Tips for Growing Your Email List
Are you looking to add more subscribers to your email list? In this article, we'll go over some tips for picking up more contacts for your email database, so read on!
1. Make Email Content Amazing
In order to grab your audience's attention and keep people subscribed to your emails, you need to have remarkable content. If the content is exciting and entertaining enough, people will look forward to your emails, and you'll have better open rates.
2. Segment Your Email List
You can use different types of email subscriptions to send out more targeted content to certain segments of your email list. Because people are more likely to click on emails that cater to their specific needs and interests, if you create multiple targeted subscription types, you're more likely to have visitors subscribe to at least one of them.
3. Encourage Your Audience to Share
When sending out your marketing emails, include social sharing and "Email to a Friend" buttons. This is a great way to expand your reach and gain access to your subscribers' friends, coworkers, and networks. At the bottom of your email, you can include a Call-to-Action link so that people who receive the forwarded emails can easily opt-in to get them as well.
4. Use Hyperlinked Email Signatures
You can have your employees hyperlink their email signatures to lead readers to a landing page where they can sign up for your newsletters.
5. Use an Opt-In Campaign
If you have an older email list that is gathering dust, try reviving it through an enticing opt-in campaign message. Send out the message to your old list to encourage contacts to re-opt-in to keep receiving content, while also promising to remove the contacts who don't respond. While it might seem counterproductive to remove people from your email list, in order to grow, you need to be emailing the contacts who are engaged. This will improve your deliverability and increase the chances of your emails getting shared with others outside of your current database.
6. Create a Free Online Resource
Free online tools are great, and people love them because, 1.) they're free, and 2.) they make the users' lives easier. Just have people sign up for the tool or resource using their email addresses.
7. Create Gated Content
Create a free eBook or whitepaper for your visitors and host it on a landing page that asks for an email address in order to download it.
8. Offer Bonus Content to Readers
While gated content can be a great way to gather email addresses, sometimes it's not worth it to a website visitor, or they remain skeptical. To gain their interest and trust, you need to provide them with some free content first. Try writing a blog that offers beginner advice on a subject in your industry, then offer "bonus" content that contains more advanced tips that they can access by submitting their email address.
9. Host Social Media Contests
Use social media platforms such as Facebook to host free giveaways and contests in exchange for contact information. Encourage participants to click through to your website and sign up with their email address.
10. Ask Customers for Feedback
On certain pages of your website, you can ask visitors questions they might have about your business, or you can create a live chat tool that invites visitors to ask questions and share their email once they have been on your website for a certain amount of time.
11. Shorten Your Lead-Capturing Forms
While it is tempting to capture as much information about your users as you can right away, adding too many fields to your landing pages and forms can actually deter people. Instead of having lengthy, in-depth forms, reduce them to just two or three fields. You can gather more information from them once you start a conversation.
12. Create a Blog
If you don't have a blog yet, you should consider starting one! Not only do blog posts help increase your ranking on search engines such as Google, but they also allow you to collect blog subscribers that you can upgrade to more actionable email campaigns later on.
13. Include Customer Reviews on Your Website
Most people look at customer reviews before trying out a new product or service. These reviews are social proof that encourages people to join something. You can tell people to sign up for a campaign, but it means a lot more when your happiest customers are saying it too. Publish your best reviews from platforms such as Yelp and Google Reviews right onto your website. This will add genuine value to your landing pages and build trust with visitors who are on the fence about entering their contact information.
14. Collect Emails at a Tradeshow
Offline events such as tradeshows are a great way to grow your business. Collect emails in-person, and once you're back in the office, input them into your database. Make sure you send these contacts a welcome email that confirms their opt-in to your email list.
15. Host Events
Offline events such as seminars and conferences put you at the front and center of a networking event. Take this opportunity to collect email addresses in exchange for the information and demos you provide at the event.
Online events such as webinars give you the perfect opportunity to talk about your niche with your audience. Because webinars are typically registered for via email, your listeners are more willing to be contacted afterward.
16. Collect Emails In-Store
If you have a brick-and-mortar store where you can interact with your customers face-to-face, create an email campaign specifically for those walk-ins. One great way to keep in touch with repeat customers and reward them for their loyalty is launching a store membership that they can sign up for via email during checkout.
Conclusion
Think about where and how customers are interacting with your business. Do you think any of these examples could help you grow your email list? Just start by picking one of these strategies and trying it out. It's incredible what a significant impact such a simple strategy can have on your email marketing success!