How to Grow an Email List

Growing an engaged email list is one of the most important parts of creating a successful email marketing strategy. And for businesses and organizations, it can also be one of the most challenging tasks to achieve. You might have something valuable to offer to your current and potential customers, but getting them to sign up and share their email addresses can be a daunting task. In this article, we will discuss some effective tools and strategies that small businesses and organizations can use to grow their email subscriber list.

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Why is Building an Engaged Email List Important?

Before we dive into the tools and strategies, let’s first understand the importance of having an engaged email list. An email list is a powerful tool that helps you communicate with your customers, potential customers, and fans directly. Unlike social media, where your message may get lost in the noise or the algorithm, email marketing ensures that your message reaches your audience.

Building an engaged email list is essential for:

Promoting your products and services directly to your audience
Providing exclusive content to your subscribers
Generating leads and sales
Building relationships with your customers and fans
Creating brand awareness and credibility

Email marketing can be a powerful tool for businesses of all sizes. It allows you to connect with your audience directly and build a relationship with them over time. But in order to make the most of your email marketing efforts, you need to have a strong email subscriber list. After all, you can’t send emails to people who haven’t given you permission to do so.

So, how can you grow your email subscriber list and ensure that you’re reaching the right people? In this post, we’ll explore some real-life examples of businesses and organizations that have successfully grown their email lists, as well as some tips and tools that you can use to achieve the same results.

What is an Email Subscriber List?

Before we dive into the strategies for growing your email subscriber list, it’s important to understand what an email subscriber list is and why it matters. Simply put, your email subscriber list is a list of people who have given you permission to send them emails. These individuals may have signed up for your newsletter, downloaded a lead magnet from your website, or purchased a product or service from you in the past.

The individuals on your email subscriber list are some of your most valuable contacts. They have shown an interest in your business or organization and are more likely to engage with your content and make purchases from you in the future. That’s why it’s so important to grow your email subscriber list and keep it healthy.

Real Examples of List Growth Success

Now let’s take a look at some real examples of small businesses and organizations that have achieved success with email marketing and list growth.

Example 1: Live Your Legend

Live Your Legend is a platform that helps people find work they love. They achieved a 300% growth in their email subscriber list by using a simple but effective strategy. They offered a free resource that was valuable to their audience, a guide to finding their passion. The guide was available in exchange for the user’s email address, and it became the primary focus of their website’s home page. By highlighting the guide and offering it as a valuable resource, they were able to entice their audience to sign up.

Example 2: Leesa

Leesa is a mattress company that uses email marketing to keep their customers engaged and informed about their products. They offer exclusive discounts, promotions, and new product launches to their email subscribers. They also use their email list to gather feedback from their customers, which helps them improve their products and services.

Example 3: The Skimm

The Skimm is a daily newsletter that provides a quick and easy summary of the news. They grew their email list to over 7 million subscribers by offering a simple but valuable service. Their newsletter provides a quick and easy way to stay informed about current events, and it’s delivered straight to their audience’s inbox every morning.

Tools and Strategies to Grow Your Email List

Now that we’ve seen some real examples of successful list growth, let’s take a look at some tools and strategies that you can use to achieve similar success.

1. Offer a Valuable Incentive

One of the most effective ways to entice your audience to share their email address is by offering a valuable incentive. This can be anything from a free e-book, guide, or whitepaper to a discount or promotion. The key is to offer something that is relevant to your audience and valuable enough to entice them to sign up.

2. Create a Landing Page

A landing page is a web page designed specifically to capture leads. It’s a standalone page that is focused on a single goal: getting your audience to sign up for your email list. A landing page typically includes a form where the user can enter their email address, as well as a description of the incentive you’re offering.

3. Use Pop-Ups and Slide-Ins

Pop-ups and slide-ins are effective tools to encourage sign-ups. These are windows that appear on your website with a message encouraging the user to join your email list. Pop-ups usually appear in the center of the screen and require the user to take action before continuing, while slide-ins appear from the side of the screen and don’t interrupt the user’s browsing experience as much.

Make sure your signup forms are optimized to get the most sign-ups possible. Keep them simple and easy to fill out, with as few fields as possible. Also, consider using social proof, like displaying the number of subscribers you have or testimonials from happy subscribers, to build credibility and trust.

Promote your email list on your social media channels to reach a wider audience. Use social media ads to target your ideal audience, and include a clear call-to-action to join your email list. Additionally, use social media to offer exclusive content or promotions to email subscribers, which can further incentivize sign-ups.

6. Host Contests or Giveaways

Contests and giveaways can be a fun way to grow your email list. Offer a prize relevant to your audience, and require entrants to provide their email address to participate. Promote the contest or giveaway on your website, social media channels, and email list to maximize participation.

7. Partner with Other Businesses

Partnering with other businesses can help you reach a new audience and grow your email list. Find businesses that target a similar audience and collaborate on a joint promotion or campaign. This can include offering a shared incentive, like a discount or free trial, in exchange for email sign-ups.

Email List Management Platform

So how do you start an email list so you can grow this wonderful community of readers I’m talking about?

The first thing you need to do is decide on an email management platform.

There are free ones out there like Mailchimp but girl let me tell you…Mailchimp sucks. It’s extremely hard to understand and get the hang of for a beginner blogger. But if you honestly don’t have the budget for a paid one then stick with Mailchimp for now.

My absolute favorite email management platform to grow my own personal email list is Flodesk. Flodesk is absolutely amazing because it has the most beautifully created email templates already done for you, stunning colors, and it’s extremely easy for a beginner to understand.

The regular price for Flodesk is $38/month I believe but if you use my link you can get it for just $19/month! What a steal, right? Get it for $19/month here.

This is a screenshot of Flodesk. Flodesk is an email marketing platform with beautiful templates created for you so you can send beautiful emails to your subscribers and grow your email list.

Grow an email List With Opt-in Incentives

The main way to grow an email list is to give your ideal reader value by creating freebies (opt-in incentives).

It would be wonderful if we could get email list subscribers without providing anything in return, right? But it doesn’t actually work like that unfortunately.

In order to get subscribers and grow our list we need to provide something that our ideal readers, clients and customers want and need for free.

Some opt-in incentives could be….

-Workbooks

-Ebooks

-Printables and Downloadables

-Toolpack

-Email courses

-Tutorials

-Quizzes

-Lightroom presets

-Discounts

-And TONS more!

You ultimately want to think about what your ideal blog visitor wants and needs MOST.

Is it a free eBook that can educate them on a topic they are struggling with?

Is it a workbook that they can fill out and have a better understanding of a topic?

What does your ideal reader need most? That’s the kind of freebies you need to create.

My Favorite: Resource Library

My all-time favorite way to get subscribers to sign up to my email list is to offer them my resource library.

The resource library is a place where I put ALL of my freebies in ONE place for them to have access to each one of them.

This is way more enticing for the reader because as soon as they have access to the resource library after they sign up, they will enter the library that has several different freebies for them.

Now, the way you create a resource library is to build 2 pages on your website.

1 page will be the front page of the resource library. And the 2nd page will be a password protected page that will hold all of your freebies.

How to Create Freebies?

I create all of my freebies in Canva. It is a nice, easy way to create them and very beginner friendly.

There are a few things you need to incorporate when creating your freebies.

1-Value.

Like I said above, the freebies you create need to be valuable for your ideal reader. If your niche is about blogging, you wouldn’t create a cooking workbook freebie, right?

2-Branded.

Your freebie also needs to be branded-meaning the same colors as your brand, same fonts, and same visuals as your website.

You also want to ALWAYS put your blog name and website on your freebie as well to prevent from anyone stealing it and using it as their own freebie.

3- Set Up Properly.

Your freebie needs to look nice. It needs to look somewhat professional.

Now, I know it make take some practice. The way I practiced is by looking at other bloggers freebies and try to create the same layout as they did. I am NOT saying to copy their work or completely copy their freebie at all. Please don’t do this.

But take inspiration and see if you can try and recreate the layout and then try and make the freebie your own by tweaking things.

This is the way I practiced and it is how I learned to create good looking freebies.

Now that you have freebies and potentially have a free resource library to offer your visitors, now it is time to create a few sign up forms for the freebies.

It is very easy to create a sign up form in Flodesk and it is also very easy to brand it as well which is important.

Your sign up forms should represent your branding colors and fonts, too.

Literally everywhere on your website!

You want to make it as easy as possible for your ideal readers to quickly subscribe so you can grow an email list.

You want to place the sign up forms in these places:

-Homepage

-Sidebar

-Each page should have at least 1 sign up form.

-In your website footer

-Throughout your blog posts

-End of your blog posts

-Anywhere else you think is necessary

An image of a computer on a desk with macroons to eat, notebooks, flowers, and pencils.

Set Up Your Welcome Sequence

Now that you have freebies, a resource library, and sign up forms on your website, the next step is to set up an Onboarding/Welcome sequence.

A welcome sequence is basically a set of automated emails that will deliver the freebie or resource library password, introduce you and the blog, and tell them where to go next (call to actions).

In Flodesk, there is an option to set up a workflow.

The first email in the workflow will be delivering the freebie or resource library password.

In the second email you want to introduce yourself and the blog and set the expectations. You want to tell your subscribers how often they will hear from you (once/week is good) and let them know what kinds of content you will be sending.

And the 3rd and final email will be a list of call to actions. This will allow your reader to find you and have access to your blog and content.

Weekly Updates

Now that you have your welcome sequence set up, you want to send your readers 1 email/ week updating them on…

-New blog posts

-New podcast episodes

-New youtube videos

-give them free advice, free education, VALUE

Giving value every week to your subscribers is key to building the community of subscribers you want.

Try to avoid being too salesy all of the time. If you are only writing emails to try and sell to them, it will never work. You always have to prime your readers or several months with consistent free information and value before you can ever sell to them.

I really hoped this blog post about growing an email list helped you better understand what to do to grow it.

If you have any questions you can always ask me in the comment section below.

If you are still confused about growing an email list, I offer a blog coaching service that will not only teach you everything their is to know about email lists, but I also teach how to monetize your blog, gain traffic, and much more. If you are interested in blog coaching click here to inquire.

Learn more about my blog coaching program here.