On the 25^th May 2018 the GDPR regulations (General Data Protection Regulations) became law across Europe and many companies worked hard to become compliant.

One of the focus areas under GDPR was Email Marketing and how the email addresses were collected. Many lists had been compiled over time or in some cases emails lists were sold to companies so they could send marketing emails to a particular sector, specific demographic or a geographic location which meant the owner of the email address was often sent marketing material they didn’t ask for.

The recipients were in effect being “spammed”.

Let’s presume that you did the right thing and went through the process of asking everyone on your marketing list to “re-subscribe” so that you had a record of them agreeing to receive marketing emails from you.  If you did that your email marketing list has probably been reduced by 80 or 90 percent!

The good news is that the people who opted to stay on your marketing list are the very customers you want to market to because they like your product or service.

That said you will now want to build on that 10% and increase the number of people on your marketing list, remember we’re going to do it the GDPR way!

So how do you re-build your email marketing list?

First things first, it’s important to understand the most people will only sign up to your Newsletter because there’s something in it for them!

Most people sign up for and continue reading newsletters or blog posts that are interesting, informative and valuable to them, the content has to be relevant to the recipient.

3 Ways to rebuild your email marketing lists

1. Content Writing:

Write interesting, informative and valuable content that is relevant to the recipient.

If like me you receive a lot of emails each day, you’ll only open the ones that are interesting, choose interesting subject lines, I sent out 22 individual emails recently to prospective clients, they had all requested quotes from me and then gone cold. After the first 15 or 16 I realised I was writing boring subject lines like:

“Follow up to Quotation from Dmac Media” ,  “Website Quote from Dmac Media” ,  “Building your Business online”, Etc.

So for the last few I wrote this subject line: “Tea is a cure for all ailments” The body of the email said “Dear “customer name” My mother always told me that tea was a cure for all ailments, but it won’t make you money online!

Surprisingly I got 4 replies out of 5 from emails with that subject line, I’m still waiting for replies from the others.

Segment your marketing list so that you can tailor your content to sub sets of your list, unless you are a supreme being you won’t be able to design one newsletter that suits everyone on the list.

2. Newsletter Sign Ups:

Add opportunities to sign up for your newsletter in various places: the header of your website and on the checkout of your website.

If your header is already crowded you could create a “pop-up” sign-up to our Newsletter, but to be honest most people find these annoying so only use it as a last resort. Whatever method you choose make sure your Newsletter Sign-Up is above the fold

Whatever method you choose make sure your Newsletter Sign-Up is above the fold

The wording of your invitation is important, use phrases like:

1. “sign up to be the first to hear about new products and special offers”
2. “new subscribers will receive a 20% discount code”
3. “only subscribers will receive limited offers”

3. Social media:

1. Create an eye catching “sign up to our newsletter” post that is scheduled to display every 2 weeks or so
2. Use posts, draws and competitions limited to newsletter members only, always include a link to the sign up page with a call to action statement something like this: “sign up now to win this great prize”

Conclusion

Marketing to prospective customers in 2018 is now a much more focused process, rather than the scattergun approach of old where you sent marketing material to any email address you could find, you are now cultivating your list carefully, you have clear sight of your prospects so you can present material that interests them and they find either attractive or informative, remember you’ve spent time and money cultivating this list if you treat them right they will be customers for life.