If you have made the decision of building an email list for your affiliate marketing business, congratulations because you have made the right decision for your success.
But you may be thinking that doing affiliate marketing is a big deal in itself already so how can you invest your time and money in another thing like list building.
Well, you don’t have to worry about that because building an email list is not all that difficult and it will cost you almost next to nothing. Though it does take a little time, all the engagements and conversions that you gonna get in return are worth it.
So read this complete lesson to know how to build an email list for affiliate marketing.
Why an Email List is Important for Affiliate Marketing?
We all know, Affiliate Marketing includes promoting third-party products to a targeted audience who might be interested in buying those products.
But is it all about just promoting products? Don’t you want to have loyal customers for life? Customers who trust in your recommendations, and to whom you can upsell in the future and turn them into valuable assets for your affiliate business.
This is exactly what using email marketing does. And to use email marketing to promote your affiliate offers, an email list is essential.
Some of the important reasons why you should build an email list for your affiliate marketing are as follows.
1. One-On-One Contact With Audience
You can have direct personal contact with your prospects right in their inbox which enables you to form more engaging relations with them and can result in more clicks and conversions.
2. High ROI
If you are worried about your costs, well don’t be because doing affiliate marketing through an email list can give you much higher than what you spend. In fact, in 2021 email marketing has an ROI of $42 for every dollar spent.
3. Reliable
Having an email list is like having a backup of all the contacts of your prospects. Because with an email list you don’t have to worry about the changing algorithms of social media. You can always rely on your email list.
Creating a backup of your email list every two weeks is a healthy email marketing practice.
4. Customer Retention
Having an email list for your affiliate marketing business is one of the best ways to retain customers. Because with a subscribers list you can not just promote your affiliate offer once but you can turn your subscribers into repeating customers by sending them regular emails.
Steps to Create an Email List for Affiliate Marketing
You can create a massive email list without any hassle or much effort. In fact, it doesn’t even take a lot of time and you can always keep growing your list.
And this way, you won’t be promoting your affiliate offer to everyone but to a very targeted audience only. Which will increase the chances of conversion for your affiliate offer.
Follow these steps to build an email list for affiliate marketing.
1 Choose The Right Email Marketing Platform
The first thing that you will need to start building an email list for your affiliate business is email marketing software. Aweber, GetResponse, and Drip are some examples of email marketing platforms.
Such platforms not just help you to automate your mailing process but also allow you to build your signup forms, maintain your email list and track all the vital stats about your email campaign.
Here we are not recommending you any particular platform but by keeping the following points in mind you can choose the best email service for your affiliate marketing.
- Allows Affiliate Links
Some email marketing platforms do not allow promoting affiliate links in emails because they are of the view that this can affect the deliverability of their platform.
So before signing up make sure your platforms do not have any offense to that because after all the best ESP (email service provider) for affiliate marketing is the one that actually lets you do your affiliate marketing.
Also, here’s a Pro Tip for you. Even if your emailing platform lets you promote affiliate links in your emails, it’s better not to flood your subscribers with ads because this can lead to spam or even account suspension.
- Feature of Building Sign-up Forms
Make sure to choose a platform that has allows you to build customized sign-up forms to facilitate your email list building.
- Allows Segmentation
List segmentation is a highly important practice that you should do especially when you promote more than one affiliate product. So check whether or not your emailing platforms have a list segmenting feature.
- Built-in Tracking Tools
You will need to track all your affiliate links to know the performance of your email campaigns. And having a built-in tracking tool in your email automation platform is always a plus so it is better to choose one that has this feature.
2 Build Sign-Up Forms
The next step to build an email list for affiliate marketing is to build sign-up forms. Because sign-up forms are online forms created with the sole aim to collect personal information like the name and email address of prospects.
As said above, your email marketing service provider can help you to easily create customized sign-up forms according to your needs. And all you have to do is put these sign-up forms on all your websites and landing pages.
3. Optimize Your Sign-Up Form
Once you place your sign-up form on all your websites, you need to optimize it. And by optimizing we mean think of all the different ways in which you can utilize your sign-up forms to get more subscribers.
For instance, you can create Exit-intent popups which give your website visitors a last chance to think again before they are about to leave and increase the chances of their sign-up for your list.
Or another way is to put a slide-in sign-up form on your blog page that can convert an interested visitor into your subscriber.
4. Build A Lead Magnet
A lead magnet is a valuable piece of content that is offered as bait to collect leads. It has been seen that most people are convinced to give out their email addresses in return for a valuable lead magnet.
Therefore, one of the best ways of building an email list is to provide your prospects with a highly valuable lead magnet. It could be in any form like
- A Video about your affiliate product
- Written article or guide
- eBook
- Quiz
- Giveaway
5. Start Creating Email Campaigns
As soon as you start collecting the email addresses of your prospects, you should start working on getting them down in your sales funnel by sending them your email campaigns.
Here are some types of email marketing campaigns that you should use
- Welcome Emails : These are the emails that your subscriber receives right after signing dor your email list. You can send a welcome email or other trigger emails automatically with the help of your email marketing service provider.
- Drip Emails : Drip emails are a series of emails sent out to your subscribers at a particular time. You can use your emailing platform to automate this process so that you can save time and deliver the right emails at the right time.
- Milestone Emails : These are the emails you can send on a particular event like a subscription anniversary or customers’ birthdays. This kind of campaign is good for customer retention.
Email Marketing Strategies for Affiliate Marketers
There are several successful online marketers who are using these age-old email marketing strategies to uplift their business.
You can also integrate these simple, yet effective email marketing strategies into your affiliate marketing business. These strategies will not just help you in building a massive email list but also to retain that list and convert it into long-term customers.
Here are the three most effective email strategies that work great for affiliate marketing:
- Focus On Quality Not Quantity
When doing affiliate marketing, many marketers do the mistake of sending out too many sales emails which leads them to either spam bin or people quitting their email list.
Therefore, you should be focusing on quality emails that your subscribers find genuinely valuable instead of sending a dozen of cold sales emails.
- Personalize Your Emails
Doing little things like using your prospect’s name in the subject line can help you increase your open rate. Also, personalizing your emails can also help in building a relationship with your customers and building customer relations is what affiliate marketing is all about.
- Avoid Spams
In affiliate marketing, the risk of your emails getting spammed is quite high as not all people love to see affiliate links in their inbox.
So try to avoid such spam by carefully building your list with only those people who are genuinely interested in your affiliate product.
Should You Buy an Email List for Affiliate Marketing?
The clear and short answer to this question is…NO! If you want to know in detail that why we suggest never to buy an email list, keep reading.
When you buy an email list you actually send your emails to such an audience who never subscribed to your emails in the first place. And they maybe not even interested in your offer so there is no point in promoting to them.
Moreover, using such a practice of sending emails to people without their consent is illegal and can cost you much more than just a failed email campaign.
Author’s Note : If you are looking for a substitute for building an email list then try solo ads. With solo ads (best to buy solo ads for..), you can promote your offer to a solo ads vendor’s email list. You can get a highly targeted audience for your offer if you choose the right vendor in your niche plus solo ads are perfectly legal in all countries.
End Thoughts
At the end of this article hopefully, you learned how to build an email list for affiliate marketing with the given simple steps. And now when you know how important it is for the health of your business it’s your turn to go ahead and build your own email list.
Frequently Asked Question
How can I make an email list for free?
You can start by putting sign-up forms on your website to collect the email addresses of your visitors or you can use other platforms like social media and put your CTA there and you can create an email list for free.
How do I create an email list?
You can create an email list in just 5 simple steps.
1) Choose the right email marketing platform
2) Build your sign-up form
3) Optimize your sign-up form
4) Build lead magnets
5) Start sending email campaigns
Can you buy an email list for affiliate marketing?
Yes, you can buy an email list for affiliate marketing but we suggest not to do so as sending emails to people without their consent is an illegal practice so you should avoid buying a list. In place of that, you can build your own email list or buy solo ads.
How do I create an affiliate email list?
You can easily create an affiliate email list by following the 5 step-guide given in this article. Read the above content to know more.
How do I email affiliate marketing?
The process of using email marketing to promote affiliate marketing is called email affiliate marketing. You can simply do it by building an email list and promoting your affiliate offers via highly targeting emails.
How do I create an email list on my website?
You can create an email list on your website with only two things first is an opt-in form and second is valuable content. Create valuable content that makes your site visible and includes opt-in forms in your content to collect the mailing details of your visitors.
Can you put affiliate links in emails?
You can put affiliate links in your emails but some email marketing platforms forbid it. Although there are other platforms too like Aweber or GetResponse that allow promoting affiliate links in emails.
Is email marketing effective for affiliate marketing?
Yes, email marketing is one of the most effective ways to do affiliate marketing.