Learn 5 super easy ways to grow your email list and ultimately gain more leads, traffic and conversions! List building is essential for any blogger or business owner in order to create a dedicated readership and get loyal customers.
You’ve got a blog or website, you get pretty decent traffic, and you may even sell products. Nice work!
But do you have an email list?
If not, why the heck not?!
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Far too many people neglect their email list and later kick themselves for not starting it sooner or for not dedicating as much time toward building it as they should. They don’t understand how essential it is to their growth and marketing strategies until they are deep in their digital marketing plans and realize they could have had access to their target audience long ago.
The following guide will explain the importance of list building and provide you with 5 simple ways you can start growing your list today.
Why Building An Email List Is Important
Your email list is one of the most powerful tools in your digital marketing engine. It’s entirely unique to you and your business because not a single other soul has the same list of email addresses as you do.
One of the best things you can do for your blog or business is to begin gathering email addresses early on. Don’t wait until you’ve got products to sell, don’t wait until you’re averaging tens of thousands of visitors to your site each month… start now. Start now so your future self thanks you for being proactive early on.
List building is vital because it allows you to build a relationship with current and potential customers. When someone opts to receive emails from you, it’s because they trust you, they value the information that you provide, they are interested in the products that you sell, and they want to stay in touch to learn the latest in your niche.
It’s also very intimate. Your subscribers are giving you access to a very personal part of their lives: their inbox.
You are being granted direct access to their phones, their tablets, and their desktops. And you KNOW how many emails we all receive on a daily basis, so when someone signs up for your newsletter, it’s a true testament to you and your mad skills. Bravo.
No, you don’t need to be a seller to have an email list (but your email list is the best place to start selling should you one day have a burst of inspiration and creativity).
Your email list is yours and yours alone… it’s about time you use it!
What email service provider should I use?
We swear by ConvertKit and use it for several of our properties. If you have a new blog or don’t have the budget for something like ConvertKit just yet, MailChimp is a great alternative.
Here are 5 simple ways you can grow your email list from zero to thousands:
If you want to take your digital marketing to the next level, you have to grow your email list. These are some really straightforward ways to get you started.
1. Add a Simple Opt-in Form in an Easy-to-See Place
You must give your readers an easy way to join your email list. The people that want to join your list purely out of their love for your content are the cream of the crop. They aren’t signing up to get a free product, they’re not joining because you offered a coupon code… they’re signing up because you made enough of an impact on them through your content that they want to keep in touch.
That’s AWESOME.
So make sure they can easily get on board.
There are several ways you can incorporate an opt-in form on your website. It may come in the form of a pop-up, a header at the top of your blog, in-post/article, on your sidebar, in your footer, and more.
Make sure that it isn’t hard to locate and that it isn’t overshadowed by surrounding content.
2. Offer a Freebie
Got something awesome that will be valuable to your readers? Give it to them for free.
What?! Free? That took me so long to make!
Firstly, your freebie doesn’t need to be complicated. It doesn’t need to be wildly attractive, and it doesn’t need to be extremely in-depth… it just needs to offer value to show your new subscriber that you’ve got the good goods. Later, when they’re looking for similar resources, they’ll think of you.
Second, you will earn back the time you spent making that freebie quickly, in the form of subscribers who may become buyers.
Freebies are usually digital downloads. So, when someone signs up to receive whatever it is you’re giving away, whether it be a printable, a checklist, a guide, etc., they will get it by submitting their email address via a form on your website. Once they submit, they’ll be prompted to check their email inbox to access their download, which will be sent to them through your automated email service provider.
Voilà! You’ve got a subscriber, and your subscriber has something awesome.
3. Create a Landing Page
There are two ways you can make a landing page, one being simpler than the other.
Most email service providers have the option to create a landing page, which is essentially a web page hosted by your provider that has an opt-in form as well as any other relevant information that you wish to include.
For example, if you are selling an e-course, your landing page would, in theory, include the details of the course, testimonials from buyers, the price, and specifics on the modules. If you are giving away a freebie, your landing page would be more simple, likely including just basic information about what your reader will receive for free by opting in. If you are just shooting for a signup, your page may be very basic, telling your readers what they can expect to receive in their inbox if they join your list.
After building your page through your ESP, you will be given a link which you can then attach to any buttons or in-text URLs to send your potential subscribers to your landing page.
If you don’t want to use the landing page option with your ESP, you can always create a page on your content management system, like WordPress, and add the javascript or HTML of an opt-in form to the page.
You can create a landing page for just about any type of opt-in form, whether or not you are selling or giving away a product.
4. Add A ‘Sign Up’ Button to Your Facebook Page
Probably one of the most overlooked ways to get email sign-ups is through Facebook. This platform makes it super easy to get pretty much any type of lead you’re looking for through the use of a simple button beneath your cover photo.
If you’ve got a decent Facebook following, this is an especially useful way to capitalize on your existing audience and make it easy for new followers to stay in touch with you off of Facebook.
All you need to do is select your button type, add a link to your Landing Page and you’ve got yourself a simple opt-in form.
Select ‘Add a Button‘:
In Step 1, ‘Which button do you want people to see?‘ select ‘Contact you‘ and ‘Sign up.’
Next, add a link to your landing page (taken from your email service provider). This is a page you would have custom built with an opt-in form (#3); here, your reader will directly sign up to your email list. Then, click Finish.
And that’s it! Now your Facebook followers have an easy way to join your list!
5. Create a Quiz or Assessment
Quizzes are an AMAZING (and borderline new) way for bloggers to collect leads.
Create a quiz or assessment that is relevant to your niche, asks questions that will be useful to you in creating content later, and give the results in exchange for the email address.
Yup, you read that right… if your quiz taker wants to get their results, they’ve got to sign up!
The way to not be spammy in this regard is to ensure that your quiz content is highly valuable. We’re not talking fluff content; we’re talking about learning.
One of the best ways to create real, valuable content is by understanding what your readers need. What better way to identify new and relevant questions than to quite literally ask? We know that growing your blog requires several efforts, including SEO and identifying and understanding keywords, but part of that process is figuring out what people are searching for… what they need.
Quizzes are the perfect way to figure out their needs AND get their email address.
Ready to grow? What’s your favorite email list growing tactic?
