Want to 10X Your Email List Fast? 11 Strategies You HAVE TO try
Robby Luyken
Helping Coaches & Course Creators Grow to 20K/Month and beyond | Copywriter | Email Marketer | Content & Marketing Strategist
Your email list is one of the most valuable assets in your entire business. And in order to grow your email list, you must arm yourself with the latest strategies. Like high-converting lead magnets, landing pages, and more…
But if you’re starting from scratch, or your existing strategies don’t work out. Then building an impressive email list can be tough. So throw away what you have…
Because in this post you’ll get your hands on some top-notch strategies. These will help you build an email list from scratch (or skyrocket your existing one).
Best of all, these strategies are designed to cultivate a loyal email subscriber base. So you can better use your email to attract long-term customers.
Why is building an email list important?
First of all, email marketing is considered one of the most effective ways to reach your target audience. In addition, it has overall the highest return on investment, if done right.
But what makes email marketing earnings so high? That’s because it costs five times more to attract a new customer than to retain an existing one. Email marketing is the only cost-effective tool to effectively reach your target audience.
But, for it to be useful, however, you need to make sure that you’re constantly getting new subscribers. In addition, you must engage and nurture existing subscribers with your email campaigns to turn them into?loyal customers .
Above all, make sure that your email list is high quality. That’s why you want to focus on attracting people who will benefit from using your product or service. Because this group will most likely become your customers and stay longer.
How to build an email list from scratch (and fast)?
In email marketing terminology, building an email list from scratch is called organic email list building. This means you find a way to reach your target audience first. Then you have to ask them to sign up for your email list.
The organic list-building strategy is permission-based. This means that only people who have expressly expressed consent will be added to your list.
#1. Add a pop-up offer to your homepage
Depending on your overall website traffic, a pop-up on your homepage can dramatically increase your email signups. In fact, the average conversion rate for pop-up forms is?just over 3% . While the best pop-ups convert at around 10%.
If you offer a service, offering a free 1-1 session can be something valuable. If you have a product, then a promotional offer such as a discount or coupon code can be a great way to convert first-time website visitors before they hit the back button.
So if you want to begin using pop-up forms to capture emails on your e-commerce site. Then I recommend starting with an exit intent pop-up. Because this type will only show if a visitor moves their mouse off the page, which typically means they intend to navigate somewhere else.
Using the targeting options in your marketing platform of choice, you can disable these pop-ups for previous customers and visitors who are already on your list. This lets you focus your copy around new customers only.
Hubspot?uses its?exit-intent popup ?as a way to collect subscribers for their email list. They realize that if you’ve read a certain amount of posts on their site, you’re warm to their newsletters.?
They then back up the value of their content with the headline “Join 215,000 Fellow Marketers”. By doing this you add a bit of social proof?to the mix.
If 215,000 already joined their email list, shouldn’t you as well?
For our e-commerce store owners, Monbouquette ’s newsletter subscription message is a great copywriting example. It not only offers 15% off but lists the newsletter’s contents and states the frequency as well.
This way, people can give fully informed consent.
#2. Put an opt-in form in your site’s navigation or footer
A key element to capturing new subscribers for your email list is giving visitors ample chances. That’s why in addition to a homepage or product page pop-up form, you should also consider adding an email signup form across every page on your website.
Most website platforms enable you to place opt-in forms in locations where shoppers look for additional information about your business, including the margins, navigation bar, and footer.
Because these forms are often subtle and located below the fold, your conversion rate will likely be low overall. However, the contribution they make to building your list can add up over time.?
This can be as simple as…
But if you really want to boost your conversion rate, make sure you’re adding a strong CTA about the value of signing up, whether it’s a coupon, exclusive content, or regular news and updates.
As a shopper makes their way down to your site’s footer to learn more about your brand, what sorts of offers might catch their attention and encourage them to subscribe?
#3. Create a personalized CTA (call to action) for each blog or landing page.
What a personalized call to action?! Yes, did you know that personal calls to action have a 42% higher view rate than the same call-to-action for all visitors? Imagine this, by doing the simple step you can generate almost twice as many email subscribers as your potential.
And if you think about it for a bit, then it makes sense. Because people who visit your blog post or website are looking for something specific, your CTA needs to meet those unique needs.
Let’s pretend you offer X and you have a lot of traffic to your blog post-Y. Why not entice these people to subscribe to your newsletter?
Don’t do this: “Subscribe to get emails about Y”
Do this instead: “Click here to download X, to skyrocket your Y”
You can do this with everything, you can also offer an e-book, a quiz, or an exclusive article from your CEO on list-building strategies. The point is, just be creative!
Of course, a personalized CTA only works if you have the resources to create that quality content in the first place, but that process doesn’t need to be expensive or time-consuming.
If you provide content that is directly relevant to your visitor’s needs, your email newsletter won’t look like a gimmicky advertisement. Instead, it should feel useful and valuable – key principles for a long-term customer retention plan.
#4. Collect email addresses at your store or in-person events
Let’s think out of the box for this one… Have you ever thought of converting random encounters into online leads?
Face-to-face connections are still the most effective tool for converting leads into customers, even if a transaction doesn’t happen in person. Whether you have a brick-and-mortar store, or you’re promoting your business at an event or pop-up shop, your in-person interactions can help you build your email list, leading to more digital sales.
Be creative, create a QR code that people can sign up for, or create a form that can easily make the transition from online to real life. For instance, you can bring a clipboard and ask people to write down their name and email address, or, to better sync with your email marketing tool of choice, you can provide an iPad where people can submit their addresses directly.
You can even level up your business card and include a CTA on your business cards to incentivize email signups. The key is again, to make sure you include a strong CTA to incentivize in-person signups.
One of the best examples out there on the market is OVOU , their Smart Business Card is the ultimate addition to transform every random encounter into an opportunity to network offline and online.
#5.?Add a signup button to social media
You may not have a long list of email subscribers, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have a network. If you have a following base on Twitter, a fan base on Facebook, or businesses you communicate with via email, why not use those solid and loyal connections to build an email list?
By adding an option on your social media accounts to sign up for email updates, you can give followers another way to stay in the know while pulling them into more personalized email nurturing campaigns.?Most social media platforms support buttons or forms, enabling you to add a simple email signup option to your page.
For instance, you can include a call-to-action button?on your Facebook business page ?to encourage your followers to sign up for your email list.
Social platforms that are less link-friendly, like Instagram, explore workarounds to drive email signups. For instance, you can use?Linktree ?to include multiple links in your Instagram bio: one for your e-commerce website, and another to direct visitors to a sign-up form for your email list. You may want to consider separating new subscribers added through Instagram so you can track roughly how well it’s influencing the growth of your list.
#6. Showcase your email newsletter on your social media accounts
In addition to the last tip, you can also leverage your social media to promote your email newsletter. You can also try reposting these newsletters on your business’ Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn account. People who follow you on those sites already know they like you, but they’re not necessarily the recipients of your newsletter. Give them options.
Here’s an example of the Copy Posse promoting their YouTube video on their Instagram account. The best part is that you can also read a blog post about this topic.
But here’s the trick, if you want to do this successfully. Give have to give your audience a reason to sign up for your newsletter. This can be as simple as sharing information only with your community.
In case you are not comfortable showcasing your email newsletter on social media, or if you don’t have a lot of followers on any of your accounts, you can also include a link in your signature. your email – that link could go directly to your email newsletter, or it could be a link to a blog post or landing page with an email signup CTA.
How cool is it if you give your recipients insane value from your personal email, and they want to know more so they may want the option of clicking on the link and exploring your company more in-depth?
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#7. Build more (personalized) landing pages
When it comes to convincing visitors or followers to provide their emails, there’s no one-size-fits-all offer. Depending on where they discovered your online business and where they are in their buyer journey, different prospects will respond to different email signup CTAs.
With that in mind, you should plan on creating multiple landing pages with opt-in forms and messaging tailored to a particular segment of your audience.?The numbers back this up as Hubspot conducted research on this topic.
They found that companies see a 55% increase in leads when you increase the number of landing pages from 10 to 15.
It makes sense: individual and personalized landing pages allow you to appeal to a wider demographic. Every person who visits your site needs something different, so the more landing pages you can create to answer each person’s individual concerns, the more sign-ups you’ll gain.
It’s like a restaurant menu. The more you can offer to cater to specific demographics, the more customers you’ll bring in. Someone could be looking for the best gluten-free pizza, while someone else might just want some good sushi.
#8. Include a newsletter signup option at checkout
It’s unsurprising that many online business owners neglect their checkout page as a marketing tool—after all, they’ve already secured a customer. Yet the buyer’s journey doesn’t end with a single transaction. Remember, it costs five times more to attract a new customer than to retain an existing one.
By indulging in a newsletter signup option at the checkout you catch the low-hanging food. Adding a checkout newsletter signup?option can be as simple as including a checkbox under the field customers are using to provide an email for their order confirmation. Or if you selling a service, a simple form will do the job as well.
This simple task can (and will) encourage many users to sign up for your email list at checkout. So you can turn a single transaction into a lifelong fan and repeat customer.
You can even take it to the next level by adding a popup, banner, or thank you page after the purchase. By investing in a more exciting design, you’ll have a better chance of grabbing a customer’s attention and earning an email list signup.
#9. Drive email list signups with ad campaigns
From the strategies that are shared today is this probably the fastest way to grow your email list. The strategy is to run?PPC ?ad campaigns and drive traffic to your attraction page. There you will also need a lead magnet that can convince your website visitors to leave you their email address.
The downside is that you must have lead magnets that work and you have to invest more, but the opportunities are endless. Whether you’re looking at social media, search, or some other advertising channel, there are countless options for driving email list signups with online ads.
For instance, you can place banner ads on YouTube videos related to your industry, or run targeted Facebook ads to drive visitors to a downloadable guide that’s related to your product (e.g., a recipe book to pair with your kitchen gadgets.)?
With the powerful audience targeting tools in Google AdWords and Facebook Ads Manager, you can build an offer with an audience already in mind, and then tweak attributes like location, age, gender, profession, interests, and more to reach the right people.
Take a look at this example from the lingerie e-tailer,?Boux Avenue :
In this lead ad, Boux Avenue highlights both the newsletter benefit (receiving news) and the monetary gain you’ll get upon signing up (20% off your first order.)
If you’re interested in Boux Avenue’s offer, all you need to do is to click the?call-to-action ?(CTA) button “Sign Up” and submit the pre-filled form.
The company shows the discount code when you complete the form on Facebook, so you don’t have to compromise the browsing experience.
#10.?Run contests or giveaways on social media
This one is for the advanced list builders that already have a lot of traffic on their social media or other channels. Because contests and giveaways are a great strategy to accelerate list growth. By turning the act of subscribing into a shareable and winnable event, you can leverage your traffic and turn it into brand-new (quality) subscribers.
This can be done in multiple ways:
Again, the key here is to be creative and test to discover what resonates best with your audience.
For example, Starbucks created a well-structured and personalized loyalty program that has generated significant benefits in recurring revenue for their business by improving customer experience. Here’s how the?Starbucks Reward Program ?became the pioneer of using an omnichannel experience with their loyalty program:
Creating a loyalty program specifically designed for your audience is a great way to build a long-term relationship between the customer and the brand.
The aim is to incentivize customers to spend more money on your products or services in order to let them ‘earn’ the benefits. What can result in an increased number of subscribers or long-time customers?
#11. Survey your target audience
You can’t actually create effective digital marketing from scratch. Because you need valuable information about your audience so you can create tailored content.
With visitor surveys and questionnaires, you can gather valuable information about your audience’s wants, needs, and feedback while capturing their emails for marketing purposes.?
If you want to start using an online survey, quiz, or any other type of questionnaire. Start with deciding your goal, is it market research or identifying your ideal customer? Once you have a goal in mind, you can start creating a survey where in the end you can invite survey takers to opt into your email list.
Don’t be shy, send your survey to friends and family, post it in Facebook groups, mention it on social media, and include a special offer for people who fill it out. This is a great way to get your email list started and bring friends, family, and potential customers on your startup journey.
Tip: Extremely helpful tools to do this include?Google Forms ,?Typeform , and?SurveyMonkey .?
BONUS: Email list-building tools and resources
As you grow your email list from a few subscribers to a few thousand. Then it’s important to invest in tools and platforms to help you manage, organize, and leverage your data. Here are a few email marketing solutions to get you started.
High-quality content
Creating high-quality content (content marketing) is the practice of creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content. The ultimate goal is to attract and acquire a clearly defined audience, with the objective of driving profitable customer action.
As a result, your brand reputation will improve, better online visibility and your email list will grow consistently.
Here is an overview of 3 types of content for your email list-building strategy:
Webpage content?
Webpages are way more important than you might think as Google receives more than?8.5 billion searches ?a day. This means, if you want to be found online, creating valuable pages online can be a game changer. Because your website is more likely to increase organic traffic.
Social media content
What is the fastest way to reach out to a broad audience? Well, with over 4.2 billion global users. Social media provides immense potential for businesses to engage with customers across their customer journey.
Video content
Over the last few years, video marketing has become incredibly popular. In fact,?86% ?of businesses use video as a marketing tool, compared to 63% over the last 3 years.
Landing page
A landing page is a standalone web page that potential customers can “land” on when they click through from an?email,?ad, or other digital location…
And its sole purpose is to strategically guide visitors to the next step in the conversion funnel. It aims to capture information from contacts in exchange for something of value through a specific action. For instance filling out a form, making a purchase, or subscribing to a service.
Here is an example of how Neil Patel Captures subscribers for their email list through a form:
Lead magnet
A?Lead Magnet?is some form of content or information that you offer for free to attract qualified?leads. Qualified leads are people who are actually interested in what you do. This is the group of people that is most likely to buy from you at some point in the future).
Of course, you can offer other types of “free gifts” or “opt-in bribes.” The bottom line here is that if you want to grow your email list. Then you need to create content that your audience will be willing to leave their email addresses with.
This article will give you more lead magnet ideas that will help you grow your email list fast. Plus, you’ll get your hands on the exact 3-step formula I follow to attract highly qualified leads and turn those leads into sales.
Email list building is just the beginning...
Email marketing not only helps you build relationships with customers. It also provides you with a proven way to nurture leads and convert them into long-term customers.
Because no two businesses are exactly alike. That’s why it’s so important to test various strategies for building your email list to find what works best. Once you have a solid collection of targeted, relevant prospects, you can begin refining your email marketing to achieve your specific goals.?