A comprehensive email list is one of the strongest assets of any business. Why? Not only it paves your way to the inbox of your potential customer, but also allows you to not stay at the mercy of social algorithms and interact with your customers directly.
Emails are undoubtedly one of the best forms of outbound marketing. With interactive emails, businesses can be in touch with their audience, intimate about recent sales, discounts, and events, and warm up about upcoming launches.
A report by Content Marketing Institute 2020 suggested every nine out of ten marketers prefer email marketing to distribute their content organically. Moreover, a report presented by Emarsys in 2018 suggested that over 81% of SMBs rely on emails for primary customer acquisition and 80% for retention.
These stats show the power of email marketing in today’s era! However, growing an email list is not an easy job. That doesn’t mean it is impossible.
In today’s blog, we’ll check the 15 most effective and practical ways that can help you increase email sign-ups on your webpage. So, let’s dive into the blog without any further ado!
1. Encourage Existing Subscribers to Share and Forward Email
The age-old technique of word-of-mouth marketing can be used even in this sphere. How? Let’s see!
Suppose, you’re sending enticing emails that offer value (it can be inspirational newsletters, discounts, coupons, upcoming sales/events, etc). In that case, you can encourage your customers to forward that email to their friends and colleagues by adding a clear CTA. To add a cherry on top, you can reward the customers who forward your emails.
But, before employing this technique, keep the following systems in place:
- Design a way for new people to sign up through the forwarded email.
- Make sure that the receivers (of forwarded mails) do not click the unsubscribe tab. Because, if they do so, they’ll be unsubscribing your valuable user who forwarded them the mail.
Once you have come up with a way to tackle both of these issues, asking your loyal email subscribers to spread the word can be a great way to interact with more and more like-minded people.
2. Let Users Have More Control Over Your Content
Making people subscribe to your email list is one part of the story. The other part that is equally important is engaging with your audience. Or put it this way, preventing them from unsubscribing.
If you’re getting a surge in the number of unsubscribes, it might not always be because of a fault in your content. Sometimes, it might happen that the frequency with which the consumers are receiving emails might get overwhelming and in turn, compel them to unsubscribe from the list.
The key here is to understand the needs of your audience and plan accordingly.
For instance, if someone is unable to keep up with a bunch of emails in a month, instead of making them unsubscribe, shift them to the “light” subscription list. For such users, send a weekly email or once a fortnight that offers value.
You can even send a monthly email by summing up all the essential things in one email. It can be a good way to keep your subscribers updated without overwhelming them.
In short, it’s better to have engaging subscribers (even if they are low in volume) than to have an abundance of them who never open a single email of yours.
3. Create a Provision For People to Enter their Email Addresses Easily
While designing your sign-up form, keep this in mind: make it as easy as a pie! The easier it is for people to sign up, the more people are likely to sign up, as simple as that.
That brings us to the age-old debate of whether you should ask for a first name or just the email address in the sign-up form.
The reason behind asking for the first name is to curate personalised emails. It allows you to give a personal touch to your emails instead of sending boring and generic ones.
Similarly, if you just ask for the email address, it makes the signing process easier and quicker thus, encouraging more users to subscribe.
But, if you want to grow your email list and make the signing process easier, it’s better if you eliminate everything except the email address.
4. Use an Enticing Call to Action
A landing page without a clear CTA is like a boat without an oar. How will you guide your course to the destination?
To create landing pages that convert, it’s important to have the objective or the purpose of the page clear in your mind. In this case, it is to grow the email list. Accordingly, you should place enticing CTAs on the webpage where it is easily visible. For instance, you can place tabs for “sign up” or “Count me in”, etc on your landing page to boost your email list.
Also, the colour scheme and font size you choose for CTAs are equally important. So, pay heed to them too.
Furthermore, you can even place CTAs backed up with your landing page on social media channels such as Facebook. As the users click on the CTA, they’ll be guided to your landing page and from there it is your job to entice them and to make them subscribe to the newsletter!
5. Write Clickbaity Content that Inspires Action
Instead of just placing a signup form somewhere on the website, take time and create a specific landing page that is alluring and powerful enough to drive actions.
The landing page that you create must be mobile-friendly and it should enlist all the benefits of joining the email list in a short and crisp manner. Moreover, it should have a clear and bold CTA that compels the viewer to sign-up for the email list.
6. Use Exit Intent Popups
Popups, if timed perfectly and targeted to the right audience, can work wonders in boosting your email subscriber list.
However, if you don’t like regular popups, try using exit intent popups. Users receive such popups when they’re about to leave the site. If you succeed in catching the attention of the viewer with the right exit intent popup, you can turn an abandoning visitor into a subscriber!
Thus, by employing such smart behavioural techniques you can convert additional users into email subscribers!
7. Use QR Codes for Subscription
The secret to success in marketing is to think out of the box. In the case of email marketing, sometimes, it can be stepping out of the digital world.
In recent times, QR codes have gained a lot of popularity. Surely, we all have used it at least once for online payments. What if we say that you can use them to increase your email list too? Sounds unique, right? Let’s see how that can be done.
You can place QR codes in the physical world such as on certain product stickers, signs, pamphlets, etc. To encourage the viewers to scan it, enlist the perks by the side of the code.
When users scan that QR, they’ll be guided to a landing page encouraging them to sign up for the email list.
But, while employing this technique, make sure that the code and the resulting webpage both are mobile friendly. As QR codes are usually scanned by mobile users.
Note, that this technique may work wonders only when it is employed with proper homework and for the right type of niche.
8. Include Social Proof
Social proofs can boost the email subscription list to a great extent. When people see the number of people who have already subscribed, they’re more likely to follow the same course. However, in case you’re beginning, it’s better to avoid this step. When you include the count, make sure it is a good number (at least a few thousand).
You can also be a little creative and use social proof notification apps. Such apps will send a small popup notification to the viewers every time a person signs for the newsletter and thereby, convince other visitors to do the same!
Another way of including social proof is through testimonials. You can ask your existing subscribers to share their opinion about the newsletter and you can later use it to encourage others to do the same.
9. Provide Incentives to Your Audience
It’s no secret that incentives can guide consumer behaviour. An attractive landing page and an easy sign-up form are definitely the first steps to getting the email address of your potential customers. However, that in itself doesn’t assure you get enough signups.
Think of it as an exchange, if you want the viewers to give their email addresses, what are you willing to offer in return?
Now, focus on the value you’re offering to the people in return for signups and highlight it on your page. For instance, you can offer free access to an interesting webinar, a limited period coupon code, access to your free Ebook, and so on. These incentives entice the viewers and compel them to take the next action!
So, next time, you design your landing page, highlight the perks of joining the list so as to get maximum signups.
10. Guest Blog on Other Websites with a Clear CTA
Guest blogging is another amazing way to grow your email list. But, guest posting aimlessly on other websites will not generate the desired results. Thus, planning before guest blogging is essential.
Here’s how you can do this:
- Look out for established and influential blogs in your domain. Pitch the blogger and decide mutually the topic, type, and length of the blog.
- Make sure that the topic you choose is interesting, your writing style is simple and your tone is friendly because you’re not just writing for an audience but for your potential customers.
- Similarly, the aim of your guest posting must be clearly reflected in your content. In this case, it is increasing your email list, and thus, it should have a clear CTA.
- Lastly, engage with the readers in comments as that would help in building trust. Who knows they might get impressed and sign up for your emails.
Also, guest blogging can also be useful to boost the SEO on your website. If you’re looking for an SEO agency in India, you can reach out to our team.
11. Host a Live Social Media Event
Hosting live events on social media platforms can be an engaging and effective way to grow your email list. To entice more viewers, you can collaborate with influencers of your domain in the live event.
There are two ways through which you can improve the subscriber count through virtual events. They are as follows:
- Informing the existing subscribers about the event before and during the event. In case you have recorded the event, you can promote it even after the event.
- Secondly, you can even entice your audience to join the email list by offering special coupons, discounts, freebies, etc
12. Add Subscribe Option to Your Social Media Accounts
There’s no denying that lots of people today prefer communicating through social channels. How about we reach out to those subscribers and make them a part of our email list?
You can invite your followers on Facebook and Twitter to join your newsletter. Instead of just posting the link to the landing page, take time to curate a specific landing page for your social media users and then post it. Similarly, in the case of Instagram you can post the link in either the bio or the stories (if you have enough followers).
13. Remind the Users of the Benefits of Email Subscription
A lot of people who visit your website to read blogs or for any other purpose may not be aware of your newsletter. It might also be a case when they’re aware of your newsletter but do not know what you’re offering. How can they trust to give a complete stranger their email address?
Thus, being clear about what you have to offer and spelling it out at required places is important. You must explain to them how frequently you’ll send emails, their purpose, and that you’ll not spam their inbox.
Also, you must list the perks of joining the email list such as freebies, coupons, discounts, scratch cards, etc so as to provoke them to join the email list instantly.
14. Run Paid Ads on Facebook
An email list is not just a bunch of email addresses. It is the way to the inbox of people who might be interested in what you’re offering and thus, likely to be future customers. If you have to spend a little in the present to make your way to future customers, why not?
Running paid Facebook ads is one of the best ways to spread the word about your business among your potential audience and grow your email list. Don’t hesitate to give it a shot!
15. Design Social Media Posts to Promote Your Email
Social media can be a great way to promote your newsletter. Here’s how!
But, before that answer this; why do people follow your business on social media?
Because they’re interested in the content that you offer. Similarly, they might be interested in having access to more such content or learning more from your business. Thus, if you design social media posts with a clear CTA, that is to sign up for an email list, it will be a win-win for both parties. The viewers will get access to your business offerings and you’ll boost your email subscription list!
Suppose, you create a visually appealing carousel explaining the best digital marketing strategies for SMBs in 2023 and post it on your Instagram page.
In the caption, you tell the readers that if they found the post helpful, they must consider giving a read to your free eBook. You can place the link to the landing page in your bio and guide the readers through the process and perks of subscribing to the email list!
To sum up, growing an email list is a difficult task but not impossible. With the right strategies at hand and effective execution, you can grow your email list substantially. You can check out our blog on email marketing tools that can be handy in your email campaigns.
If you need any help in website development and website maintenance, do reach out to our team.
