How to build a database of email addresses for mailing: 7 effective ways

[CarderPlanet]

Email newsletters are a useful and almost indispensable tool for online businesses. Using email newsletters, you can build and maintain long-term relationships with customers, increase brand awareness, or generate leads.

One of the main steps in launching an email campaign is building a subscriber base. It is important that the database contains not just random people, but your target audience. In this article, we will tell you how to build a database of email addresses on your own and using special programs.

Where to get email addresses for newsletters​

A base for email newsletters is undoubtedly important, but first you need to understand the types of mailings and think about a campaign plan. To learn more about the types of mailings, their performance indicators and services for sending emails, we recommend that you check out our email newsletter guide.

It is also important to remove the risk factors due to which emails may end up in spam. There are several reasons why this might happen:

• you send emails to an uninterested audience;
• letters do not bring any benefit to the reader, but only obtrusively advertise the product;
• you do not understand how to mix types of mailing lists and constantly send the same type, inappropriate content.

In order for your newsletter to bring the desired results and help your business, it is better to give up the idea of buying a ready-made database of email addresses and collect it yourself. First, there may be irrelevant contacts in the purchased databases. Secondly, you will essentially be sending emails to a cold audience that has never come across your product and brand before, and this is the risk of getting into spam.

How exactly to collect your contact base, we will consider further and talk about the 7 most effective ways.

Method # 1: Offer a benefit in exchange for an email address​

If you want to get users' contacts, give them something in return. This could be:

• free webinar, checklist, training materials;
• an invitation to a closed sale;
• promo code, discount, gift for a subscription.

Method number 2: Pop-up, banners, contact collection forms​

The easiest way to collect contacts is to ask the user to leave their email address. When placing a data collection form or hello-bar (a small banner at the top of the page), pay attention to the design. The design should be creative, catchy, but unobtrusive. Briefly describe the benefits that the user will receive if they agree to your mailing list: useful articles, discounts, the latest news, and so on.

The user should be able to close the banner - keep this in mind when posting calls to action on the site. Ads that cannot be hidden repel visitors and spoil the impression of your brand.

Method number 3: Guest posting​

Don't neglect the opportunity to write guest blog posts. This is a chance to share expert opinion and attract new audiences.

How it works: find a site that is ready to host your article, write an interesting blog post, add a call-to-action there, get newsletter subscriptions. Of course, you have to spend time writing quality content to keep your readers interested.

Method number 4: Subscription during checkout​

Customers are used to entering standard data when placing an order: first name, last name, shipping address, phone number and email address. That is, they have already entered all the necessary information, your task is to invite them to receive letters from you. To do this, add the button “Subscribe to the newsletter” (or variations “Subscribe to discounts”, “Subscribe to news”) next to the order form.

Method number 5: Advertising​

If you have social media accounts (Instagram, YouTube, Facebook), advertise your newsletter there. You can also do this on thematic forums. For example, the forum discusses an issue in which you can share your expert opinion. Do this, and at the same time mention that users can subscribe to the mailing list and receive even more useful information.

Method number 6: Collecting contacts in the chat on the site​

If your site does not have a chat where visitors can ask questions, install it. Any convenient service will do: HelpCrunch, LiveChat, Intercom and others.

Users often use such chats to ask questions that interest them. Invite them to receive an answer by mail. After the customer has left their contact, ask if they would like to subscribe to the newsletter. Such a dialogue can be set in the online chat settings.

Method number 7: Affiliate mailings, referral programs​

An affiliate email is great if your audience is potentially interested in your product. For example, in your niche there are companies with a ready-made database of email addresses. You offer this company a partnership in which you mutually use each other's subscribers (send emails).

The advantages of such a deal: it's free, both companies get a new source of leads, and subscribers get even more discounts, useful information and special offers.

You can attract new subscribers using referral programs. To get users interested in participating in them, offer them additional bonuses for sharing a referral link.

E-mail parsing software​

You can collect address databases from open sources, such as: social networks, online directories, forums, message boards and thematic sites. To do this, use special parsing programs.

N arsing - a process of extracting contact information from public sources. You can manually iterate over hundreds of pages, copying addresses from there, or you can run a parser that will collect contacts from sites in a few seconds.

The program scans one or more sources (depending on the specified parameters) and finds all lines that have the symbols @, “email”, “com”, “ru” and so on.

If you are interested in this method of collecting contacts, pay attention to the following parsing services and their pricing policy:

• Atomic Email Hunter - one-time payment of UAH 990 / $ 36;
• Parsinfo.ru - the program is free;
• Skrapp.io - prices vary from $ 0 to $ 209, depending on the number of addresses per month;
• Hunter.io - the free plan includes 50 contacts per month, the most expensive is $ 399 - 50,000 addresses;
• Scrapebox Email Scraper - $ 97 one-time payment;
• Email Extractor - free extension for Google Chrome;
• Aeroleads - Monthly payment from $ 49 to $ 499 depending on the tariff.

The main advantages of programs for collecting email addresses:​

• it is a quick way to find contacts;
• you can specify several sites from which the program will extract contacts;
• the collected data can be automatically sorted and structured in any convenient table (Word, Google Docs, TXT and others);
• programs provide bulk search for email addresses by keywords, countries and other categories;
• there is a function of automatic recognition of valid addresses confirmed by users;
• removing duplicates;
• some tools can find not only addresses but phone numbers as well.

Disadvantages of parsing:​

• often antispam services or email providers place trap addresses on websites to prevent bulk parsing and purchase of email address databases. If there is at least one such address in your database, the mailing list may end up in spam;
• since the addressee did not consent to the mailing, it is likely that he will send the letter to spam, will not open it, or delete it. Whenever a user sends your email to spam, the percentage of complaints about the newsletter becomes higher. If the indicator exceeds 0.5%, the mailbox will automatically send letters from your domain to spam;
• if you start a mailing list for several thousand recipients, and usually you send letters to, say, 500 recipients, the postal service will regard this as spam.

No email collection software guarantees an increase in leads. By sending emails to random users who did not consent to your mailing list, you risk ruining your brand's reputation. The chances of getting results from an email campaign are much greater if the recipients voluntarily agreed to receive letters from you.