How to Build an Email List: A Guide to Quality and Accuracy

When it comes to marketing, the key to success is having a reliable way to discover qualified leads and maximise your return on investment (ROI). Whether you’re aiming for a quick solution or prefer to build an email list from scratch, understanding the essential factors is crucial before you proceed with your email marketing campaign.

The most important principle to consider when deciding how to build your email list is ensuring its quality and accuracy. A well-curated email list allows you to engage with potential customers, maintain relationships with existing ones, and drive business growth. A well-built mailing list can significantly boost your marketing efforts, leading to better engagement and higher conversions.
In this comprehensive guide, we’ll discuss strategies to build mailing lists that convert and why email list building is essential for your business.

Quality Of Email List

Email marketing is one of the most effective and profitable strategies available today, but the success of your campaigns relies heavily on the quality of your email list. Without a relevant and accurate list of contacts, your marketing efforts will not only waste valuable time and resources, but they could also hurt your results.

Sending unsolicited emails without consent is not only irritating to recipients, but it can also violate privacy laws in many countries. Such actions can cause irreversible damage to your brand, both online and offline. Any experienced email marketer knows the significant losses that come from bounced emails, unsubscribes, spam flags, and unread messages.
Fortunately, these issues can be avoided by using the right data-sourcing techniques to build an email list for your campaigns. With access to high-quality data, your company’s business development, marketing, and sales teams will achieve greater success, ultimately increasing your organisation’s profitability.

Below, we explore the pros and cons of three different methods to build an email list so that you can choose the best approach for your needs.

The 3 Best Methods to Build a Mailing List

1. Build an Email List Yourself

Building your own email list is one of the most effective ways to ensure that every contact has explicitly opted in to receive communications from you. This method typically involves having site visitors fill out a form or provide their email addresses to receive newsletters, discount offers, or product information from your company.

How to Build an Email List Yourself
The key to this process is creating high-quality content. Consistently updating a blog with fresh posts and infographics will attract visitors to your site. At the end of each blog post, include personalised calls to action (CTAs) that encourage readers to sign up for updates. Additionally, offering a free downloadable resource, like a PDF, in exchange for an email address is a great way to entice visitors who are looking for detailed information.

Pros:

  • You can be certain that all contacts on your list have consented to receiving emails, making them more likely to engage and less likely to unsubscribe.
  • Emails sent to this list are more likely to land in the inbox, rather than being marked as spam.

Cons:

  • Creating quality content on a regular basis requires significant resources. You’ll need a team of writers and subject matter experts to keep your content updated, as well as marketers to promote the content across social platforms. While having an in-house content team can be a long-term advantage, it can be a challenge for businesses with limited budgets or resources.
  • Visitors who sign up for free content may unsubscribe later if your content no longer addresses their needs. Writing for a niche audience can help mitigate this, leading to fewer but more loyal sign-ups.
  • Effective content creation isn’t just about writing well; it also requires keyword research to identify what your target audience is searching for and creating content around those topics. Both of these tasks are time and resource-intensive.
  • It can be difficult to determine how engaged your subscribers are in the decision-making process unless you create highly specific content and calls to action. Additionally, you won’t have access to company intelligence that can come from primary (in-person) and secondary (online) research.

2. Download a Mailing List from an Online Database

While downloading a mailing list from an online database is often viewed as the least reliable method, it remains a common option for businesses. Many companies allow you to purchase a pre-built email list from a large database for a fee. This might be the quickest solution, but it comes with several drawbacks.

Pros:

  • The main advantage of this method is the time saved, as the mailing list is already compiled for you.
  • It’s also cost-effective in terms of both effort and budget, as you won’t need a dedicated team to create and promote content.

Cons:

  • The quality and accuracy of these email lists are often questionable since the data may not be updated in real time. This could lead to email bounces during your marketing campaign.
  • You’re unlikely to get leads with double opt-ins, which increases the risk of your emails being marked as spam.
  • The same email database is often sold to multiple businesses, meaning you’ll receive the same list as your competitors, reducing your competitive edge.
  • There’s also the risk of non-compliance with strict privacy laws, such as GDPR. It’s essential to verify the database provider’s compliance before purchasing.

3. Build a Mailing List Through Custom List Research

Custom list research involves working with a team of research experts who collaborate directly with you to understand and meet your unique data needs. These experts use various online sources and conduct interviews with key industry professionals to gather valuable insights and develop a complete profile of your potential customers.

Pros:

  • You receive comprehensive contact and company data, including job titles, company size, location, phone numbers, and industry specifics. The email list is tailored to your needs, refined by sub-industry or based on NAICS or NACE codes.
  • The data is highly accurate because it is collected through automated tools and verified by human experts. Email verification software is used to validate emails, and phone calls are made to confirm contact details. This ensures the data is regularly updated and accurate.
  • With a custom-built mailing list, you can directly reach decision-makers in your target market—CEOs, CFOs, managers, and other stakeholders—ensuring that your campaigns are directed to the right audience.
  • Custom list research provides a 360-degree view, offering deep insights into companies, industries, and markets. This enables your sales teams to target the right leads at the right time and close more deals.
  • Though custom research may seem expensive initially, it proves cost-effective over time. Providers often account for bounced emails, ensuring your investment is not wasted on inaccurate data.

Cons:

  • The only drawback is that the individuals on these lists have not directly subscribed to receive your communications. However, this can be addressed through consent-based marketing, using single or double opt-ins to ensure the contacts have opted in to receive your emails.

Best Practices to Build a Mailing List

Even after learning how to build an email list, there are key practices that can help maximise results. Here we’ll outline email list building best practices to ensure long-term success.

  • Use Double Opt-In:
    While single opt-in might get you more subscribers initially, double opt-in (confirming email addresses) helps ensure a higher-quality list and improves engagement.
  • Segment Your List:
    As you build your mailing list, start segmenting your subscribers based on behaviour, demographics, or interests. Sending tailored messages increases engagement and reduces unsubscribes.
  • Maintain Email List Hygiene:
    Regularly clean your email list by removing inactive subscribers. This will help maintain a good sender reputation and ensure your emails land in the inbox, not spam.
  • Craft Effective Email Subject Lines:
    Use compelling subject lines to ensure your emails are opened and read. Experiment with different styles, including curiosity, urgency, and humour.
  • Follow GDPR and Email Marketing Regulations:
    Make sure you’re complying with laws like GDPR. Include opt-out options, a clear privacy policy, and only collect necessary information.

Conclusion:

The pros and cons outlined above should help you determine the best method to build an email list for your company. Whether you invest in creating high-quality content to build a mailing list in-house, or opt for the time-saving route of purchasing an existing list, it’s important to weigh the trade-offs. While downloading a pre-built list can save time and money, it often lacks the data accuracy needed for effective email marketing campaigns. If your focus is on achieving high accuracy and a low bounce rate, custom database research offers both short-term and long-term benefits, providing a reliable solution for your marketing needs.

 

A Custom List Research Team to Build Your Email List

As a data research outsourcing team, Ascentrik specialises in helping marketing teams drive targeted campaigns and generate more leads. We also assist sales teams in identifying the right accounts to target and provide full contact information on these accounts, ensuring they have a complete and accurate email list to work with.

Our most valuable offering to both marketing and sales teams is our 360° data research service. We help you build a mailing list by sourcing your email data, verifying the existing contacts in your CRM, and providing market and competitor intelligence. We also manage campaigns directly on your CRM, all in compliance with GDPR regulations. With over 12 years of experience, we’ve supported companies across the globe, focusing on the UK and US markets, while offering expertise across multiple languages, industries, and domains.

This service addresses the key challenges of using pre-built databases from email finder tools or sales intelligence platforms, which often lack the features you need. Common issues include limited multi-user capabilities, lack of integration with platforms like LinkedIn, poor API support, outdated contact details, and credits deducted for invalid emails.

This is where a dedicated research team offering custom B2B email list and database building truly excels. We support your email campaigns from start to finish, providing replacements if contacts change jobs during your campaign. Additionally, we manage your CRM projects, assign contacts to specific campaigns, and even conduct inside sales activities. Clients value the in-depth intelligence and analytics we provide, including market research, competitor analysis, SWOT analysis, and sector insights.

This is why a research team carrying out customised, b2b email list and database building, is the answer. We support you all through your email campaign. We provide replacements even if a contact changes his job during your campaign. We can even handle the projects on your CRM, assign contacts to various campaigns, and conduct inside sales activities. Our clients also value the intelligence and analytics we provide, in terms of market and competitor intelligence, SWOT and sector analysis.