If you have an email list, you already know that you have to continually add new subscribers to keep your list profitable. While some customers will buy from you forever, others buy today but not tomorrow. Or they change email addresses, or simply lose interest.
The good news is, there are simple methods for building your email list that you probably haven’t even thought of. I searched high and low online to see what email experts said about building an email list faster, and I was astonished to realize there are several things I should have been doing all along. I’ve now implemented those techniques and already I see my list growing by the day.
I’m also including several things I’m already doing just in case you haven’t thought of these yet.
1: Encouraging subscribers to forward my emails.
Yup, I remember doing this years ago, and somehow I completely forgot about it.
Now I’m adding a button to each email that says, “Email to a Friend”. Then at the bottom I include a call to action and a subscribe button. “If this email was forwarded to you from a friend, click here to get your own subscription, free.”
2: Reviving and old email list with an opt-in campaign.
I have a couple of older lists that I seldom send emails to anymore because the response simply isn’t very good.
So here’s what I’m doing: I’ve created a series of fun emails to send out, each one promising an awesome gift if they re-opt in. And I also tell them that if they don’t, no worries, they will be removed when this little campaign ends.
So far it’s working. I’m getting people to raise their hand again and tell me they are still interested in the niche. And once the campaign is over, my overall deliverability will go up, too.
3: Adding Easter Eggs
I love this one. Let them know at the beginning of the email that there is some sort of Easter Egg hidden in the email. For example, it could be a hyper-linked word that leads to a surprise, or maybe the first word of every line spells out a special URL. The possibilities are endless.
Do this on a regular basis and people will open your email just to find the eggs and then they’ll wind up reading the content, too.
4: Creating New Lead Magnets
For some of your major blog posts, you might want to hold back on some of the content and offer it in the form of a lead magnet. “Hey, do you want to know how I finally convinced the affiliate to spend $10,000 on ads for my product? This is too hot to publish online but I can give you private access, just tell me where to send it.”
5: Creating Free Online Tools
Any tool that is super fun or makes your reader’s life easier can work to get new subscribers. Instead of charging them, give them full access via email.
6: Creating Unique Email Content
If your emails are entertaining and informative, then people will look forward to receiving and reading them.
Every single email should provide some sort of value. And it doesn’t always have to be information, either. If you can simply make your subscribers smile or laugh, that can be enough.
7: Segmenting Email Lists
The more specific an email is to the recipient’s interests, the more likely they are to open it and read it.
You can segment your list by demographics of the recipients or interests of the recipients.
For example, if you sell weight loss products to a wide range of people, you might want to segment your lists by age and gender.
You can segment the subscribers you already have by sending them a quick survey and a freebie or an offer based on the results.
If you sell to people who want to make money online, you might segment your lists by people who are interested in driving traffic, making videos, doing social media marketing and so forth.
You can segment your current subscribers by offering them specific things, like a free cheat sheet on getting more YouTube views or a new method of driving traffic. Or send them a survey and ask what topics they’re interested in. Be sure to reward them for taking the survey.
8: Contests
I haven’t done this in awhile, but I can tell you for a fact that it works.
Host a free giveaway that requires contact information to enter. The key is to give away something that only your target audience would love. For example, if you’re in the investing niche, you can give away the hottest books on investing via Amazon.
Promote your contest on social media using Twitter, Pinterest or whatever platforms work best for you.
9: Adding a CTA Button to the Top of Your Facebook Business Page
This one is so simple – do it once and you’re done. Just add a Call to Action button to your Facebook page that takes visitors to your sign-up landing page. Offer them something special for opting in.
10: Sharing Newsletter Previews via Social Media
Create posts that showcase either snippets of your email newsletter or several enticing bullet points of what subscribers are discovering.
People hate to miss out. When they see that others are getting all this great info for free and they’re not, they will be desperate to join, no lead magnet required.
11: Add Gated Content to Facebook
Promote content in FB posts that requires special access via submitting their email address.
Or if you already have a great reputation on social media, put the word out that subscribers get early access to all products.
12: Add Outros to Your YouTube Videos
YouTube offers the option to video creators of adding end screens, or video outros, to the end of each video.
Encourage your viewers to click the link in the outro to go to your landing page and sign up. This works especially well if the video is entry level content, and the lead magnet is advanced content you’re offering to get them on your list.
13: Ask for Feedback on Your Website
People love to feel important. When you ask them for their advice or for what else they would love to see on your website, you make them feel good. Ask them questions and collect their email address so that you can follow up with them.
14: Shorten Your Lead Capture Forms
The less information you ask for, the more likely it is that someone will sign up.
For example, if you only ask for their mail address, they are more likely to sign up than if you also ask for their name. If you ask for their mailing address and phone number, they are less likely to sign up than if you just ask for name and email address.
15: Guest Blog for Other Websites
When you guest blog on other websites, have a killer offer at the end of your post. Also find out if you can place this offer in the text near the beginning of the post as well.
16: Place Newsletter Reader Reviews on Your Sign-up Landing Pages
It’s one thing when you say your newsletter is great, and it’s quite another when readers are telling the world how wonderful your newsletter is. Let your happy readers speak for you.
17: Partner Up with Someone in Your Niche
This doesn’t have to be a direct competitor. Find people who are in your niche but not in competition with you. Get them to send out emails promoting your newsletter and you do the same for them.
Choose just one or two of these and get started right now. If you do one per week, in a couple of months you should see a real increase in the size and even activity of your email list.