5 Smart Ways to Collect Email Addresses Without Beginning

“Email is the only place where people, not algorithms, are in control.”
Ann Handley, one of the best marketers of our time, neatly summarized what makes email a timeless marketing channel even with the raging popularity of social media platforms. 

Email marketing is more personal for your subscribers and keeps you in control of your campaigns' reach, reactions, and responses. It also serves as an excellent channel for outreach to approach and nudge prospects further down your sales funnel.

All the benefits of email marketing make it the most used content tactic for 81% of B2B marketers. That should tell you exactly how important it is to collect email addresses and build your list consistently. 

In this article, we’ll walk you through five proven methods for collecting email addresses packed with actionable tips and examples. 

Why Collect Email Addresses? Here Are 4 Critical Reasons

Before we jump to our tactics for collecting email addresses, let’s first understand how an email list can benefit you:

• Personalized customer interaction: Advanced data collection and segmentation solutions mean you can segment your subscribers into multiple groups and send them highly personalized content. Create multiple variations of the same email to target different themes. 

• Maximize reach without fluctuations: Unlike social media platforms and search algorithms, email doesn't limit your reach with every update. While you must maintain your sender reputation, platform changes will not impact your reach. You can gradually increase your deliverability and open rates using the right tactics. 

• Create a well-measured framework: While social media channels also offer performance analytics, email marketing platforms give you more insights to get a pulse of your customers and monitor your performance. You can get even more in-depth analytics by integrating your CRM like HubSpot or alternatives with your email platform.

• Establish stronger rapport with subscribers: Email is more personal since you speak directly to a single reader. Even though you're creating the content for a large audience, you can take a more personable tone and speak directly to a single reader—building a stronger rapport with them. 

Put simply, email can be an effective channel to stay front-of-mind for your prospective customers, nurture leads, and optimize your sales cycle. 

5 Smart Ways to Collect Email Addresses 

You’ve tried a combination of marketing tactics only to realize that email is your best bet at engaging prospects and driving conversions. So, you’re looking for ways to build your email list—but don’t know how. 

Look no further. We’ve compiled this list of five smart ways to strategically collect email addresses and build an email list from scratch. 

1. Custom Quizzes

Most marketing tactics are boring and mainstream. If you want to stand out and create a unique brand identity, give prospects an interactive experience—53% of content marketers incorporate such content. 

Spice up the buyer journey with an entertaining or educational quiz to reel your prospects into your sales funnel. 

Custom quizzes present a great opportunity. You can design an on-brand quiz to excite viewers about your brand and increase awareness. Ask for their emails before starting the quiz, and add them to your list. 

The biggest benefit of custom quizzes goes beyond engaging your buyers. You can use these quizzes to collect crucial information for your lead database, including emails. So, you’re essentially generating and qualifying leads through quizzes. Win-win for you and your buyers! 

But here's the catch: how do you design these on-brand, engaging quizzes?

involve.me, the AI quiz funnel builder with built-in email automation, is the perfect solution: the quiz funnel collects and segments emails, and the built-in email sequence delivers the welcome and the follow-up.
The tool helps you design quizzes to collect email addresses and segment your list. Customize these feature-rich quizzes to deliver a brand-aligned experience and make your buyers tick. You can publish them on standalone pages or embed them on your website. If you don’t know where to start, grab one of the templates for inspiration.

Generate leads from social media and other channels by sharing these quizzes across multiple platforms. You can also set up custom responses to share the results with every participant.

Pro tip: An entertaining quiz is bound to get more clicks, and an educational one can deliver more value. Use a combination of these two styles to create a strong impression on your target buyers and leave them wanting more.  

2. Custom Calculators

B2B teams are always chasing the numbers. What if you could make life easy for them and collect their emails in exchange? With custom calculators, you can. 

Calculators offer a quick solution to help anyone find the right figures for a task. You can help them calculate a specific figure—like costs, savings, percentages, or metrics—and ask for their email in return. 

For example, let’s look at the onboarding calculator. Learningbank targets HR professionals and has created this employee onboarding cost calculator to engage relevant prospects on their website. 

So, whenever an HR professional wants to measure their costs for onboarding, they'll likely land on Learningbank’s calculator, and the brand can generate leads continuously. 

Building a calculator funnel is easy with involve.me: pick the calculator type, drop in the formula, route respondents to outcomes, and let built-in email automation send the result and the follow-up sequence.
You can also modify this calculator’s aesthetics to match your branding. 

Once you're done, generate an embeddable iframe, and you're all set to add this calculator to your website, landing page, or any standalone page.

With built-in Automations, every calculator submission can trigger a personalized email sequence: send the result, wait, branch by score, send the next step.

3. Opt-in Forms 

When done right, opt-in forms can be one of the most effective tactics for collecting email addresses. This inbound marketing technique nudges users to voluntarily share their emails in exchange for a valuable asset—like a discount coupon, a lead magnet, or any content asset. 

The success of opt-in forms depends largely on what you offer your visitors. If your offer isn’t compelling enough, they’re less likely to share personal information in exchange. 

So, create irresistible opt-in forms to maximize the conversion rate by:

• Producing value-packed content 

• Gating thought leadership insights

• Designing high-impact lead magnets

• Creating newsletters people want to read

  You can build out your entire lead database with these opt-in forms and grow your email list. Use involve.me to design opt-in funnels with an on-brand look and feel. Each submission lands in the Contact Timeline with the answers attached, and built-in email automation handles the rest.
  The powerful and intuitive editor makes it easy to create a form in a few minutes. 

Don't want to do the heavy lifting of making a form from scratch? Choose a template from tens of options and start on the right note. 

4. Pop-ups, Modals, and Exit Intent

You get thousands of website visitors daily but hardly collect a handful of emails. If this sounds familiar, then you're leaving money on the table. 

Instead of letting your website visitors leave like that, send them proactive nudges to share their email. These nudges can be in the form of:

• Pop-ups: Add a pop-up for different triggers and situations. A pop-up can show up a few seconds after a visitor lands on your website, or it can show up in a small dialog box on the side of the window. Here's an example of a side window pop-up by Drip. 

• Modals: Modals are full-screen notifications that blur or de-color the rest of your screen, spotlighting the pop-up. Also known as a lightbox, you can use modals for collecting emails by offering a discount, a lead magnet, or just your newsletter—like this by Kynship. 

• Exit intent: Give your visitors one last reminder to share their email with a compelling offer in an exit intent pop-up. This pop-up typically offers a discount or a good deal that visitors can’t resist. Here’s a great example by Bakell, offering 10% off on their order.

Creating standout designs and copy is a surefire way to make pop-ups work for collecting email addresses. Charm your visitors with unique visuals and persuasive copy, even if you're offering a small discount or a lead magnet. This will create an immediate impact and leave an impression for the long haul. Seal the deal with an amazing welcome email and make them a permanent subscriber.  

5. Live Chatbot 

The final method for collecting email addresses is through a chatbot. Your buyers are always looking for quick answers; chatbots can offer instant responses 24x7. Add a live chat to your website and send them a quick hello in a few seconds.

This can capture their interest and encourage them to start a conversation. Create an automated workflow to ask for their email once they’ve asked a few questions and add them to your list. 

Remember to try multiple chatbot platforms and choose the best option based on your needs, budget, and resources.  

Here’s how Ada uses a chatbot to initiate conversations with website visitors. It's minimal and gives visitors the freedom to ask anything. 

Scale Your Email List Effortlessly

Email marketing has limitless potential for your business. The best part is it's never too late to start building your email list and tap into these benefits. 

With this quick guide, you’re ready to create amazing experiences for your target buyers to collect their emails. involve.me, the AI quiz funnel builder with built-in email automation, is the perfect fit for your toolkit: build the funnel, run the email sequence, sync to 50+ native integrations.
involve.me, the AI quiz funnel builder with built-in email automation, is the perfect fit for your toolkit: build the funnel, run the email sequence, sync to 50+ native integrations. Give them an exciting experience to guarantee that you get their email.  

Author

Eduard Klein is an International Digital Growth Marketer, Blogger, and Entrepreneur with a global mindset. He is the founder of RocketGrowth and guides through the process of starting and growing a digital business, and riding the wave of digital technology and marketing without getting swept away.