It’s an unfortunate fact that your email marketing database degrades by about 22.5% every year. The email addresses of your contacts keep changing as they move from one company to another or opt-out of your email communication, or even abandon those old AOL address they only use to fill out forms on websites. As a marketer, it’s your job to make sure you’re constantly adding fresh contacts to your email list and marketing campaigns so you can keep your numbers moving up and to the right.
Growing a workable email list is one of the most important parts of creating a successful email marketing strategy. And for a lot of businesses and organizations, it’s also one of the most challenging. You know you have something valuable to offer current and potential clients and customers, but how do you get people to actually enter their email addresses to sign up? Luckily, there are a number of tools you can use to grow your email subscriber list. In this post, we will list out a few tips and techniques you can use to grow your email list exponentially.
1) Use old school paper sign-up sheets:
Using a paper sign-up sheet is one of the simplest ways to grow your email list. And it’s also one of the most effective. This is especially true if you have a retail store or a brick and mortar location where you interact with customers face-to-face. The trick is to make the benefit of your email list clear. What’s in it for your email subscribers? Will they receive special offers? Will they be the first to know about your new inventory? Add a sentence or two at the top of your email opt-in form to make it clear what they’ll get for giving you their email address.
2) Use lead magnets to draw in subscribers
Digital Marketer defines a lead magnet as “an irresistible bribe offering a specific chunk of value to a prospect in exchange for their contact information.” That pretty much sums it up. A lead magnet is essentially a piece of content that you offer for free. The catch is the prospect has to give you their email address in order to get it/download it/access it/etc. That content piece could be anything. It might be a guide, an eBook, an email course, or a white paper. The point is, you’re offering value in exchange for value.
3) Encourage subscribers to share and forward your emails
Include social sharing buttons and an “Email to a Friend” button in your marketing emails. That way, you’ll gain access to their friends, colleagues, and networks and expand your contact list. At the bottom of your emails, include a “Subscribe” CTA as a simple text-based link so that the people receiving the forwarded emails can easily opt-in, too. The more your subscribers click these buttons the more your email list potentially grows. Let your content be worthy so that your subscribers are motivated to forward them to their contacts
4) Produce evergreen content
Evergreen content stays fresh, sweet-smelling, and tasty for months or even years after you make it (unlike those leftovers that sat in your fridge for merely a week before going bad). Your evergreen content can be a wonderful lead-in for growing your email subscribers. But first, you have to create it and promote it. Ideally, your lead magnets should be evergreen content that has no expiration date. They should be useful not just this instant, but also in six weeks, in six months, and in a couple years. This is content that keeps working hard for you.
5) Use CTAs on every relevant blog post
Once you have a lead magnet, you need to direct traffic to it. You can do this easily by including a CTA at the end of every related (or relevant) blog post. Your CTAs should be simple, short, snappy, and make readers want to go do whatever you’re “calling” them to accomplish. No doubt, a commanding CTA is the extra push a reader might need to follow through. Never write a blog post without including a matching call-to-action. Even if you’re not linking to a lead magnet (you can also link to a service page, for instance), it’s how you add ROI to your content. The authority and trust you’re building, and the value you’re providing with a good blog make it the perfect lead-in to ask the reader to go one step further.
6) Add a sign-up button to your email
Not everyone who sees your email will be on your email list. To make it easy for your visitors to sign up, add a Join My Mailing List link to any email you send out. This is something Brandon Stewart, a real estate agent in Dallas, Texas learned: “I realized that if I put content in the newsletter that is really popular, people would share it. That’s been invaluable,” Brandon says. “They share it on Facebook or pass it along to their friends, and then their friends ask to subscribe. Every time I send out a newsletter, I’ll get new subscribers back.”
7) Put a sign-up form on your website
This might be the most obvious. Your website will be the first contact many people have with your business. Don’t miss the opportunity to stay connected with new visitors. Having a sign-up form on your website is an absolute must. The more people visit, the more can your email list grow, completely organically at that. Make sure there’s a dedicated sign up section that is clear and welcoming.
Conclusion:
The bottom line is: Email is everything for online businesses. That is, only if you want more engagement, leads, and growth. (Who doesn’t want those things?) But, don’t take my word for it – the stats speak for themselves. 2.7 billion people use email. 91% use it daily. 77% prefer email when it comes to receiving permission-based promotional messages from businesses. Even better? Email’s organic reach is gigantic as compared to social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. Grow your reach. Grow your email list today!