8 Ways To Increase Your Email List

It seems like all we talk about these days in the business and digital marketing sphere is social media. However, the truth of the matter is that good old-fashioned email marketing is still far more effective than social media.

Whilst I’m not saying that staying on top of your social media marketing isn’t important, I would say that any small or medium sized who is looking to kick-start there marketing should first make sure their email marketing game is up to scratch.

When I start working with new or established businesses, I often find that they don’t haven’t put much thought into their email marketing campaign. Well first thing is first, you’ve got to start building up an email list. In this article I’m going to share 10 things you can implement TODAY to increase your email list:

1. Set up an email marketing service

What an email marketing service does is collects and stores email addresses and allows you to easily send bulk emails that are actually personalized and targeted without a lot of work. An email marketing service allows you to manage your contacts, segment them into lists and track the performance of your email marketing campaigns.

If you haven’t got one set up, then please set one up now. You can check out this article on the 7 Best Email Marketing Services for Small Business (2021).

2. Create unique and engaging content

If you want people to actually read your content, then you have got to create content that they actually want to read. If your emails are informative, helpful and entertaining then people will read them. If they read them then they might sign up for more or recommend them to a friend or colleague.

Also, don’t just copy and paste what someone else has written. The likelihood is that if you are copying it from someone else then their content is already getting more traction than yours and so there is no way you are going to compete with them. Also, why wouldn’t people just go to [Insert more well-known source] and get the content from them?

3. Post regularly

If you speak to any digital marketers, they will tell that “Content is king”. It is so important to post frequently. Some will say to make sure to post every day, multiple times a day, weekly, etc. Ultimately how often to post is something that you need to decide for your business. Having more content out there positions you as an expert on a topic and so people are more likely to trust your content and your brand. However, posting regularly is a whole pile of work! I’m trying to aim for once a week at the moment so maybe that will work for you too?

4. Use a Simple Form and Link From Everywhere

Pretty much all marketing services will come with some kind of simple form where people can input their email address to sign up to your email list.

Make sure to keep the form simple and don’t ask for much more information than their email address so the chances are higher that it will be filled in.

Then post that form everywhere:

On Facebook, make it easy to subscribe to your list with a dedicated tab or by linking the contact button to your form.
On Twitter, link to your email form with a well-crafted and enticing tweet and post these regularly to your followers.
On Instagram you can only have one link in your bio, so either put a link to the form there or use a service like linktree and include your sign up that way.
Add a link to your email signature. If you have employees with company email addresses, then include it in their signatures too.
Place a QR code in your physical business, brochures or business cards using a free QR generator.

5. Encourage subscribers to share and forward your emails.

If you are regularly sending out quality content, then it is likely that you have some fans who would be willing to share the word if you asked them to. At the end of your emails ask them to share your emails by social media or forward their emails to someone they think would benefit from it. Granted, the large majority won’t, but every little helps!

6. Offer an Incentive

Incentives often help to persuade visitors who would otherwise leave your site without subscribing. A little push is all that some people need to take action and sign up. The type of incentive always depends on what your business is, but some ideas are:

Offer discount coupon for your brick and mortar or online store.
Run a contest or giveaway
Limited offer like free consultation

7. Lead Magnets

We’ve all seen lead magnets on websites before. Some examples:

Social Media Post Calendar
5-day meal planner
On-Page SEO Checklist: How to Fully Optimize Your Posts
52 Headline Hacks: A Cheat Sheet for Writing Blog Posts That Go Viral.

Basically, a lead magnet is some kind of resource, e-book or discount that clients will receive free if they sign up to your mailing list. Have a think about kind of help your clients might need and create an absolutely irresistible lead magnet to boost those sign ups!

8. Website Pop-ups

If you’ve been reading any popular blogs, or been onto many business websites you will have no doubt received a pop up. Why? Because they work.

Highly converting pop ups come in all shapes, sizes and functionality options, but here’s what I’ve found that works the best to get the most from your website popup:

Use exit-intent to only show the popup when the visitor is going to leave your site
Offer something for free, such as a PDF download, email course or discount coupon to attract subscribers
Use an eye-catching design
Make sure it is very fast loading
Use emotional text to capture attention
Use A/B testing to see which version of your popup works best

PRO TIPS

Make it as easy as possible to enter an email address – We would all love to get more information like the persons full name, business, where they are from, etc. but it’s far more important to keep the process as easy and quick as possible as otherwise you will just lose out on people signing up.
Minimize the clicks it takes to subscribe – The best is that the form is right there on the page or social media, but if you must send them to somewhere else then make sure it is just one click away. The fewer clicks’ people have to do to sign up the less likely you will lose them along the way.
Have a strategy – Placing pop-ups on your website on every page with the same offer is a surefire way to annoy your visitors and hurt your conversion, whereas tagging your pop-ups to particular blog posts or pages will dramatically increase your conversions.
Creating a lead magnet is easier than you think – I think the reason why most business owners don’t want to come up with a lead magnet is because they are afraid of having to come up with a PhD or book. If you’re going to write a full book, then you sure as hell aren’t going to offer it out for free just to get an email address! The best lead magnets are just resources or information that you already have available which potential clients would like to have. You just need to bundle them up and watch the signs ups go through the roof!

I hope this article gave you some ideas to implement. Am I missing some? Do you have any questions or comments? I’d love to hear from you!