Written by Casandra Campbell You already know you should be building an email list. It’s a no-brainer. Maybe you’ve even started collecting email addresses on your website. It’s a slow trickle, but people are signing up. If you’ve been at it a while, your list is probably more substantial. Regardless of list size, finding ways to improve conversion rate and get more subscribers is always a worthwhile endeavor. A bigger list typically means a bigger business. Use the tactics below to increase email subscribers and grow your business faster. 1.Tell Them Exactly Why They Should Subscribe
Do visitors to your website know why they should subscribe? If this is not clear, few people will be willing submit their email address. The first step towards building an engaged email list is to define the value you will be providing to subscribers. Once you know this, make sure your copy conveys it. 2. Offer a Lead Magnet Offering a lead magnet doesn’t substitute for a clear reason to join your email list, but it does help. Think of it as a nudge to tip visitors to sign up. Your lead magnet could be any sort of giveaway that makes sense for the people you want to target. If you’re selling a book, you might give away the first chapter. If you sell dress shirts, it could be a coupon code. This works best when it’s something targeted at your specific audience. You don’t want to fill your list with a bunch of random people just looking for freebies. 3. Remove Barriers If signing up for your email list is too complicated or too much work, your conversion rate will be low, even if the value you’re proving is clear. Consider minimizing the amount of information you ask for, as well as the steps involved in signing up. If you need additional information like full names or address, just get the email address first and then followup later for the rest of the information. 4. Create More Opportunities to Sign Up One of the main reasons people don’t get many email signups is they don’t have enough signup forms on their website—or they at least don’t have them in the right places. Take an inventory of where your signup forms are, and how hard they to find. Aside from your landing page there are other great places to display forms including on your about page, 404 page, a “thank you for commenting” page, the sidebar, at the bottom of blog posts, at the top of the homepage, and as a popup. If there’s something on this list you haven’t tried before, give it a go and see if it improves your conversion rate. 5. Run a Contest Contests are a great way to create spikes in signups. Although they’re not ongoing, those occasional spikes will help your list grow over time. With the right prize, contests tend to convert very well. As with lead magnets, it’s important to make sure the prize is appealing to the people you want to reach—but not anybody else. 6. Follow Up With Engaged Twitter Users Sometimes there are people who are ideal targets for your email list but they haven’t made it to your website. People who are engaging with you on Twitter or sharing your content there are prime targets. There’s a good chance they would be interested in signing up for your newsletter. Send a reply using Twitter’s Lead Generation Card and make it easy for them to opt in without leaving the platform. 7. Experiment With Copy Have you chosen the right words to entice people to signup for your list? There could be something else that will work better. Even if you forms don’t use very many words, those words can have a big impact. Experiment with different calls-to-action, button text, and even the text inside the box where visitors write their email address. All this can make a huge difference. 8. Display Social Proof Think about where you’ve already gotten traction with your email list and use this to convince new leads to hop on board. If you already have a bunch of subscribers, mention that number on your sign-up form. If your list is still quite small, use a testimonial about the value you’re providing your email list. If that’s not possible, consider other ways to add social proof. Social media counters or media mentions will also help prove your worth. 9. Add a Guarantee When we give someone our email address we’re placing a lot of trust in them not to abuse it. Letting subscribers know that you’re you’ll keep their information private has been shown toimprove conversion rate. Run a test to see how a privacy statement affects your own conversation rate. 10. Find Other Places to Add Forms Twitter is well set up to collect subscribers but there are other places besides your website where you can do the same. You can add a form to Facebook, include a direct link in guest posts, use paid advertising—heck, you can even get ask for signups in-person at live events. There are many reasons to build an email list. Whether you’re driving traffic to your weekly blog post, sharing coupons with your best customers, or just sending out the occasional company update, an engaged email list can have a big impact on your bottom line. This is why is it’s important to keep finding new ways to get more subscribers! |
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