Customers are reluctant to give up their email addresses unless it’s worth it. In the overcrowded digital world, growing your email list turns into a daunting task. Not if you do it the right way, though.
Let’s take Harry’s as an example. Starting out as a small business with 12 employees, they acquired 100,000 email addresses in a week. How? They invited each employee to send an email to all their contacts announcing the company’s launch. Using this innovative word-of-mouth campaign, they collected 100,000 subscribers one week before their online store went live. Here’s the landing page they used to get people to sign up:
Using creative copy and a neat design, they had a main focal point: motivating users to opt in and driving traffic to their website—once live. They evoked curiosity through a compelling headline, a strong CTA inviting users to step inside, and the incentive that they’ll “Be the first to know.”
All it takes to grow your email list is setting up simple yet effective tactics. Doesn’t sound so intimidating, right? Let’s see how you can do that through five tried and tested ways to increase email signups.
1. Use a Powerful Email Marketing Solution
Email tools don’t just help you send emails to your audience. They help you grow that audience, too. Here’s what you can do with such a tool:
- Craft and customize signup forms and landing pages to capture email addresses.
- Implement double opt-in registration to get users’ confirmation. Such a process ensures you collect valid and active email addresses.
- Segment and personalize email campaigns to encourage current subscribers to share or forward your content.
- Integrate email with social media to promote email signups on more touch points.
- Create exit-intent pop-ups to capture visitors before they leave your site.
As to which software to choose, Constant Contact and Mailchimp are key players in the game. Both tools come with top-class list management, lead generation options, and analytics to track audience engagement. And let’s not forget their excellent deliverability. But who would win in a Constant Contact vs Mailchimp battle?
Constant Contact is known for its user-friendliness in audience management and email creation. Its sophisticated yet straightforward segmentation makes it a popular option for every business type. Unlike Mailchimp’s multi-step and complex segmentation that tends to overwhelm users. Not to mention that you only get to add up to five segmentation rules, which may not be enough for efficient targeting.
On the other hand, Mailchimp offers tools to build landing pages and opt-in forms, along with a variety of customization options. This is an area where Constant Contact falls behind. Its limited customization capabilities leave marketers little room to design modern, on-brand forms and landing pages.
So, just because they are popular solutions, it doesn’t mean that they’re the ideal choice for everyone. Every email marketing solution comes with its strengths and weaknesses. By researching them, you’ll be able to decide whether it’s a good or bad fit for your unique needs.
That’s why you should consider exploring smaller but powerful options offering the same capabilities— to see if they better match your business type and specific objectives. Some of them include Moosend, Brevo, and GetResponse.
2. Use Lead Magnets
Sometimes, customers really want to learn everything about a new product or feature, an upcoming promotion, or a seasonal sale. In that case, it will give them reasons to subscribe to a brand’s list. But more often than not, they’ll need enticement in the form of a freebie or some kind of valuable content.
Let’s explain this using two different scenarios. In the first scenario, you create a form that asks for users’ email addresses to send them business news and updates. In the second scenario, your form informs users that they’ll get a coupon code in exchange for their email addresses. Which form will be more impactful? As you can tell, giving something in return could work wonders for email list growth.
Giving visitors something in return for their email address helps you build trust, demonstrating you want to provide value right away. To get the most out of your lead magnets, position them strategically on high-traffic pages on your site. More importantly, make sure what you give is something your target audience would love to use. If you’re wondering what this might be, here are a few ideas:
- eBooks and whitepapers
- Exclusive online courses
- Cheat sheets
- Free templates
- Coupons or discount codes
- First-time access to products or services
- Free trials
- Webinar invites
For example, HubSpot gives up just enough information to urge website visitors to download its marketing report, promising to uncover the most important trends of 2024:
Clicking on your lead magnet CTA marks the beginning of your relationship. But don’t leave it at that. Set up an onboarding email sequence and deliver helpful content such as tips and tricks to address common pain points or detailed case studies from satisfied customers. This way, you won’t just get new subscribers; you’ll get loyal subscribers who consistently gain value.
3. Optimize Signup Forms
Giving their contact information is enough to make users nervous. If, on top of that, you make the process complicated and time-consuming, chances are they’ll walk away. Therefore, you should simplify form creation and let them know you’ll treat their data with the utmost respect.
How can you do that? Keep your forms short and straightforward, only asking for the basics. Keep in mind that certain types of information make people even more reluctant to convert:
Ensure that your CTA is clear and concise, so users understand what you expect them to do. This doesn’t mean you can’t be creative, though. There’s always room for clever copy instead of generic phrases. For instance, if you want them to register for a webinar, try “Save Your Seat” instead of “Register.” Or, in case you offer downloadable material, avoid the word download and opt for something less intimidating like “Claim Your Copy.”
If there are benefits of subscribing to your newsletter, now is the time to list them. Let users know what they’ll gain from joining your list, whether it’s insightful content or early access to new products, feature releases, or exciting events.
Data security is a top reason why website visitors choose not to fill in their email addresses. You can turn things round by including a GDPR field in your form. Through it, they give you their consent to gather, store, and manage their data. This is an essential step to show users you respect their privacy, thus helping you build trust. Note that most email marketing platforms have the GDPR option as a preset custom filed.
4. Leverage Social Media
Word-of-mouth holds immense potential for list growth. This is particularly true on social media since users love to share fascinating offers and content with their friends. On social media, brands reach out to huge and diverse audiences, including potential subscribers who may not have interacted with them elsewhere. Through this process, they can collect a good number of email addresses and increase the reach of their email marketing.
There are various ways to use social media to your benefit. First, you can add an email signup CTA on your social media profiles—like your Instagram bio or Facebook page—for users to join your email list. Once visitors land on your page, they’ll have an immediate and easy way to sign up to your newsletter.
Social media ads help you target specific groups on their preferred platform and at the optimal time. It may be difficult for businesses on tight budgets to invest in this type of targeting, but the good news is that you can scale your social media ads efforts as your business grows.
If there’s a bulletproof tactic to expand your subscriber list, that’s to share engaging and exciting content on your social media channels. Successful brands use their content to get more shares, which in turn, increases their reach and drives website traffic.
So, the key is to create great content that can easily go viral. Whether it’s a YouTube video, an Instagram reel, or a LinkedIn post, ensure you include a clear and concise CTA inviting users to sign up. Mention how subscribing to your newsletter benefits your audience. Will they get a free pass to an event? Should they wait for exclusive tips or subscriber-only offers? Add these incentives to your posts to motivate your followers to sign up for more. You could consider partnering with reputable influencers in your niche, too.
5. Use your Blog Posts
Having an informative and up-to-date blog is an excellent method to build a strong online presence and attract qualified leads. Blog posts offer you the opportunity to establish credibility and boost brand awareness. But have you considered using them as tools to gather email addresses?
This is particularly useful if you leverage your newsletter to share informative blog post content and alert recipients on new posts or post updates. So, make sure you let blog visitors know of your newsletter content’s value. You can mention the benefits of joining your list and add banners within your blog posts to urge users to subscribe.
If you don’t want to come across as too aggressive or self-promoting, you can place a dedicated CTA at the bottom of each blog post. After all, if they’ve come as far as reading your entire blog post, it’s more likely that they’ll want to read relevant blogs. And they’ll get to do so without visiting the blog because you’ll know what exactly they’ll need using their reading and browsing history.
Fostering Connections Through List Growth
There are several tactics to give your email marketing a nudge. Populating your list with engaged subscribers is the first step. Our guide serves as a framework highlighting strategies that you can use. However, claiming that a specific list growth strategy fits all companies could be misleading.
To find out if a subscriber acquisition strategy works for your brand, you need to create a strategic plan. Brainstorm with your team members and research what your competitors are doing to come up with ideas. However, experimentation and analytics are your safest bet to achieve success. Try out different tactics to expand your list and monitor results to understand what works.
Lastly, remember that growing your email list isn’t limited to collecting email addresses. You should mostly focus on building connections with subscribers. They need to think of your newsletter as their go-to source for educational content, enticing offers, and exclusive promotions. That way, you’ll nurture trusting relationships and make recipients your most loyal customers.
