10 Ideas to Grow Your Email Marketing List
Your small business website needs to capture your visitors’ attention and get them to take action when they land there. The days are gone when visitors would drop their email at the offer of a monthly newsletter so you have to get creative and find new ways to draw people to your list. Here are 10 simple ways to grow your list.
- Give Something to New Sign Ups
Growing your list can be as simple as giving your visitors something in exchange for their emails. Even though it’s a giveaway you need to make it relevant to your business and make it good. A free report, eBook, training, MP3, product sample or something equally as valuable are all good ideas for giveaways. Feature the giveaway in a prominent place on the website so that visitors see and sign up for it.
- Hold a Contest
This is a giveaway in another way. Host a contest where you give away a prize or two and encourage your friends and fans to participate by submitting their email address and promoting the contest as well. This will help to spread the word about the contest and help you build your list as quickly as possible.
People love contests and know a great deal when they see one. You can even take the opportunity to build your following on social networks by extending the contest there as well and announcing the winners through these networks.
- Ask your Fans to Join Your List
While social media is great for interaction you need a list in order to communicate your messages to them without the entire buzz that takes place in the social media environment. Ask your fans to visit your website and sign on to your list this way if they eventually leave the social network you’ll still have a way to communicate with them.
- Use Your Blog to Get More Email Subscribers
People who enjoy reading your blog will most likely also want to read your newsletter. Ask your readers to join your mailing list and make it easy for them to do so by placing a signup box at the bottom of every post. A strong call to action on your posts or in your sidebars would increase your signups.
- At Conferences and Workshops
All your list building does not have to take place online. If you’re a speaker at a meeting or conference you can use the opportunity to get new signups for your list. Walk with a clipboard and signup sheet and pass it around when you’re at the platform. You can even offer a freebie right then and there and let your audience know that they’ll get the freebie and inclusion on your mailing list at the same time.
- Partner Up
Form a partnership with businesses that provide products or services that are related to yours and ask for an opportunity to email their list with an incentive to sign up to yours. Give them the same opportunity with your list and it will be a win-win for everyone.
- Host a Webinar
Webinars are another great way to grow your list. Make the seminar something that your target audience would really be interested in. Provide a solution to one of their burning problems, promote it well and have people complete a registration form with their email addresses. Provide lots of information during the seminar and people will value what you have to share and want to stay in touch.
- Use Your Newsletter
If you’re publishing lots of great content in your newsletter I assure you that your regular subscribers will forward it to friends. Provide instructions to let these new readers know how to sign up for your newsletter so that they can get it themselves.
- Author Bio
When you write articles around the web always put the author bio to good use. Instead of just pointing readers to your site direct them to a page where they can sign up or your newsletter. If you do a lot of guest posting you can grow a massive list just by sending readers to a landing page with a strong call to action.
- Trial Memberships.
This final point takes us back to the freebies. Give away a 30 day free trial of your product and win them over. Ask them to provide their email address in exchange and follow up with them to make them paying customers.
Bonus Tip:
When you turn prospects into paying customers always send them a thank you email and in it ask them to join your list to be notified of any upcoming offers or discounts.
What are some list building techniques that work for you?
