Scrolling through LinkedIn, I stumbled upon a post titled “9 Proven Steps to Build an Email List That Converts.” While it provides a well-meaning checklist for affiliate marketers looking to grow their email lists, the advice reveals a significant blind spot: there is no real marketing strategy. Here’s a deeper critique of why this post falls short and how it could benefit from a strategic foundation.
The Missing Foundation: Market Orientation
The post emphasizes tactics like lead magnets, landing pages, and social media promotion, but where is the step to understand the audience? Knowing your niche (Step 1) is an oversimplification of what should be a robust market orientation process. A niche is a broad concept, but to build a high-performing email list, you need to go deeper:
Understand Customer Needs
What specific problems are they facing? What motivates their decisions?
Analyze Competitors
What gaps exist in the market that you can fill?
Adapt to Market Trends
How are preferences evolving over time?
Without addressing these foundational questions, any efforts to attract subscribers risk being generic and uninspired.
The Absence of Segmentation
The post skips over the critical step of segmenting the audience. Effective email marketing isn’t about attracting everyone; it’s about attracting the right people and delivering tailored content. For example:
Demographics
Are your subscribers retirees looking for financial advice or millennials shopping for eco-friendly products?
Behavioral Segmentation
Are they price-conscious, brand-loyal, or impulse buyers?
Psychographics
What are their values, lifestyles, and interests?
Without segmentation, your email campaigns will lack relevance, and your list will struggle to convert.
Don’t be lost at sea with your digital marketing planning.
No Strategic Roadmap
While the post’s steps are useful in isolation, they lack a cohesive strategy. A true marketing strategy should include:
- Clear Objectives: Are you building this list for brand awareness, direct sales, or long-term relationship building?
- Positioning: How do you differentiate your emails from the competition?
- Customer Journey: How do email marketing efforts integrate with other touchpoints in your funnel?
- Measurement: What does success look like, and how will you track it?
In this post, tactics like pop-ups (Step 7) and collaborations (Step 8) are thrown out without anchoring them to strategic goals. This scattergun approach can lead to wasted effort and resources.
What About Content Relevance?
Content is mentioned in the context of lead magnets and exclusive offerings, but there’s no mention of testing what resonates most with your audience segments. For example:
- Do they prefer actionable checklists or in-depth case studies?
- Would video content drive more engagement than written guides?
- What tone and style align with their preferences?
Instead of focusing solely on delivering “exclusive” content, marketers should create content that meets their audience’s specific needs and preferences.
Ignoring Funnel Integration
Another glaring omission is the lack of alignment with the broader marketing funnel. An email list doesn’t operate in isolation. It should serve as a crucial tool for nurturing leads through the funnel stages:
- Awareness: Use segmentation to deliver introductory content.
- Consideration: Share testimonials, case studies, or how-to guides.
- Decision: Offer incentives, free trials, or personalized consultations.
This post focuses on top-of-funnel activities (e.g., lead magnets and forms) but neglects mid- and bottom-funnel strategies that drive conversions.
Where Is the Success Tracking?
Finally, the advice to “Test, Learn, and Optimise” (Step 9) is too vague. Success tracking needs to be rooted in specific, measurable KPIs:
- Are open rates or click-through rates improving?
- How many subscribers are converting into paying customers?
- What’s the ROI on the time and resources spent building the list?
The Takeaway: Tactics Without Strategy Are Just Noise
The “9 Proven Steps” post exemplifies a common issue in digital marketing: jumping straight into tactics without grounding them in strategy. Building an email list that converts isn’t just about having the right tools or tricks; it’s about deeply understanding your audience, segmenting them effectively, and creating a roadmap that integrates with broader business objectives.
So, the next time you’re handed a “proven” list of marketing tips, ask yourself: Where is the real marketing strategy? Because without it, even the best tactics are little more than noise before defeat.
