5 Simple Ways to Grow Your Email List

Email lists are the holy grail for marketers. It’s a rare window to reach people more personally without being pushy. And best of all, you have permission to email that person, which means the chances of them looking (or at least glancing) at your email are significantly higher.

Letting your email list fall stagnant means you miss out on persuasive opportunities to reach your audience, grow your message and, most importantly, your brand. If your email list is in need of some much-needed TLC, then take a look at these five simple ways to grow your email list.

1. Create Impressive Email Content

If you want people to join and stay subscribed to your site, you must consistently create amazing content that people will want to subscribe to. Great content speaks for itself and will be shared amongst family and friends to reach a wider audience.

Hook your audience with witty words, beautiful visuals, and interesting points that make them want more. People have a tendency to glance over emails fast, so keep it short and sweet. That way, they are more likely to absorb the information you give them.

Customize content for your specific audience to make emails more personal and engage readers. Customization is the new marketing strategy, so try to harness this potential in your next email campaign. This technique need not be so complex as using a CRM system. Simply using the prospect’s name when addressing them with your latest promotional email or newsletter works wonders.

Missguided is a clothes retailer that does this very well by using the prospect’s first name in their offer emails. If you remember their name and tailor your content to them, even in the simplest ways, they will be more likely to remember you.

2. Take Great Photos

Visual content adds value and makes your emails stand out from the crowd. What would you rather see in your inbox: a long chunk of copy or a range of points broken up with stunning visuals and brilliant photos?

A picture can say a thousand words and bring your audience closer to your business. Take Charity: Water, for example. Their use of emotive images from their campaigns in their newsletter captivates their audience, breaks up the text and makes them more likely to remain subscribed to their newsletter email list.

This image also educates readers of the charity’s great life-changing work in third-world countries and creates a relationship between them and those whose lives are transformed.

If you don’t already have one, then it’s worth looking into buying your own camera so you can update your emails with personalized photos frequently. Unique photos add extra value to your communications and offer another level for readers to connect with.

Alternatively, source some good stock image sites and personalize the images with text using Photoshop or Canvas for cost-effectiveness and to save time.

Attractive email content does more than look pretty. It drastically increases engagement and will add value to your readers, giving them the incentive to subscribe to your email list.

3. Create Online Contests & Giveaways

One of the quickest ways to increase your email subscribers is through tried-and-tested methods such as competitions and giveaways. People are much more likely to sign up for newsletters and emails when offered an incentive - everybody loves to receive something in return.

Give visitors a chance to enter a competition or receive a reward when they subscribe to your email list, like the T-Shirt company Qwertee has.

Another inspiration for you could be offering gated content like informative e-books or podcasts on a landing page when a user subscribes to an email list. This will make your subscriber numbers shoot up quickly, saving valuable time you can now spend managing your business rather than attempting to generate outreach.

4. Get Social

Email addresses, contact details and a social media following are a marketer’s currency. But what can we offer your customers in return, and how can we engage with a more diverse audience?

Use Facebook, Twitter or Instagram to promote an offer that links to a fantastic landing page with a direct call-to-action, requiring an email address. Catch the fickle eye of the average social media user with an exciting photo or graphic of what they could win. Watch as your email subscriber numbers soar while cultivating a social media following for future publicity.

5. Write Guest Posts

Sometimes it's not just about refreshing your email list and blowing out any old cobwebs: it's about reaching a wider audience and converting them into email subscribers. Guest posting on other websites is the modern way to reach a different audience by exposing your content to an already-developed readership.

Guest posting can be a very efficient way to engage with new audiences - it puts you in charge of creating the content to be published, and you can subtly work in a link to your website, product or service in a natural way.

Guest posts work best when they are not too sales-orientated and offer the reader informative content. Getting involved with reputable websites with relevant content is advisable only to ensure you reach the right demographic. Include a link to your site in your author byline or a call-to-action so customers can quickly join your email list.

Be innovative and offer value to your audience to keep them coming back for more. If your email content enriches the reader’s experience, they will be much more inclined to give over that precious email address. Just because you have an email subscription or opt-in box on your website doesn’t mean visitors will automatically sign up. You will need to convert them by giving them a reason they can't resist.

What marketing tactics do you use to grow your email list? Let me know in the comments below.

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