New research into effective methods of growing email subscriber lists shows text messaging will play an important part – with highly-engaged consumers opting in to increase their interactions with brands online and in-store.

The results of the global poll – detailed in the ‘2009 List Growth’ white paper and carried out jointly in the US by Ball State University, Email Marketers Club and ExactTarget – found the fastest growing and best way to grow email subscriber lists is to collect customers’ email addresses during times of high engagement: at the point of sale, during online shopping and in-store via text messaging.

These on-site list growth tactics rated as much as 60 per cent higher than offline methods, such as list rental and mass advertising.

Morgan Stewart, ExactTarget’s director of research and strategy, said: “The best performing list growth tactics are built on gathering subscriber data rather than hunting for it.

“Whether you are a B2B or a B2C marketer, the best way to grow your subscriber list is to collect information during customer-initiated interactions.”

The 30-page white paper provides insight into the best and worst list growth tactics by exploring the past performance and future plans of 351 email marketers from around the globe. Overwhelmingly, Stewart said, marketers are finding proximity paramount to the success of list growth.

Tamara Gielen, founder of The Email Marketers Club, added: “There is no silver bullet, and no one tactic that will provide meaningful list growth. Successful list growth strategies employ multiple tactics to drive new subscriptions and compel subscribers to register because of the value of the communication itself.”

Key findings of the research include:

• Onsite registration is the best performing list growth tactic, followed by capturing information through inbound call centres, at the point of sale and through social sharing.
• The worst performing list growth tactics include outbound call centre attempts to collect email information, list rental, email append and offline advertising.
• B2B marketers are more successful in driving new subscriptions with incentivised registration, while B2C marketers find non-incentivised subscriptions most effective.
• Mobile capture, or allowing customers to subscribe to emails via mobile phones, will increase faster than any other list growth tactic in 2009 – more than 500 per cent.
• Enabling subscribers to share email content with their social networks is expected to increase more than 348 per cent in 2009.
• One-third of all email marketers rarely or never evaluate the performance of their list growth sources.

The 2009 List Growth white paper is free and can be downloaded here: www.exacttarget.com/listgrowth