Leveraging email effectively can yield serious results – it has an average ROI of 4,300%. Here’s a list of 5 tips that will help you grow your email marketing lists and expand the reach of your campaigns.

1) Get creative with how you collect emails. Smart social media contests that offer prizes to winners can add a dash of virality to your email collection strategy. Also, leveraging gated content can be a very effective way to collect emails. The more valuable and unique the content, the better, so think outside the box (whitepapers, case studies, webinars, infographics, e-books – anything your target users will find valuable).

2) Testing, testing, testing. Optimize your landing pages and forms. Experiment with pop-ups, minimizing navigation on sign-up pages to draw focus to calls to action, or placing signup forms on different pages to maximize traction. For standing entry forms (placed throughout the site), a softer sell is typically more impactful – selling too hard can annoy users and drive them away. Try linking to an archive of past newsletter content to offer a sampling of what kind of content users can expect to receive from you.

3) Think about using Facebook Connect. This is typically a demographic question – for some, Facebook Connect is a frictionless way to login and get a more personalized experience, for others it’s cause for privacy concerns. Consider the impact this might have on your target audience.

4) Leverage influencers and create space for virality. Enlist customers as your signup force. Give them added benefits, features, or rewards in return for driving signups or referrals. If you can gamify the entire process – with leaderboards, stats, prizes, etc. – you’ll create a self-driving customer acquisition vehicle.

5) Be wary of buying email marketing lists. Buying lists comes with tremendous risks, especially for B2C marketers. The negative impact to your deliverability reputation is most certainly more trouble than it’s worth. So don’t do it. And while for B2B it’s not a violation to buy email lists, it’s risky – the quality is often dubious. You can experiment with running small tests, carefully monitoring bounce and click-through rates before you buy more leads. Renting lists from providers (who do the mailing on your behalf so your email reputation and IP addresses won’t be negatively impacted) is another possible area for experimentation.

These 5 tips are foundational for effectively growing your email marketing lists and expanding the impact of your campaigns. If you’d like to learn more about leveraging email as a marketing channel, get in touch – we’d love to hear from you.