It goes without saying that email marketing is one of the fastest ways to drive sales online. When done right, email marketing has the potential to grow your sales significantly.
However, growing an email list fast is one of the biggest challenges that stops many businesses from leveraging email marketing. With a good number of businesses still using the traditional approaches (a majority of them which are now outdated) growing email lists at a faster rate has remained an uphill battle. Fortunately, today there are ways to grow email lists faster and seamlessly.
How?
Below are tactics that will boost your efforts:
1. Initiate trust
With cases of data theft and spamming ballooning each day, people are reluctant to share their email addresses for fear of been spammed and their contact information exposed. With this in mind, you may want to do something that shows subscribing to your email list is safe. For example, you can include an anti-spam statement on the signup forms that encourage your prospects to subscribe.
2. Launch a viral competition
Viral competitions are very rewarding if you figure out how to reward those who sign up and bring referrals.
To run a successful viral competition, make sure:
- You have prizes that attract the right people, those who can buy from you in the future.
- The prices are appealing enough to encourage people to share the competition widely.
- A strategy that converts new entrants to paying customers.
You can use software like KingSumo Giveaways and plugins like RafflePress to run a successful viral competition. Here is an example of a viral campaign.
3. Add apps to your website
There are many apps today that can help you grow your email list. Sumo apps such as List Builder and Scroll Box will not disappoint. You can as well try Smart Bar and Welcome Mat apps. These apps work by triggering people visiting your site to share their email addresses after a certain period on the website or when they are about to leave the site.
4. Optimize your homepage
One primary reason for high bounce rates on websites is the inconsistency between the messages on homepages and those used to draw traffic. To limit or stop bounce rates, and encourage your visitors to interact more with your business (through emails), consider having a common message. That way, it will be easier to harvest email addresses from the right people.
Another way to leverage your homepage is by using it as an opt-in-page. Now considering homepages are frequently visited, why not use your own to grow your email list?
5. Write epic posts
An epic post will go a long way into convincing people to link to it and share it in many ways. If you have the right epic post, your readers will not hesitate to share their email addresses to receive more from you. Make sure your epic post is well crafted and less than 3000 words. If you are not sure what it takes to write an epic post, feel free to hire someone for the job. Here are three examples you may want to consider:
You can also browse our blog for inspiration 🙂
6. Master the headline
Use compelling headlines to create curiosity and convince people to click your call-to-action. Including action words like “improve,” “attack,” and “increase” will make your headlines more appealing. This way, it will be easier for you to build your email list.
7. Add a content upgrade for your top posts
Do you have content that receives more traffic each and every month? If yes, leverage that content by creating custom content for each. Now for your readers to receive the updated content, request them to share their email addresses. If you have more content that receives more traffic, the better.
8. Use the content cliffhanger technique
This technique is similar to the content upgrade, but this time you create quality content that is not finished. For example, ’30 Ways to Grow Your Wealth Today, but only list 20 ways. That way, you are forcing your readers to yearn for the remaining content.
Once you manage to keep your readers craving for more, consider asking them to share their email addresses to receive the remaining parts. For example, tell them to provide their email address to get notification once the remaining list of items is ready.
If you are going to use a cliffhanger, make sure your content is very engaging.
You can also use the gated content strategy and how to create gated content.
9. Include a subscribe link in your email signature(s)
This works well if you and your team add a newsletter signup link in the email signature. That way, every email that leaves your company boosts the subscription rate. You might have several different email campaigns, knowing when you provide different subscription links would definitely help increase more leads.
10. Give irresistible offers
Think of offers that will grab the attention of your audience. Knowing your target audience well can help you come up with luring offers. Make sure prospects first provide their email address before accessing your offers.
11. Conduct a joint email campaign with a complementary business
Consider running events with other businesses. When doing this, it will be easier for you and the other businesses to share email databases and leverage them. When other businesses give you access to their email databases, you get chances to grow your list. Besides, collaborating increases the probability of getting new email addresses from new entrants.
When you allow other businesses to use your email database, make sure to alert your customers. That will stop them from thinking they are being spammed. The same thing should happen when allowing access to other email databases for email marketing.
12. A/B testing of your opt-in forms
A/B testing allows you to know which opt-ins are working for you and which are not. By A/B testing your opt-in forms, you can tell whether they are contributing to your efforts or not. Here are more tips on how to A/B test and improve your opt-ins.
13. Implement on-site retargeting
Any serious marketer will tell you about the value of retargeted advertising in customer acquisition. We can apply the same approach to grow email lists significantly. For example, you can launch an exit-intent campaign immediately you notice your readers are about to leave the blog page. Such a campaign can help remind your readers of the value of signing up to receive your newsletters.
14. Make the most of author bylines
Another more natural way to grow your email list is by leveraging author bylines. How? It is simple! Just add a lead box in the author’s bylines that lets readers know where to subscribe to receive more similar content from the same writer. Is that not easy? Sure, it is.
15. Take advantage of lead generation cards
By using Twitter Ads, you can take your lead generation efforts to another level. The best thing is that you can run lead generation directly from twitter. This makes it even easier for your prospects to sign up for emails without leaving Twitter.
16. Use multiple signup forms
While this may not seem like a good idea, it is because you give more opportunities to join your email list. For example, you can have a signup form appear once a person lands on your site. Another one when the user scrolls past the sidebar and another showing a lightbox popup when users are about to leave.
To do this professionally and prevent all opt-ins popping up at once, you can set times and action-based triggers. Convertbox is an excellent software that can help you show popups based on user actions on your website.
17. Guest post on leading sites
Identify sites with a large reader base and not just a lot of people but audiences that have a significant fraction of your prospects. Once you have a list of those websites, create epic posts, and include CTAs that trigger readers to sign up. By guest posting, you will be leveraging the audience of leading sites that you have hand picked.
18. Answer Quora questions
Another easier way to grow your email list is by answering questions related to the topic of your lead magnets on Quora. Remember to add a link to your opt-in landing page for further reference.
19. Participate in LinkedIn groups
Participate in various LinkedIn groups until you become a known expert. You can then post a link to your opt-in landing page.
20. Collaborate with influencers
You can partner with influencers in a way where they send emails to their list about your opt-in offers. You also do the same by sending emails to your list about theirs. That way, you both reap the benefits.
Wrap up
There are many tactics you can use today to grow your email list. Knowing which tactics work for you well is a big plus. You can start by trying one and then moving through the others until you are sure which of the tactics are working the best for you.
It is also good to note some of these tactics may require you to adjust your budget. Be prepared for that.
What tactics have you used? Are they working for you? Let us know in the comment section.
