25 Free Email Marketing Tools

Don’t let anybody tell you an attractive email newsletter has to cost a lot of money. These free resources can get your emails to look like they came from a Fortune 500 company, all for a lemonade stand price. If you are starting out on a shoestring budget, or if you just love to stretch a dollar, bookmark this page. You’ll want to come back here again.

Email Service Providers

These are just a few of the email service providers that offer free accounts. I have not included any of the WordPress blog plugins for email marketing because you are better off with a known email service provider. You’ll get better delivery and better tracking than if you used a plugin on your own.

1. MailChimp. Send up to 12,000 emails or mail to a list of up to 2,000 subscribers. You’ll have access to MailChimp’s email template builder and an array of tracking and signup tools. The only drawback is the free plan does not include autoresponders. You’ll need to upgrade to do an automatic campaign.
2. Constant Contact. This giant of email marketing providers also offers a free trial, but it only lasts for 60 days. You get access to dozens of email templates and autoresponders, plus social media and tracking analysis. The drawback? You only get to mail to 100 contacts, but you can mail to them as often as you’d like.
3. Mad Mimi. Less well-known, but delightful to use, Mad Mimi’s free trial lets you have up to 2,500 contacts and send up to 12,500 emails. It has pre-designed email templates, but its email builder interface is easy enough for almost anyone to use. Autoresponders, called “drips,” are included.
   

   Mad Mimi offers a free trial of its very easy to use email marketing system.
4. ReachMail. ReachMail has one of the most generous free plans. You can mail up to 15,000 messages — and store up to 5,000 contacts — per month. You’ll get all the tracking and deliverability support expected, plus you can create surveys and include social media engagement. The drawback? You’ll see the ReachMail logo at the bottom of your emails.
5. Kualo. If you want to combine your hosting account with email marketing, Kualo is worth a look. A free trial includes 15,000 emails sent each month and 2,000 subscribers.

Subject Line Optimization

6. MailChimp’s Subject Line Suggester. The only way to access this tool is if you are in your MailChimp account and have started building your email message. But if you are willing to get that far, you’ll have access to a tool that lets you compare your email subject line to all the email subject lines ever sent in the MailChimp system, with performance data. Given how powerful subject lines are, that’s a nice advantage.
7. Litmus’s Subject Line Checker. This is very different from what MailChimp offers, but it might be helpful. You’ll be able to see how your subject line will look across a dozen different email clients. With this tool you can make sure the critical part of your subject line isn’t getting cut off.

See what your subject line will look like in Litmus’s subject line checker.

Spam and Deliverability Tools

8. Lyris’s Content Checker. This gives your email a “spam score” and suggestions for how to tweak your email message to improve that score. The tool is powered by SpamAssassin, a popular spam filter that many email service providers include only for paid accounts.
9. Email Spam Test . This is also powered by SpamAssassin, but has a different layout and response format.
10. Contactology’s Email Spam Checker. This is very similar to the Email Spam Test above, but the two tools can give different recommendations, so comparing their results can be interesting.
11. Return Path’s Sender Score. If you did decide to use a WordPress plugin to manage your email marketing, then this is a good tool to check regularly. The Sender Score tool will take the domain name or IP address you’re mailing from and give you back some metrics on how it looks to the eyes of an email client’s spam filter. It’s a quick way to measure your email’s reputation.
12. Send Forensics’ Email Deliverability Test. No matter which email service provider you use, this tool is worth checking for every email message you send. It gives you a detailed analysis, but also shows you how other recently-sent emails in your industry compare to yours.
13. MXToolBox . This tool is more technical than other spam checkers, but if you’re having a problem, send your webmaster to this site. It might turn up something interesting.

HTML Creators, Converters, and CSS Optimizers

14. Dialect’s Premailer. This is an elegant tool to clean up the HTML code in your email. It will switch most of it to CSS, which is better for email clients, and make suggestions that will improve how your email message renders.
15. MailChimp’s HTML to Text Email Converter. Do you have an HTML email but also want to send a text version? This is the tool for you. You can format more than just emails with this.
16. Da Button Factory. Not all email clients are set to automatically show images, so it’s critical your call-to-action buttons are viewable whether images are turned on or off. Enter the CSS button. This nifty tool lets you create buttons and export them either as PNG images or as CSS code. If you’ve ever spent an hour fighting with Photoshop to get a button made, you’ll love this.
    

    Use Da Button Factory to easily make CSS buttons.

Free Images and Image Shrinkers

When it comes to engaging people, images rule the web. The problem for emails on a budget is to find great images, and then to get them to be small enough that your emails don’t get blocked. These four resources make that easy.

17. Web Resizer. This tool lets you shrink photos down to 70 percent of their original size with minimal loss of image quality. You can also do simple image edits like crop, resize, and add a border.
18. Free Online Picture Resizer. This tool is similar to Web Resizer, but also lets you grab pictures from other websites. Be aware of copyrighted material when using this tool.
19. “7 Libraries Of Sensational Photographs You Can Use For Free.” This article from BestsellerLabs.com lists enough free image resources to keep you busy for awhile.
20. “The 15 Best Free Images Websites on the Internet.” This article from Pocket-lint.com has even more free image resources — enough to dress up your emails for months to come. 

21. Landing Pages and Email Alternative Views

22. Litmus Scope. Just in case someone can’t see your email correctly, it’s a good idea to include a link to a web page version of your message. Use this to create that web page in just a few clicks.
23. Lander App Free Trial. Most email messages need landing pages. You can make beautiful landing pages for free with this tool, so long as you send no more than 500 people a month to each page. You can even connect your Google Analytics account to the pages.

Email Rendering Previewers

There have never been more ways to view an email. So look at least one of these tools and see how your message will look before you send your next newsletter out.

23. Litmus’s Free Email Testing and Rendering Previews. This is currently the best tool to see how your email looks in 26 different email clients. It also checks for broken links and offers coding suggestions for optimal rendering. The preview does take 10 to 15 minutes to load once you’ve entered your email’s HTML.
    

    Litmus currently has the best free email preview tool.
24. Email on Acid. This tool is similar to Litmus’s previewer, but in a nicer interface. Email on Acid also offers a paid feature called Mozify that lets subscribers see a pixelated version of your images even if their images are turned off. It’s not free, but it’s a nice tool. Also, check out the blog for email rendering tips that most blogs are afraid to talk about.
25. Email Reach Free Trial. This is another rendering tool you can use for free — if you’re willing to give your email address. Email Reach boasts having the “world’s most reputable whitelist.” If you’re having problems with deliverability, you might want to test that assertion.

Did I miss any free email tools? Please let me know in the comments

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Email Marketing Value for a Network Marketing Business

Hey there, thanks for coming on by to read this piece on email marketing. If you are new to email marketing, this will provide you a good insight to the value and purpose of finding a great email marketing provider for your network marketing opportunity. Email marketing adds tremendous value to any marketing program. While it seems to be expensive, in the long run the ROI can be especially high. Most consumers prefer to read emails on their own time and they sign up for great offers from brands they respect and trust.
Why Email Marketing?
Network marketing businesses benefit tremendously from email campaigns. The individual sites can offer a wide range of information packages to help their prospects. There are a variety of ways to manage your email campaigns, manual and automatic are the primary means. Either way you will have to develop the content and load into the server. You can schedule, design and set the delivery options for the content. Emails can help you speak to a specific target without having to generalize content for the mainstream audience. Only those who are really interested will sign up for your content offerings. You can also offer training courses through your email provider.
Your network marketing business may grow in different ways with the aid of email marketing. Emails are perfect to use in a mobile campaigns on a grander scale, people read their emails on mobile devices more often than the traditional method. This means that your providers should offer up to date responsive emails. The flexibility to design your own email templates adds more value to your business. If you have trouble developing an email campaign, you can always hire a specialist to help develop your campaign.
Finding an Email Marketing Provider for your Network Marketing Business
The search for a great email marketing provider is not difficult, but it can take away from your time with other issues. It's not just about researching, but also comparing the different options that each one has to offer. Your network marketing business is a lifeline, and the wrong provider can set you back in creating relationships. Your needs may be simple, but you want an email provider that will grow with you. There are great email providers that are available for you to use.
As you prepare to do your research and comparisons for network marketing business, you will see companies that offer low cost and free options for you to try. While some of the plans are restrictive, they can provide a good insight on how the provider and plan works. Some free plans are fully functional and forever.

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How Can Retargeting Drive Brand Awareness and Convert at the Same Time

It might seem like a very easy question at first sight, because we all want to connect with as many potential clients as possible at the upper funnel sale process, but also we don't want to sacrifice performance in the lower-funnel. The only way we can settle this dilemma is by building very smart upper-funnel marketing campaigns that rely on your lower-funnel conversion strategy.
To do this, you have to follow several steps:
Step 1: Set your performance objectives
First of all you have to decide what's imperative for your business and how does retargeting cope with the sales objectives. Retailers always face a hard question: how can I grow my business and at the same time convince website users to convert with low costs? Can I do both of them? If not, which one is more important? The answer is strongly correlated to your sales objectives, but you have to keep in mind that there's a big chance that the initial higher costs per sale by bringing new customers can be covered by their lifetime value. First, you have to solve for high ROI campaigns and afterwards use effective marketing automation at a larger scale.
Step 2. Use retargeting for performance goals
Retargeting is most efficient when you use it on people who have high intentions of purchasing. They are in the lower-funnel stage so you have to start building campaigns at this level. Use live triggers, email triggers or SMS triggers for visitors who indicate a big interest in your products or services and just need a small encouragement (special offers, discounts or free shipping) or a reminder to close the deal, like for those who abandon their carts or visit specific product pages.
Step 3. Use retargeting for business growth
The people who are less engaged in what you have to offer are those who visit multiple products and those who only browse your website. They are in the mid-funnel and upper-funnel sale process. After they leave your site, they could go to other websites to search a lower price, so it's recommended that you don't lose connection with them and drive brand awareness by recommending best sellers and also offering them a very good reason to come back and place an order. This kind of marketing automation campaign may not have a high conversion rate, but retargeting at this stage will keep your business growing.
Retargeting helps you focus on intention signals of your website visitors and recognize who is most probably to convert. This way you can increase reach and drive scale in a very smart way. Segment your audience in a proper manner, apply a smart creative strategy and optimize landing pages to scale retargeting campaigns.

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The Effective Use of Humor for a Successful Email Marketing Campaign

While other companies are busy tinkering on those computer keyboards, bludgeoning their brains to come up with a highly informative and relevant content that can be used for an effective marketing campaign; wouldn't it be a great idea to spruce those emails a bit and add a little humor? People sometimes get tired and annoyed of those emails they receive constantly from email marketers stating the same things over and over again. It would really be great to integrate unique ideas in creating the email, like humor for example.
Humor is something that could really captivate people's attention to read on because of curiosity as to what the business page has to offer; humor could really be one of the peculiar yet effective business tools. Being too professional in the approach in creating an email, a slideshow presentation, and videos can bore the audiences and make them hesitant to click and go to the business page. Some experts say that to be able to achieve connection with the audience or potential clients, the email marketing campaign should aim at the heart and not just the mind while still being professional in their emails and newsletters.
Infusing a little of those humorous yet witty statements could really catch the attention of the email recipients because for a fact it may be one of the best ways to grab the attention of a potential customer as humor in its basic sense is humanizing and surprising. There are actually different ways to integrate humor in an email marketing campaign; here are some ideas:
· Doodle with the LOGO and make it fun. One of the eye-catchers that brands have is their logo. When the audience sees something interesting or peculiar about it, they couldn't help but click on to see what more fun things the business could provide them with. Fun logos create a retentive image to the brain captivating the audiences' attention.
· Use some funny cartoon character or a comic strip that is related to the brand. When cartoons or any funny character is used in the marketing campaigns, it is very important that it will not incur any copyright issues. This too will create a great impact by generating tons of interaction from the recipients.
· Put up a wacky and hilarious promotional campaign. One of the best ways to catch the attention of an email recipient is by letting them join contests with really cool prizes. Companies could either put up a contest like giving a mascot a really cool and hilarious name. The audience themselves will laugh at their ideas and what will be more exciting is giving them the chance to vote for the best idea.
These are only some of the funny and ideas that have been used in email marketing and have been proven to be really effective for most successful brands. Engaging with the audiences through their emotions by the use of humor generates more audience engagement as most people are more convinced when emotions are involved.

With Ninjaemails, you can triple your sales and enquiries immediately! We have the latest 2015 high quality premium emails, lowest bounce rate in the industry, no payment for bad data (money back guarantee), 100% opt-in leads with higher open rates, and is voted as the number one email marketing database.

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How Frequently Do I Need To Email My List?

This query is frequently asked by internet marketers on discussion boards, community forums, etc. How frequently do you email your list? When you email your list all too often, they could get tired of you and unsubscribe. If you do not send them an email frequently enough, they might forget about you and the next time you send them an email, they could tag your email as junk email.
So what exactly is the appropriate duration?
As with a lot of things, this solution depends upon several variables.
The niche you're in, the kind of subscriber you might have, the quality of your email messages, etc. Each one of these determines how often you could email your list. Before we get into specifics, there is something you'll need to remember. You will truly understand your list once you begin testing and examining the statistics.
You will have to study the open up rates for your email messages, the performance of your subject lines, the unsubscribe rates, etc. Each one of these stats will provide you with all the details you'll need in order to help make a determination regarding how frequently to email a list.
Numerous internet marketers send out email messages every day for the first 5 or 7 days after the individual joins their list. Is it a sound practice? This will depend. If you offered them a 5 day eCourse, then you can send an email each day for 5 days. Just be sure you ensure the subject matter line says "Day 1:" and "Day 2:" and so forth. This makes it look like the training course they subscribed to and not many email messages all at once.
Typically, 1 email every three or four days is fine. There are lots of online marketers who mail their lists several times daily. This can be excessive as the subscriber will feel confused. It is like going out with a woman for a first date and proposing with a proposal ring on the 2nd date. Too much too soon.
Take time to develop a relationship. On the subject of relationship, that is precisely what you are hoping to create with your subscriber. It is more about them. By no means about you. Provide value and knowledge that they'll find helpful. Way too many internet marketers send out to their lists links to "useful" online seminars that happen to be nothing more than an overly lengthy sales pitch.
If you are planning to provide value, be sure it is in fact going to be beneficial. When you send out high quality info, the individuals on your list will anticipate your email messages. They're not going to unsubscribe or make a complaint about you. Even during those occasions whenever you do send out an advertising email, they'll take a look at what you have recommended.
This is simply because they have confidence in you and most subscribers are knowledgeable enough to understand that you're operating a business and want to make a few bucks to keep supplying them with top rated rate information and facts. It is a small trade off that they'll close one eye to.
Be sure you deliver more useful email messages than sales emails. When you only post affiliate offer after offer, even 1 email per week might be an excessive amount of. Why? Simply because your not providing something of any benefit. It's all about creating product sales. Individuals will know very well what you are up to and simply quit your list.
Send out 1 sales email which might be a link to your product or service or perhaps an affiliate offer soon after every Three or four good quality informative emails.
People today by their very character are not the same. For many people, a single email per month might be too much. For other individuals, 2 email messages per day isn't a problem. You cannot please everyone. Should you get unsubscribes, do not sweat buckets over it so long as it's actually just a small number of people leaving. Should your unsubscribe rate be substantial, then you're doing something wrong. Correct it.
In summary, the vast majority of your emails ought to be educational and beneficial together with the occasional product sales email included. Send them an email once every 3 or 4 days and also be considerate. It is all good sense that actually isn't so typical among internet marketers any more. Stand out.

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Important Facts About Marketing Automation Software and Its Effective Use for Email Marketing

One of the most intriguing and extremely interesting things that marketers are into is the rise of the Marketing Automation software where the techniques allow online businesses to help email marketing campaigns effectively use personalized and optimized content in converting web page visitors into purchasing customers. Basically, marketing automation could provide and generate significant profits and revenues to companies for a relatively better return of investment.
Marketing automation is not a simple feat to execute but combines with an extremely effective content or email marketing techniques, everything is possible. But marketers also have to understand that strategizing and hard work is essential to make the automation work its magic. Moreover, the understanding the marketing automation has in it all the tools for digital marketing and email marketing campaigns to generate leads and grow a profitable business is a misconception that needs to be corrected. With this thought email, marketers would often opt to buy email lists instead of generating well-targeted leads.
This marketing move is essentially for small businesses with limited resources and for those small companies which couldn't hire a dedicated it to maintain and manage the company's database. Pointing this out, it's best for these companies to avail of free trials offered by marketing automation software sellers to be able to evaluate if automation would be effective for their business before actually buying the software.
Most email marketing campaigns would initially gain the best advantages from marketing automation as it is like adding growth enhancers rather than providing a solid foundation for the email marketing campaign. The use of marketing automation software cannot achieve its full potential if the essential components have not been properly completed and there are already leads that have been generated.
Reality is that when an online business starts to grow, it would really be more daunting to maintain customer engagement and it would be the best option to hire email marketing specialists or a marketing director who can focus on conversion programs. Hence, the entire marketing program would grow further and managing all the important components such as highly-optimized content creation, email marketing schemes, creation and updating email lists, establishing social media marketing techniques and sending emails to customers when blogs have been ported would need double the effort and hiring another marketing specialist would not really be the best option. The best thing to do at this point is to automate it.
To sum it all up, marketing automation software aids in streamlining, automating and measuring the efficiency and effectiveness of all the marketing tasks to help rev up the sales and ultimately the profit of the company. With the help of the automation software, online businesses could easily manage some other marketing processes such as the integration of the customer data and segmentation that could eventually help improve customer relationship. The software and its services are the best option to replace manual and recurrent marketing processes focused on email marketing campaign execution and management opening up all new marketing processes possible.

With Ninjaemails, you can triple your sales and enquiries immediately! We have the latest 2015 high quality premium emails, lowest bounce rate in the industry, no payment for bad data (money back guarantee), 100% opt-in leads with higher open rates, and is voted as the number one email marketing database.

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Email Marketing Tips and Tricks to Improve Click-Through Rates

Businesses all over the world are consistently finding the most efficient ways to establish a powerful online presence, brand credibility and viability in the multifaceted world of entrepreneurship where competition becomes tougher each day. Through time, beating the odds have truly become daunting and strategizing would still be the best option; hence improving email marketing campaigns to keep up with the fast-paced industry.
Email marketing has been and will still be one of the most powerful ways to get any brand's message across potential clients and customers. Having a targeted audience as email recipients is one of the many essential aspects of any email marketing strategy, creating the content to be sent to these customers is another; and getting the email recipients to open is yet another of the greatest challenges. But email marketers also have to realize the opens are not enough and click-throughs would be more significant.
Escalating the click through rates is one of the dilemmas of most online businesses as they are more often below the average and may sometimes stay that way for a relatively long period of time and worse, click throughs may even fall deeper. This is something that companies have to ponder on and boost their click-through rates for about 55% or more; here's how:
· The very first thing that should be done is to initially improve email open rates. The main objective of every email marketing campaign is to have customers click through and land on the business website, but having these recipients to open the emails and read on is also something quite difficult, so here's what marketers have to do;
o Create an attention-grabbing subject line.
o Have a targeted email list. There is no use sending the emails to millions of recipients because they might not be the suitable people to send the messages to because different people have different interests and preferences and basically most people get annoyed by the tremendous number of unwanted emails. Segmenting the email list to interested individuals most likely would do the trick.
o Keep sending the emails consistently and not sporadic when the business just has to sell something to the recipients, this may discourage the customers from opening the rest of the emails or worse, they may even unsubscribe.
· Including social sharing options in the email marketing scheme has been proven one of the effective tricks that could significantly increase the click-through rates for about 30% to 55% especially when three or more social sharing sites are being used. Direct recipients of the emails may not be interested in the business' brand, but some of their friends and followers might be, so there is a greater chance that click-throughs from the recipients' extensions can be achieved effectively.
· When hyperlinking, using direct keywords are far better than the generic links as email subscribers would exactly know where it will lead them to. Doing this, potential customers would not hesitate to click on and visit the business web page.
· NEVER use a lot of links that lead customers to different sites as this will overwhelm them. When this happens the essence of the emails will not be understood by the recipients. Lead the audience to one place as much as possible. Confusing them with a lot of sites and pages would make them click away from the website and the email marketing campaign would definitely be a lot farther from achieving high click-through rates.
· TEST the email marketing campaign and refine every detail that needs to be improved. By testing, an email marketer could effectively troubleshoot the flaws of the campaign and be able to formulate a more efficient one.

With Ninjaemails, you can triple your sales and enquiries immediately! We have the latest 2015 high quality premium emails, lowest bounce rate in the industry, no payment for bad data (money back guarantee), 100% opt-in leads with higher open rates, and is voted as the number one email marketing database.

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Getting The Best From Your Email List

List creation is one of the strategies used by businesses to reach out to potential customers. There are different methods that can be used to create an email list, including asking for visitor signups for newsletters or form filling when they visit your site. Whereas it is not that hard to get a comprehensive email list of your customers, what you do with the list afterwards is what matters the most.
The truth is that a great number of people don't know how to use and monetize the email lists they have and they therefore end up serving no valuable purpose for their businesses. As soon as you have a good list, your next strategy should be to find ways of building relationships with your customers on the list to make sure they don't forget you and are updated on everything that you are doing without making them feel intruded.
After building the relationships next you will need to come up with strategies of making conversions. Email marketing strategies are numerous and they can be applied to further your business returns. You, for instance, can come up with special product offers and discounts for your lists to motivate them to buy what you have for them. The content you put out there for your customers can determine their reactions and a good strategy will never fail in turning your lists into sales.
Unfortunately, the process is that not as easy as it might seem. Many business people get stuck as soon as they create the lists and they do not know how to proceed to get the most from the lists.
The solution
If you have been looking for ways through which you can effectively monetize the email list you already have, maybe you should consider taking up a course on the same. There are many courses that give you guidelines on ways through which you can get higher returns from your email lists. Most of them are designed by entrepreneurs and marketers who understand the essential components and the challenges of email marketing. They have tried and tested solutions and strategies for getting the best from the lists.
A good training course will teach you strategies no one ever told you about ensuring that the lists you worked hard for finally pays off. They address the common problems email marketers face and offer workable solutions to them. However, there are conditions. You have to choose the right course. It should have all necessary tools to give you an easy time grasping the content. A course that has features such as webinars, videos, live training, workshops and even PDF reports can prove to be most helpful in getting your email list to the next level. Case studies and eBooks can also be helpful in a training course.
With such courses, you sure will have an easy time understanding everything that is important to get the best results when reaching out to your email list.

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17 Places to Collect Email Addresses

There are many ways to build your email list.
You may find one way that works best versus the other.
Building the list itself is more important than the method though.
I've put together a list and divided it up into different sections to show the platform and the method for collecting email addresses.
If you're just getting started with email marketing, select one or two ways to start so you don't get overwhelmed!!
Website
1. Pop-up form
Add a pop up form to your site using MailChimp or AWeber (you can also use a WordPress plugin like optin-cat or sumome)
2. Hellobar
Use the hellobar at the very top of your website to capture emails, drive traffic to a lead page or increase your social media following. It integrates with MailChimp and AWeber .
3. Footer
If a visitor scrolls to the bottom of your website, you'll be ready. This can be accomplished using the same systems from #1.
4. Sidebar
If you're going to use your sidebar, use it for something good like building your list. #1
5. Scrollbox
I use the sumome scroll box. It's not as 'out in your face' as a pop-up form. It will appear in the corner of your website. Being seen and not heard!
6. Header
I recommend purchasing a premium WordPress theme (or pay your web designer to do all the dirty work!) that comes with a prominent newsletter sign up form area. I use a theme from bluchic.com called Jacqueline. (Beautiful WordPress themes for the ladies!) You can check out WordPress.org as well for themes that come with a newsletter header area. The bluchic themes integrate directly with MailChimp.com.
7. Bottom of posts
Don't let your readers leave. If they read one blog post, they may be inclined to read another. Add a sign up form at the bottom of each blog post so they can get your blog updates or whatever you're offering. #1
8. Links
You can add a link in your current email newsletters so new subscribers can sign up from friends who might share your newsletter. You can create a graphic in your footer, header, side bar, or bottom of posts and then link it to your newsletter sign up form.
Facebook
9. Sign up form
Facebook integrates with MailChimp and constant contact. Just log into your email marketing account to your integrations panel and choose Facebook. This will sync up your Facebook page with your email marketing account so you can start collecting email addresses from your Facebook page.
10. Facebook posts
Get creative and design a Facebook post to encourage sign ups. Mingle this in with your regular posts every now and then.
Twitter
11. Pin a tweet
You can pin a tweet so that it appears at the top of your Twitter page. Create a nice graphic with a call to action and link to your sign up form.
12. Tweet
As you tweet and engage, add a tweet and link to your sign up form a few times a month.
Messages
13. Email message
Don't waste your email signature space. I snagged this idea from Noah Kagan's site but in one of my email accounts, I have a question that automatically appears in my email signature. It simply says, "Have you joined my email list?" To my surprise, not soon after I added that to my signature I got some new subscribers.
14. Text message
I added it to my text message signature as well, "Have you joined my email list?" #13
Events
15. Speaking
This one is so easy and you can get a load of emails at once. Get up in front of a group of people to speak at a business function and teach them something. Offer the option to place their name in a drawing and let them know you're adding them to your email list.
Just have them write "no" on the back of their entry if they wish not to be added to your list and only want to be considered for your drawing.
16. Vendor Table
Doing a trade show, farmer's market or event where you're sitting pretty at a table showing off your stuff? Don't do it without a creative way to stay in touch with people who visit your booth. The prize drawing idea is easy and fun because people just like getting something for free if it's worth it for them.
I once entered a drawing and joined the list just for that purpose. My name was drawn for one of the prizes. After my experience with their services from my free prize, I purchased services from them for several months in a row.
17. Networking event
This is the one that can get awkward. You have to feel your way through it or it will be a total turn off. Don't go into it only for the purposes of building your list or you won't be able to focus and genuinely meet and network with other people.
It may even take seeing someone more than one time before they seek you out and join your list. If you have a good chat and had things in common or made friends with a warm or hot lead who wants to stay connected with you then "BAM" = networking success!!
What other places or methods do you use to build your email list? Let's keep this list going.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/9082165

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Email List Building Tips To Keep Up With Competition

Online competition is expected to get stiffer and stiffer as more business people understand how beneficial the platform can be in getting good business returns. A bigger email list might be what you need to stay afloat of the competition through attracting and maintaining a loyal customer base. The sign up process marks the start of the list building process. You need to get enough traffic to the site and make sure they are compelled enough to take expected action and sign up with you.
· To start with the email list building, try a WordPress blog first. The open source blogging software gives you an easy time publishing content online and you can install the necessary plugins to optimize the content you include. The platform remains very popular and it can be helpful in getting you started.
· Make the subscription form as visible as possible on every web page to capture the attention of your potential subscribers. Choose prominent site spots to ensure that more people get to see it and have an easier time signing up as expected.
· Give the subscribers free gifts for the sign up. It could be an eCourse or an eBook and it will basically encourage them to open their mail frequently. You can try out different incentives to see which one best appeals to the subscribers and gets you value for your list building needs.
· Make sure your sign up form is compelling enough. You can include a good quality graphic of your free subscriber gift on the form. There are powerful tools you can use to get the best images.
· You should also ensure that you give them a reason to sign up and not simply look as though you are pushing the sign up on them. Whatever you include, you should have them subscribe willingly without feeling forced to do so. For instance, avoid limiting access to the site unless you get sign ups. Your visitors should be able to access the site and be free to make a decision whether to sign up or not. What you include in your content is what will determine how easy it's for them to make a decision to sign up so make your reasons good.
· Use an effective landing page to succeed in getting new leads. The use of a landing page will maximize your conversion rates using only one call to action thus getting you more value. Create a good squeeze page setup to enjoy the benefits.
· Do not ignore the power of social media networks and instead use them to your advantage. The networks offer you an easy time getting thousands of people onto your email list and you also get to create valuable relationships in this process. A good number of people must check their social media profiles every day and it is also easier for them to share things that appeal to them with others they share preferences with and this will be advantageous to you.

List building can be easy when it is approached in the right way. There are so many tactics you can use to get more signups for your list building, but you also should find better ways of getting value from the list you create.

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6 Benefits of Email Marketing

After you have built your email list, you will need to make use of it to get the most from email marketing. This kind of marketing still remains to be amongst the best over other traditional marketing ways because of the various benefits it comes with. Here are some of the benefits you stand to enjoy when you choose email marketing.

1. You can send personalized messages

This is beneficial compared to print media and broadcast media methods that can limit you to a format when marketing. Using email marketing gives you the chance to directly engage your customers using personalized mails. You can segment your list in such a way that you send specific messages to specific groups for better results from your efforts. This kind of segmentation also makes it easy for you to send only messages that are relevant to the right people at the right time.

2. You can segment customer database and user information

This offers you the chance to enjoy targeted kind of marketing that in more fruitful in increasing sales conversions. Using customer information and history, you will know what mail messages are suitable for which customers; hence you don't end up wasting your time or their time sending messages that are of no value to them. Targeted marketing means you will get the right responses and this is good for any marketing campaign.

3. You will enjoy frequent communication

This is because emails are easy to create and send compared to other advertising channels like newspapers or flyers. You do not need too much preparation before reaching your customers and frequent communication makes it possible for you to create lasting relationships as well.

4. You reduce time and effort

This is the effort and time required in structuring a campaign. Using techniques such as print, post mailing and telesales, plenty of time is required to put everything together. However, with email marketing, you can make relevant communications in a few hours and still be able to make any quick changes and respond to any queries from your customers. Still on time, there is also the advantage of real time messages greatly improving on the response rate and reducing conversion periods.

5. You will enjoy reduced overhead costs

This is because email marketing does not need a marketing workforce made up of analysts and designers to be done. You also don't have to put up with printing, mailing and calling costs as it is the case with other marketing techniques. As long as you have a good email marketing platform, you will have an easy, affordable process of marketing what you have and getting returns for that matter.

6. You can track sales

Tracking your sales is very important because you can easily determine what works for your business and what fails to bring in good results. With the tracking ability, you can make quick changes to your marketing approach to improve sales and curb spam messages to give your customers a better email experience.

Email marketing has a bunch of advantages to any given business. It however, needs to be approached from the right direction and using the right tools for it to achieve its full potential.

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