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Having a big email list can lead to more sales, followers, and market research.
But with so much competition, it’s hard to convince people to part with their email addresses.
If you can learn how to get people to subscribe to your list, you’ll have a growing database of potential customers or followers that can’t be taken away from you.
Email marketing also has one of the highest ROIs of any marketing, and you can use your list to do market research for better content and products.
The Top-Rated Email Marketing Platforms to Help You Grow Your List
If you want to grow your email list, you’ll need to start with a great email marketing service that helps you manage your subscribers. Here are our top recommendations:
- Constant Contact — Best overall
- Sendinblue — Best for growing your customer base
- MailerLite — Best for the essentials at an affordable price
- Omnisend —Best email and SMS marketing combo
- Moosend — Best for ecommerce
- AWeber — Best value for low subscriber count
- GetResponse — Best for automated lead generation
- HubSpot — Best for automated email marketing
- Drip — Best for new ecommerce businesses
- ConvertKit — Best for influencers, bloggers, and creators
You can read our full review of each email marketing platform here.
4 Steps To Getting More Subscribers for Your Email List
The more subscribers you have, the higher your chances of achieving goals – whether you want more sales, more followers, or better audience insights.
Here are the best ways you can grow your email list organically:
The Easy Parts of Growing Your Email List
Believe it or not, the easiest part of growing an email list is sending out the emails.
People tend to panic about what they should write, but there are plenty of templates, guides, and even copywriters out there to help you. Plus, the key to a good email is writing easy-to-read content that sounds conversational, which is often easier than you might think.
People also think that they need to have lots of design skills to send out good emails. However, most emails work better when they’re just text, and when they’re kept short. And if you do want to add images or even a gif or a meme, there are dozens of great email marketing platforms that include templates to help you.
Our personal favorite is Constant Contact. It has hundreds of templates to help you write and design your emails. And, it comes with tons of automation and segmentation features to help you organize your lists and plan out your email campaigns.
It also offers list-building features that allow you to create opt-in forms for different social media platforms and pages.
The Difficult Parts of Growing Your Email List
There are two parts to growing an email list that most people find hard: getting people to join the list and getting people to stay.
With so many people using email marketing, people guard their emails a lot more closely than they used to. That means that if you want someone to give you their email and join your list, you need to give them something good in return. This could be something free, or the promise of valuable information.
Then, you have to get subscribers to stay. Again, because most people receive so many emails every day, keeping someone from unsubscribing from your list is tough. You need to send really great emails to earn your place in someone’s inbox. Figuring out the right content to send and living up to your promises can be a struggle.
Luckily, there are lots of templates and email marketing tools to help you keep subscribers once you’ve won them. And, in this post, we’ll go through the best ways you can grow your list and get new subscribers.
Step 1: Offer an Incentive
The best way to grow your email list is to give people something in exchange for their emails.
If you think about every time you’ve joined an email list, chances are that it was to get a free download or to join a service. Getting access to someone’s email is a privilege and people want to be rewarded for it.
If you can give people a reason to sign up for your list AND a reason to stay, you’re winning.
Here are some ways you can incentivize people to join your list:
Create a Freebie
The fastest and best way to get people to join your list is to create a “freebie.” This is a free piece of content your subscribers will get access to if they join your list.
This could be the link for an exclusive video training, or a downloadable guide—whatever you think would be valuable and interesting to your audience.
You will have to spend a little time creating this freebie, like recording a video or designing a graphic, but it’s worth it when it’s done. You can then post about your freebie on your social media, add it as a pop-up on your website, or offer it in networking groups.
Run a Giveaway
Another powerful way to get lots of subscribers fast is to run a giveaway. You also don’t have to offer anything of really high value here—it could be a giveaway of your freebie or a free 15-minute consultation call. Even if it’s something small like an Amazon gift card, getting lots of subscribers will make it worth your while.
Simply make one of the requirements of the giveaway to subscribe to your email list. Then, choose an email at random to give the winner the prize.
The main thing to remember with giveaways is that you MUST actually give away a prize. You can get in a lot of trouble with internet regulators if you run fake contests.
Step 2: Ask People to Subscribe
It seems obvious, but just asking people to join your list can work wonders.
Many people have a fear of asking for conversions—they’re worried about coming across as desperate or begging. But there is an art to getting subscribers. You just have to ask in the right way.
Phrasing your invitation as if you’re inviting people to something valuable or exclusive will make people want to join your list. And as long as you communicate the value of your list and give people a good reason to join, asking at every opportunity will help you grow faster.
Here’s where you should start asking for sign-ups:
Add a Pop-Up to Your Website
An easy way to ask people to join your list is by adding a pop-up box to your website.
You can add a pop-up directly to your site that’s triggered after someone is on a page for a few minutes. You can then offer your freebie in exchange for their email, or invite them to the list by promising value.
You can also create a pop-up or sign-up page to collect emails by using an email marketing platform like Constant Contact.
As part of its list-building features, Constant Contact can help you build a sign-up page linked to your site. This includes templates and integration to make your sign-up page as personalized and easy to implement as possible.
Constant Contact also has tools to help you add sign-up pages to your social media, build custom landing pages, and manage your email lists.
You can try Constant Contact for free here.
Add a CTA to all Your Posts
People forget that if you don’t tell your audience what to do, they won’t do it.
Adding a Call to Action (CTA) inviting people to join your list anywhere you can makes it more likely that you’ll grow subscribers after.
You can add a CTA in the captions of your social media posts, in a box at the end of your blog posts, or even as an announcement at the end of podcasts. Just make sure that the CTA is offering them something in return for their email and is interesting enough to get them to sign up!
Post About Your List on Social Media
Social Media is another great way to let people know about your list, and then ask them to subscribe.
You can add CTA’s to your captions, and you can promote your list on your Instagram stories, or pin your invite to your profile. This also works for Facebook, Pinterest, and LinkedIn.
Twitter is an especially great way to get new subscribers because you can share short snippets from your newsletter, or create threads out of your email content. Then, add a CTA to your tweets with something like ‘Found this useful? Join my email list to see more content like this!’
You can either add a subscribe link directly to your social media bio, or use a link in bio tool like Linktree.
Step 3: Run a Free Webinar
A webinar is a great way to constantly add new leads to your list.
Just like offering a freebie, your webinar should promise some sort of value that would interest people to attend. And the best thing about a webinar is that you can pre-record it, and then play it in a loop so people keep joining.
The most successful webinars do have a tried and tested structure, usually requiring people to sign up and get an email invitation. You then use the webinar to share a few key pieces of value to help you build trust with your audience. If you get this right, it will inspire people to join your list to keep learning from you and get more content.
Remember that a good webinar doesn’t just give you the chance to grow your email list – it also gives you the chance to sell or make an offer!
Create an Email Invite for the Webinar
You can run ads, and announcements on social media or post in groups to let people know about your webinar. Once you have someone interested in watching, you should ask them for their email to send them a confirmation link to join.
Just remember that if you do this, you MUST comply with email laws about consent. If you are using a platform like Constant Contact, they’ll help you include the right information in the small print and the pop-ups to make sure you are compliant with internet laws.
You can then email your new subscribers an invite to the webinar, and then tag them, ready to add them to your welcome automation.
Invite Them to Join Your List During the Webinar
If you didn’t send an email invite, you can still get your webinar attendees to sign up for your list. You can offer them your freebie at the end of the webinar, or invite them directly using some persuasive language.
If the goal of the webinar is to get more subscribers and grow your list, make sure you mention it often so people don’t miss it. And make sure you make it clear that the content you share with email subscribers is as valuable as what you are sharing in the webinar.
If they’ve joined a webinar about a certain topic, then that’s what they are interested in, and they’ll only join your list to get more content like that.
Step 4: Invite Them to Join a Group
Another way you can add a lot more subscribers to your list is by creating exclusive groups or communities that require an email sign-up to join.
You may have seen this in action if you’ve ever tried to join a private Facebook group or a LinkedIn group. One of the best things about starting groups like this is that they’re usually based on you sharing value and exclusive content with members.
So, if someone is interested in joining your Facebook group or private mastermind, they are already interested in the type of content you share and are more likely to want to join your list.
Here are a few group options that may work well for you.
Start a Mastermind
Starting a group exclusively for people in your industry or niche, and making the mastermind invite-only, will give people a reason to give you their emails. You can make it a requirement that you receive an email invite to join the group, for instance.
This is a great way to make sure that you are getting high-quality subscribers, because it will only be people in your niche, and they’ll all be excited to receive emails from you. Just make sure that anything you do share in the mastermind lives up to the value you are promising.
Remember, running a group can be a lot of work. This step might not be for you if you’re short on time.
Start a Private Facebook Group
A little like creating a mastermind or a freebie, you can create a private Facebook group where you share exclusive content, information, and value.
Again, you do need to make sure that you are offering real value when you start a group like this, but the idea of belonging to anything exclusive will get people to sign up.
Especially if people think they are getting value without having to pay money, you’ll easily convince people to give up their emails and join your list. You can also then use your Facebook group to generate content ideas for your emails and campaigns.
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