• by Jack Loechner , Staff Writer, February 24, 2015

According to a new study, the Email List Growth Survey from Ascend2 and BlueHornet with marketing, sales and business professionals from around the world, 68% of B2C companies consider email list growth very important to the overall success of their marketing program. Email list growth is felt to be not important to only 5% of consumer marketing programs.

Most Important Email Marketing Objectives

Increasing list size ranks second of the eight top email marketing priorities for B2C companies. Improving list hygiene ranks sixth, indicating that marketers may be sacrificing quality for quantity.

Choosing quality over quantity is challenging when you’re trying to grow your list, says the report. but invalid subscribers don’t contribute to meaningful list growth, says the report. Valid, engaged subscribers will drive higher lifetime value, they’re worth the effort to identify and acquire.

How is Email List Size Changing?

Despite the challenges, consumer email lists are growing rapidly for 20% of companies and growing slowly for another 54%. Email list size is not changing or worse, shrinking, for the remaining 26%.

74% of B2C marketers feel that their email lists are growing slowly or not at all. If your email list is growing slowly or shrinking, first understand why, says the report:

• What is the ratio of new subscribers to opt outs and hard bounces?
• Which acquisition source is most effective? Least effective?
• Do you have a preference center or opt-down page to help prevent opt-outs?

Most Effective List Growth Tactics Used

Providing access to private, value-added sections of a website barely tops social media sharing as the most effective tactic used for growing consumer email lists. At the bottom of the list are offline tactics such as capturing email information in-store or in call center conversations.

Capitalize on website opt-in opportunities, says the report:

• Include homepage, additional main page and interior page opt-ins on visible, easily-accessible real estate
• Test using interstitial and pop-up opt-ins. Your consumers may respond well -or may find them intrusive
• Validate subscribers at every point of acquisition to ensure data quality

Most Difficult List Growth Tactics to Execute

Social media sharing requires significant time and effort, but little direct expense. However, it is still ranked as the most difficult tactic to execute for consumer email list growth purposes.

Social media sharing is time consuming and resource intensive, says the report, but essential for B2C brands. Increasing both social acquisition and sharing can be accomplished by running an opt-in campaign on social channels with a sweepstakes, or contest, by offering incentives to subscribers for sharing content, suggests the report.

Tactical Effectiveness Versus Executional Difficulty

Providing access to private, added-value sections of a website is a far more effective email list growth tactic to use than it is difficult to execute, says the report. Social media sharing, on the other hand, is almost equally effective and difficult for consumer marketers to execute, says the report.

To get the most out of your social media sharing campaigns says the report:

• 1.Make it easy for your campaign to go viral; include share links with pre-populated content you provide
• 2.Track social sharing data and reward your brand loyalists when they promote you socially or encourage others to engage with your brand
• 3.Incentify product reviews on your social sites with special offers, loyalty points and discounts

This survey was conducted online from a panel of more than 50,000 US and international marketing, sales and business professionals representing a range of company sizes and roles.

For access to Ascend2 studies, please visit here.