Your email list is a goldmine for generating profits because email is 40 times more effective to acquire new customers than Twitter and Facebook. Below are the actionable tips that answer the question of how to build an email list for your website.
1. Write Persuasive Email Copy
To grow your subscriber list, you need to optimize your email copy and let visitors know what they will get by subscribing to your email list. Your email copy should encourage them to take actions by reading your posts and end up sharing them on their social media platforms.
Here, The Full Helping, a food blog, is aptly showed what users can expect from the newsletter and they used a creative call to action – YES, NOURISH MY INBOX, instead of general buttons like submit, subscribe, etc.
2. Optimize Your Emails for Smartphone and Tablets
More than 50% of emails are opened from mobile devices and Apple iPhone is top performing email client in the world. So, your email copies and creatives should be optimized for smartphones. Otherwise, the number of your email list might decrease due to people unsubscribing from it.
3. Understand the Users’ Perspective
Here’re the big turn offs of people reading an email.
If you keep nudging your subscribers about your every online activity, they might unsubscribe from your list. So, whenever visitors come to sign up for your list, you should assure them that you would only provide relevant and informative data on your emailers and don’t waste their time by sharing unnecessary things.
4. Send Giveaways to Subscribers
Giveaways are ice breakers. You can host giveaway campaigns on your website by telling visitors to submit their email addresses and they will get a surprise from the first email. As they say, the first impression is the last impression, so give a noteworthy impression to your users by sending giveaways.
See how Pat from Smart Passive Income did that and achieve whooping nearly 200K subscribers in less than two weeks.
5. Give Bonus Content Like eBooks
In today’s world, we all are looking for information and knowledge to upgrade our skills and personality. You must give irresistible reasons that make them sign up your list immediately. An example is shown below where users can download two ebooks for free by giving their basic details.
6. Leverage Social Media Campaigns
Social media is a great way to collect your prospect’s email addresses and expand your readership. You can schedule a series of social media post where you can align your user’s attention to subscribe or sign up on your website. Moreover, you can also collaborate with other brands or influencers to advertise your email newsletters to more audience.
7. Publish Excellent Content on Your Website
Digital age sustains itself on information. You should be consistently publishing informative and awesome content on your website so that your users would feel they should get notified the second you publish new posts. Along with blogs and articles, you can try podcasts, videos, and infographics, to grab users’ attention and increase your email list.
8. Request Email Addresses in Exchange of Information
You can give unique tips and solutions related to a particular field of study and email to them. Websites often use pop-ups to perform this action. For example, if you have a diet blog, you can use a pop-up message to show that you will email them a step-by-step diet cheat sheet to be the best version of themselves. In this way, they need to enter their email id to get the information they want.
Here’s how Nutrition Stripped did on their website.
9. Ask Users to Give Website Feedback
This is a great way to increase email list for e-commerce website owners and bloggers by requesting visitors to share their shopping experience with your website.
As a blogger, if you hosted a webinar, you can ask your readers to suggest future topics or ask questions related to recent to the webinar. This way, your viewers will feel valued and heard and you can have fresh subscribers for your list.
10. Show Your Expertise Through Testimonials and Awards
To make people subscribe to your email list is a big deal. You need to be an authoritative resource of a particular niche to make people believe what you write. New bloggers and website owners cannot show authority from the very first day. You can add testimonials or renowned publications where you have contributed to show your readers that you know your stuff.
It will generate the authority of your brand and people would believe you are a good resource to know more about a particular industry.
See how Evidence In Motion is proving its authority through a sidebar banner and encouraging people to subscribe.
11. Segment Your Pop-Ups to Grow Your Email List
You should use different pop-ups for different web pages on your website. To do this effectively, you need to understand the visitors’ perspective while they read your particular webpages and write customized pop-ups to maximize your email list.
For example, in your product page, you can show pop-ups for discounts and on your blog page, you can share a case study in exchange for an email address.
12. Host Webinars and Live Sessions
Webinars and live video sessions help readers get to know more about a particular topic without reading long textual content or going anywhere to attend a session.
First, you can invite an industry leader to speak at your podcast or webinar, then you can post on social media about the webinar or mention the same on your blog to create the buzz. You can request your readers to share their email addresses with you so you can notify them about more such events.
Similar to ClickZ did it on their website.
13. Host An Offline Event
You can organize a local meetup or conference. When people visit the meetup, you can ask them to fill basic details like name, location, and email address. This way, you can know how many people have visited your conference and use their email addresses to connect in future, send regular news updates related to your industry or share a copy of a case study you published on your website.
14. Provide Chatbot Support
Chatbot is a lucrative tool for sales and customer service. Whenever users want to know more, you can initiate the conversation by asking their email id and name and send a personalized message to establish a connection.
The contact details came from chatbot are the prospects who are more interested in your brand so they share high chances of converted as customers.
See how Optimonk asks you for your email address when they are offline.
This way, your prospect feels attended and you get their email id to begin the conversation.
15. Use Online Tools
There are tons of resources available online that can help you collect the email address of your prospects and you can use them to effectively increase your email list in 2019. Sleeknote, Hellobar, SumoMe, etc. are some of the best tools you can use for the matter.
16. Add Creative Pop-Ups
Whether you like it or not, pop-ups are powerful to generate leads and subscribers for your website. If you use creatively, your readers will instantly get connected with the objective and might be converted to your subscribers. You can include exit pop-ups or include a box in sidebars to grab users’ email id.
See, how Elle used wardrobe elements in the background to grab the user’s attention.
Or on the travel blog, The Blonde Abroad, the bloggers showed an exotic location in the background image and wrote a concise copy.
17. Create a Tutorial Series
You should use a series of tutorials to educate your readers and help them improve their skills. This way, your users would not only subscribe to your newsletter but keenly wait for your next email to learn more. Although you need to put a lot of time and energy to create the content, your number of subscribers will get a major boost if you can do so.
Check out how Digital Deepak greets his visitor with the pop-up.
18. Let Them Know to Check Their Spam Folders
Your emails might be going straight to users spam folders and you will be having less open-rate or confirmation for your emails.
So, after they submit their details on your website, give them an instant message to keep an eye on their inbox to confirm their subscription and if they don’t get the email within a couple of minutes, they must check their spam folders. Similar to Backlinko remind their users.
19. Use LinkedIn to Generate An Email List
Not everyone has got the email address to begin sending newsletters. If you are just starting your email list, you can use your LinkedIn account to get an email list for marketing.
LinkedIn allows you to export your followers’ data that have their email addresses. You can send an introduction email along with the subscription link where they can click and sign up.
However, please be kind and don’t create an awkward situation by aggressively trying to convince your recipient to subscribe to your emails.
20. Focus on Metrics for Better Planning
To scale your subscriber list in the coming time, you need to optimize your ongoing email marketing practices by studying previous campaigns.
Email marketing tools like MailChimp, AWeber, Emma, etc. give you data about users’ behavior and engagement with your emails. Based on that, if you can segment your emails because segmented emails generate 53% more revenue.
21. Include CTA
Always include call-to-actions on your webpages to your users and give them some actions to perform after interacting with your website. If you conclude your webpage plainly, you miss tremendous opportunity to scale your business.
Especially in emails, a single call-to-action increased clicks 371% and boost sales around 1600%. In your website popups, articles, sidebars, social media posts, include a clear call-to-action like submit, subscribe sign-up, etc.
22. Offer Coupons and Discounts
Everyone loves to save money. Sellers and e-commerce websites can give discount coupons and vouchers if a visitor signs up.
For individual bloggers, they can collaborate with a brand or an online seller to provide popular products’ discount codes to their readers. This way, they can instantly get email addresses of their users.
See how ebates showed it to their visitors.
Or like the Guilty Soles used the minimalistic approach on their homepage.
23. Make Smart Use of Blog Commenting
Blog comments give you an opportunity to network with the audience and build an inbound relationship. A comment to agree with the author, share questions or initiate a productive discussion on the website can grab you genuine buzz for your website.
You can try blog commenting by genuinely sharing your views related to a topic and encourage people to subscribe to your website to get the latest news update. Please be very careful to not start spamming every other website in your niche.
24. Reward Existing Subscribers Who Invite Others
You can create a referral program and reward affiliates who invite other people to sign up your email list and for every successful sign-up, you can give them discounts or hampers.
For example, if you own food blog, you can ask your readers to invite their friends and for each successful sign-ups, the affiliate will be rewarded with a discount code for their next meal at a local restaurant.
25. Write Articles in Parts
Research what people are most interested in and write your future articles based on the same. Moreover, you could make half of the article readable to anyone but the remaining content can be accessible to only those who sign up with an email address.
Conclusion
Let us know which tips you are planning to implement for generating your email list for different objectives. As discussed, never spam your readers to convince them to subscribe to your website.
