Let's get this out of the way: buying an email list is a bad idea. The people you email will mark you as spam, your sender reputation takes a hit, and everyone in email marketing pays a small price for it. The good news is you don't need to spend a cent to build one. Here's how.
If you're new to this: an email list is a collection of email addresses you have permission to send campaigns to. That word, permission, matters a lot. Here's how to build one properly.
Step 1: Make it easy for people to subscribe
On your website
If your site gets regular traffic, a subscribe form is one of the easiest ways to grow your list. There are several places you can add one.
Contact form
Most contact forms already ask for an email address. Adding a subscribe tickbox takes a few minutes and gives you a second return on the same interaction. ConversionLab does this well on their site.
One rule: the tickbox must be unticked by default. Pre-ticked boxes don't count as permission.
Checkout or sign-up process
When someone buys from you online, they hand over their email address anyway. A simple subscribe tickbox at checkout turns a transaction into a list-building moment. Clothing brand Nau handles this cleanly during their checkout flow.
Again: unticked by default.
Blog
Think about an article you've read that made you want more from that publication. A pop-up form at the bottom of a post captures exactly that moment. It says: "liked this? Get more like it." People do subscribe, as long as what you're promising is genuinely worth reading.
On your social channels
Facebook subscribe form
TouchBasePro users can add a subscribe form directly to their Facebook page using our Facebook Subscribe Application.
Twitter Lead Generation Cards
If your business is active on Twitter, Lead Generation Cards let people subscribe to your list without leaving the Twitter interface. The card pre-fills their name, username, and email address from their Twitter account settings, which removes most of the friction from signing up.
Your email signature
Depending on the size of your organisation, your team could be sending hundreds of emails to customers and prospects every month. Those emails are often highly personal, usually because you're helping someone solve a problem. That's a good context in which to mention your newsletter.
Heartbeat does this well by including a subscribe link in employee email signatures, pointing to a simple landing page.
In person
Ask at point of sale
One of our clients runs a camera store in a busy part of town. His staff ask customers at the point of sale whether they'd like to receive tips, news, and offers relevant to what they just bought. The only weak spot in his process was using pen and paper to capture the addresses, but the approach itself works.
Collect business cards
Fewer people carry business cards than they used to, but it still happens, especially at industry events. Asking for a card and asking whether you can add the person to your newsletter is straightforward and works well when the request is direct and honest.
Step 2: Offer a valuable incentive
People hand over their email addresses when they believe something worthwhile is coming back the other way. Here are three incentives that work.
Great content
This is the blog pop-up point again, but it's worth repeating. If what you publish is genuinely useful, readers will subscribe to get more of it. The incentive is the content itself. No discount code or free download needed.
Discounts and offers
Discount forms can feel cheap if they're plastered across every page, but used well they convert. If someone is looking at a product on your site, a form offering a discount on that specific item gives them a reason to subscribe and a nudge to buy. Both things happen at once.
Early access and exclusive promotions
This works best when anticipation is already high. Tesla used this approach for the Model 3 launch, collecting pre-orders and email addresses before the car was available. Pre-orders reportedly doubled the total electric cars sold by GM, Toyota, Ford, BMW, and VW over the previous five years.
The catch: this only works when people are already excited about what you're releasing. If there's no existing demand, early access isn't much of an incentive.
Frequently asked questions
- Is it legal to buy an email list in South Africa?
- Buying an email list and sending to it without consent almost certainly breaches POPIA, which requires that you have a lawful basis for processing personal information, including email addresses. Permission-based list building is the only safe approach.
- Does a pre-ticked subscribe box count as permission under POPIA?
- No. Pre-ticked boxes are not considered valid consent because the person has not actively chosen to subscribe. The tickbox must be unticked by default, and the subscriber must tick it themselves.
- Can I add someone to my email list if they gave me their business card?
- Only if you also asked for their permission to add them to your newsletter and they agreed. Receiving a business card is not the same as receiving consent to send marketing emails.
- What incentive works best for growing an email list quickly?
- It depends on your audience. Discounts work well for e-commerce. Content-based incentives work well for publishers and B2B companies. Early access works when there is genuine demand for a product. There is no single best option.