a complaint against you, it's likely to count in your favour if you can demonstrate you've got a system to make sure stray email addresses don't enter the list. If you're accepting online subscriptions, date stamp them and send a welcome email so any problems can be addressed immediately.

7. Protect list quality
Lists age and need regular refreshing and updating. Empower users to update their own details through a preference centre and make sure you track and respond to bounces, so that you're not accused of emailing indiscriminately (aka spamming). Your list will decay by about 5% a month if you don't work at keeping it up-to-date.

8. Honour opt-outs promptly
It's sad to see people go, but when they want to move on, you've got to let them. Get a bad reputation, and you'll find it even harder to build your list. It's only an opt-in list if you also honour opt-outs.

9. Keep communications relevant
Use database segmentation to make sure readers are only sent messages that are relevant to them. If you waste their time, they'll opt out again.


Remember it's all about quality over quantity. Treat your nascent list as if it's got a thousand powerful buyers in it, and soon it might well have.

We know it's not easy building a high-quality database: Most people worth emailing receive more email than they want already. But the quality of the database has a decisive impact on how effective your email campaigns are and it's the only part of email marketing you can't fully outsource.

Bring us a good database, and we can do the rest. If you'd like to talk about best practice list management, call us on 020 7628 4444.