Whether your marketing email list is currently flush with names, or you’re just starting out with building an email list, one thing is for sure. The work to grow your email list never stops – and never should stop! But our guide can help you grow your email list fast and effectively!
Email marketing is crucial to businesses and has the distinction of being one of the only channels you truly own. Think about it – you don’t own your social media profiles. Companies like Facebook and Twitter do. If there’s a multi-hour outage like we saw happen a few weeks ago, or your account is hacked or shut down, there’s not much you can do.
That’s why so many marketers are talking about the importance of email marketing, and really putting the work into building your email list as a resource. And I’m here to help! I’m talking about 22 of the best ways to grow your email list – and keep it thriving. From creative ideas on how to promote your email list on social media to website tools that can help. Read on!
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What is an Email List?
So you need to know what is an email list and what are some list-building strategies. Basically, it’s a collection of email addresses that a business owns.
Email addresses are added to this list when customers provide contact information to the business, either directly or when they opt in to an email newsletter, content offer, or other promotion.
Why You Need to Grow Your Email List
As I mentioned before, the work on your email list should never actually stop. The reason for this is that even when your email list is chock full of hundreds of thousands of names, it’s going to naturally degrade over time. This could be from people losing interest in your product, opting out or unsubscribing, or switching emails!
If you keep sending to out-of-date, disengaged email subscribers, you’re not going to see much return from your marketing strategy here. That’s why collecting email addresses whenever possible keeps your list fresh!
It also positively affects your email analytics, so you can really see how well your email marketing strategy is working. If you weed out the outdated subscribers or customers who haven’t opened your emails in ages, in favor of a more engaged present audience, you’ll see a much healthier rate of opens, clicks, and engagement.
22 Ways to Grow Your Email List
There are tons of ways to grow your email list, but the basics (and best opportunities) to grow your list happen on your most used channels, from websites, and blogs to social media accounts. We’ll go over each of the 22 – with actionable tips – below!
1. Use Email List Hygiene to Clean Your List and Encourage Interaction
Okay, first things first, doing a spring cleaning of your email list may seem counterintuitive when you’re trying to grow your email list. But bear with me – clearing out the old, defunct email addresses or people who just don’t care to hear from you paves the way for your email list to contain engaged, excited customers or followers.
Not only does this positively affect things like open rate, clicks, and conversion rate, but it also gives you an opportunity to get your active subscribers on the mission to grow your list. Here are some ideas:
- Add share buttons in your newsletter so your followers can send your email to a friend. You can add calls to action like, “Know someone who might love our content? Invite them to subscribe!”
- Segment your list by topics or audiences to keep your audience engaging and sharing content specific to their interests.
2. Use New and Engaging Content to Get New Subscribers to Join Your Email List
Now that you’ve cleaned things up a bit, it’s time to think about what you can offer that people will get tons of value out of – enough value to gladly hand over their email address.
One of the best ways to do this with content marketing is to create a lead magnet, or a gated content offer like a download, ebook, webinar, or course. When they click on your must-have lead generation tool, they’ll be taken to a landing page where they’ll be prompted to trade their email for access to your content.
Another way to do this is by creating an online tool or interactive resource that they’ll have to provide their email to use. CoSchedule does a great job with this with the email subject line tester!
3. Grow Your Email Subscriber List from Facebook
Facebook Business Pages have tons of opportunities to put your email newsletter front and center for new potential subscribers.
At the top of the business page, you can add a button to your profile – including the Sign-Up button, which allows users to visit a website or landing page to sign up for your newsletter.
Optimizing your profile – and potentially your profile cover photo with newsletter information – allows you to grow your email subscriber list right from Facebook!
4. Add a CTA to Subscribe to Your Blog
If you have a blog on your website, or the ability to create one in order to write articles and blog posts on topics relevant to your audience, these pieces of content can be an additional reason for people to join your email list.
Adding calls to action on your blog to subscribe to get access to new content as soon as it comes out can really help give your readers a reason to interact with your brand and come back for more – plus it makes for great topics for regular marketing emails!
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5. How to Grow Your Email Subscriber List from Youtube
If video content is your thing, it’s super easy to add calls to action on your Youtube channel, encouraging people to sign up for your email list.
You can add up to five CTAs to your Youtube banner, each pointing to different links for your followers to find you on other platforms – and complete actions like signing up for your email list.
Simply click the Customize Channel button, go to Basic Info, and add the website address of the site or landing page where subscribers can join your mailing list.
You can also add similar CTAs on cards at the end of your Youtube video with a clickable link to that same landing page, and even add clickable hyperlinks to your video descriptions!
6. Use Pinterest to Promote Gated Content
If you’ve designed some gated content in order to grow your email list, Pinterest is a great place to put it. Interested Pinners can click on your Pin and be taken to the landing page – plus, you can Pin these organically or create Pinterest ads out of them!
7. Drive Signups to Your Email List from Instagram
The link in your Instagram bio is a great place to CTA your email newsletter. And when you have Smart.bio – Tailwind’s link in bio tool, you can add links to your email list landing page to the top of your personalized landing page – and in individual Instagram feed posts!
Instagram Stories links are also a key place to link your email list. Curious viewers can swipe up to be taken right to the landing page from inside the app. And good news – you don’t have to be verified or have 10,000 followers anymore to use this feature. On October 27, 2021, it rolled out to everyone!
8. Add Opt-Ins Across Key Points of Your Website
On your website, consider adding a signup form for your email newsletter in prominent places on your website. This could look like sidebar widgets, in-line CTAs in the middle of the page, or in the header and footer of your site!
The easier you make it to access and sign up for your email list on the most trafficked points of your site, the faster your email list will grow.
9. Use Partnership Marketing to Get In Front of New Audiences
Partnership marketing can be a quick way to get your email marketing in front of new audiences with similar interests. If you have good connections with a brand that also appeals to your target audience, consider trading guest posting opportunities, speaker features, or even email features.
Make sure to link your email newsletter and a strong CTA in your post, bio, or speaker notes, so curious people know exactly what to do next to stay in touch with you.
10. Host a Contest, Promotion, or Giveaway to Incentivize Signups
My final tip for growing your email list is to host a contest, promotion, or giveaway on social media. One step to entering this contest can be to provide an email address for entry.
Plus, when subscribers have the chance to get a juicy prize or discount, they’re more likely to hand over their email address with little fuss. That’s why a little promotion goes a long way to getting an influx of fresh new emails on your list! You can run your contest on any or all of your social media platforms. Need some inspo? Read about how to do Instagram giveaways and contests!
11. Make Signup Simple For Your Visitors
The best way to increase your email list subscription rate is to make it as easy as possible for your visitors to sign up. You don’t want to require too much information from them or make the signup process too difficult.
Here are a few tips:
- Use a simple form with as few fields as possible.
- Include a signup form on every page of your website.
- Make it clear what visitors will get by subscribing.
12. Leverage Email Lists of Others
One of the quickest ways to grow your own email list is to leverage the lists of others. There are a few different ways you can do this:
- Guest posting: Write a post for another blog in your industry, and include a call-to-action (CTA) at the end that invites readers to subscribe to your email list.
- Joint ventures and partnerships: Find a complementary business or individual in your industry, and team up to offer a freebie or lead magnet. Each of you can promote the opt-in to your respective audiences.
- Cross-promote with other businesses: If you have a joint venture partner or affiliate, you can promote each other.
13. Promote Your List On LinkedIn
LinkedIn is a powerful tool that can help you build your email list. Here are a few ways to promote your opt-in on LinkedIn:
- Share a post from your blog: If you’ve written a post that would be relevant to your LinkedIn connections, share it with a brief intro and CTA to subscribe to your list.
- Create a LinkedIn group: A great way to build an engaged following is to create a LinkedIn group around a specific topic or industry. You can use this group to promote your opt-in offer and get more subscribers.
- Add a CTA to your profile: Include a CTA on your personal profile (or company page) that invites LinkedIn users to subscribe to your email list.
- Share an infographic: People love visual content, so why not share an infographic that promotes your opt-in offer? You can create an original infographic or find one that’s already been made and share it on LinkedIn with a CTA to subscribe.
- Run a LinkedIn ad: LinkedIn Ads are a great way to get your opt-in offer in front of a targeted audience. You can use LinkedIn’s targeting options to make sure your ad is seen by people who are likely to be interested in what you have to offer.
- Post interesting articles: Share interesting articles that are relevant to your target audience with a CTA to subscribe to your opt-in offer.
Want to learn more about email marketing from the experts? Check out the Best 9+ Welcome Emails For Your Customers!
14. Share Your Optin Page On TikTok
TikTok is a great place to share your opt-in page and build your email list. You can create a short video introducing your opt-in offer and include a CTA to subscribe.
But before you start putting time and resources into it, make sure you understand how TikTok works and if it’s the right platform for your business.
Here are some things to consider:
- Is your target audience active on TikTok?
- How can you make your videos stand out from the rest?
If you decide that TikTok is the platform where your target audience spends time, then here are a couple of tips to increase the probability of the success of your video:
- Hashtags are important: TikTok is a hashtag-driven platform, which means that using the right hashtags can help you reach a wider audience.
- Be creative: think outside the box and come up with creative content that will capture the attention of your target audience.
- Think mobile: since TikTok is a mobile-first platform, make sure that your videos are optimized for mobile viewing.
- Keep it short and sweet: Make sure that your videos are concise and to the point.
- Be yourself: be genuine, authentic, and true to yourself – your target audience will appreciate it.
15. Promote Your List On Facebook
There are a number of ways to promote your email list on Facebook. You can run ads, post about it on your page, or even create a custom tab on your page that includes a sign-up form.
While it takes a lot of time to gather an audience, Facebook ads are a very effective way to reach a larger number of people quickly.
- Focus just on the Facebook ad platform (leave the partners and Instagram out for now).
- When creating your ad, be sure to target your audience carefully so that you’re only reaching people who are likely to be interested in what you have to offer.
- There are a number of targeting options available on Facebook, including location, age, gender, interests, and behaviors. You can also create lookalike audiences.
- Visuals and Titles play a pivotal role in determining whether or not someone will actually click on your ad. Your title should be clear and to the point, and your image should be eye-catching and relevant to the offer.
- A/B testing is the key to success with Facebook ads, so make sure to test everything and test a lot! Try different targeting options, images, copy, and calls to action. By testing different elements of your ad, you’ll be able to figure out what works best for your business.
Once you find the best-performing combination, you might be surprised by how cheaply you can get leads from Facebook.
16. Try Reddit
Reddit is one of the most popular sites on the internet. While it is vicious if you get on the wrong side of the users, it can be extremely powerful if you use it right.
Find relevant subreddits and provide value by answering people’s questions or starting interesting discussions. Then use a link to a landing page where people can sign up for your email list.
You can also run ads on Reddit targeting specific subreddits. These ads can be very effective, but you need to be careful not to come across as spammy, or you will get banned quickly.
17. Try Quora
Quora is a Q&A platform that can be used for much more than just asking and answering questions. It can also be used as a powerful marketing tool.
If you search for topics related to your niche, you will find plenty of questions that you can answer. When you answer these questions, make sure to include a link to your website or blog so that people can learn more about you.
Quora allows you to search through various questions related to your niche, so you can find ones that you can answer. To use this strategy for the long term – make sure that your answers bring value and aren’t just promotional.
18. Have A Strong CTA
Do not hint at your CTA. Make it bold and in-your-face.
The CTA is the most important element on your landing page, so it should be impossible to miss. Make it big, make it bold, and make it clear what you want people to do.
Put it into places where people will see it, such as above the fold, in the middle of your content, and at the end.
Attract the visitors’ attention to your CTA with proper colors and images.
19. Create a Lead Magnet
A lead magnet is an opt-in offer, such as an ebook, white paper, or template, that is given away in exchange for a visitor’s contact information.
This is a great way to build your email list while providing value to your visitors.
It does not have to be anything extra difficult, it just has to be something that your target market would find valuable.
For example, if you are in the fitness industry, you could create a lead magnet such as a workout guide or healthy recipes eBook.
There are many converting sign-up forms and opt-in forms that offer just a simple checklist.
20. Get Listed in Newsletter Roundups
There are many bloggers and website owners who put together weekly or monthly roundups of their favorite content from around the web.
Getting featured in one of these can send a decent amount of traffic and new subscribers your way.
A quick Google search will reveal several different newsletter roundups you can submit your links to.
21. Use Exit Intent Popups
An exit intent popup is a lightbox that appears when a user goes to leave your site. It usually contains an offer or some sort of lead magnet that will give you the last chance to get the user’s attention before they leave.
If you’re not familiar with how to create an exit intent popup, there are several different WordPress plugins that you can use, such as OptinMonster.
22. Optimize For Mobile
Ensure that your email list signup form is optimized for mobile users, as more and more people are using their smartphones to browse the internet.
Keep in mind that every website is unique, so if you see in Google Analytics that the majority of your inbound traffic is desktop users, then you may not need to focus on this as much. But if you’re seeing a lot of mobile traffic, then it’s something worth considering.
There are several different ways that you can optimize your signup form for mobile users. In most cases, your email marketing service provider will already have an option for that!
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FAQs
What is the best way to grow your email list?
It will vary depending on your business, your target audience, and various other factors.
However, some common strategies for growing an email list include using lead magnets, optimizing signup forms for mobile users, and A/B testing different elements of your email opt-in form.
What is email list growth?
Email list growth is the process of increasing the number of people on your email list. This can be done through a variety of means, such as offering a lead magnet, optimizing your signup forms, or running an email opt-in campaign.
How do I grow an email list organically?
Place the opt-in forms on visible parts of your page, make a good enough offer, and test different elements of your forms to see what converts the most visitors.
What is a lead magnet?
A lead magnet is an incentive that you offer to potential subscribers in exchange for their email addresses.
How do I promote my email list?
There are a number of ways to promote your email list. You can use social media, paid ads, or even physical marketing materials to get people to sign up.
Why should I grow my email list?
A larger list gives you more opportunities to sell products or services, and it also allows you to build relationships with potential customers.
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