Hands down, one of the best things you can do to grow your platform, business, or organization is to put a heavy emphasis on building your email list.
It doesn’t matter if you are an author, professional speaker, entrepreneur, traditional business, church or nonprofit… building your list is a must. Well, it’s a must IF you want to amplify your impact exponentially.
“But Daniel, isn’t email kind of old school? I mean, we’re on social media now. Tweet tweet.”
If you have a thought anywhere remotely close to that above, stop for a minute and go read this: 10 Reasons Why Email Marketing Still Trumps Everything Else (Yes, Even Social Media)
Now that we’ve covered the benefits…
Here are a few ways to get more email subscribers and build a powerful list. I’ll start with a few of the common ways and then share a few unique ways that perhaps you haven’t considered.
Note: It doesn’t really matter which email service provider you use. Mailchimp, Aweber, and Constant Contact are great for most people. For those with more robust needs, check out Infusionsoft.
1. Add Email Signup to Your Website Above the Fold – I highly recommend having an email signup box on the top of your site (header) or in the sidebar above the fold. What does “above the fold” mean? It means that the email optin box is visible on the screen without scrolling down when someone lands on your site. You can also add a popup overlay of some kind. Some people have mixed feelings about them but the stats don’t lie, they work extremely well. I suggest Optin Monster for that.
2. If You Blog, Add a Signup Box to the Bottom of Every Post – In addition to a header or sidebar optin box, if you are a blogger you should also have a sign up box at the bottom of EVERY blog post. You can have this coded into your theme by a designer fairly inexpensively or insert signup box code into your WordPress blog using a simple plugin like ADD TO POST . You can also use services such as OptinSkin which has pre-designed options that are easy added to your posts. See an example of OptinSkin in action on Pat Flynn’s blog here (scroll to bottom of post). By the way, Pat has a great email check list here too.
3. Offer an Incentive (sometimes called a Lead Magnet) – In 1 or 2 above especially, consider offering some sort of incentive for people to subscribe. This could be a simple e-book, a report, a How To Guide, audio, video or anything else of value. (See Dan Miller’s Free Ebook Box Here or Ray Edwards Free Copywriting Guides Box Here). It can even be a promise to share your best work, as Jeff Goins examples here. Just get creative. It’s basically giving people something of value from you in exchange for them giving you something of value from them (their email address, their time and attention). Just make sure it’s relevant to who you are trying to attract.
4. Put an Optin Box on Your About Page – One of the most visited pages on most websites is the “About” page. It’s prime real estate that most don’t leverage. In your bio or About Section, add in an email optin box to invite people to join in.
5. Host a Teleseminar or Webinar – Webinars and teleseminars enable you to provide value and build a list due to the fact that, in most cases, registration is required. On the registration page you should be collecting email addresses and enabling someone to join your list. Teleseminars and webinars also help you expand your reach, especially when you have guests that you are interviewing (because that guest will normally help to be a draw which can increase your signups). These events can also be promoted on Facebook, Twitter, etc.
6. Build Your List with Social Media – You may think that most of your social media followers also subscribe to your email list but you might be surprised how many don’t. Be sure to cross promote. Share a link to your site on Twitter and Facebook, etc and encourage people to sign up for your email. Better yet, create a dedicated email page on your site that you can link directly into and on that page have your optin box, your lead magnet or just general info on the value they get if they subscribe. On Facebook you can also create a custom tab and add email optin to that (you can promote that tab and really increase your email optins from Facebook too, it converts great!).
7. Use LeadPages – In my opinion, LeadPages is one of the best solutions out there to help you capture leads (email addresses). You can easily create landing pages, webinar registration pages, etc that work seamlessly online and can integrate with Facebook. Not only is their solution easy, each template they provide has been tested and proven to convert.
8. Take Advantage of the Signup Thank You Page – What happens when you fill out an email optin form on most sites? You are normally either taken to a generic Thank You page or an “FYI We Need to Verify Your Email Address” page. In either case you can customize those pages. Add some special custom language to the page and include social share buttons (and email a friend button) with pre-populated content so that your new subscribers will be encouraged to share with their friends. Here’s the thing though, don’t just include social share links. Actually add in some sort of call-to-action such as “Thank you for signing up! Help me spread the word by telling your friends so that they too can benefit from ___.”
9. Leverage Your List – It’s amazing what happens when we simply ask people to do something. Don’t forget that. Leverage your existing list. This can be simple things like occasionally asking your list to share whatever you have with others they know (make this easy by giving them clickable links to share on social and to forward to a friend).
10. Create Something that Generates Traffic – Let’s be honest, you can have all the best email optin forms and tactics enabled on your site but if you have no traffic then you won’t have many new subscribers. Look for creative ways to create opportunities to attract traffic that converts. Webinars and teleseminars are great, so is guest posting or getting interviewed on others podcast… but sometimes you need something more. When I put on the Leadership and Influence Summit and the Author Platform Summit both were free events (initial access) designed to generate traffic and build lists. They both accomplished that goal and provided me targeted optin lists of thousands and thousands of subscribers.
In closing…
Respect Your List – As your list grows, don’t abuse them or take them for granted. Provide value, think about their needs, serve them in some way and provide as much value as you can. Your list can become one of your greatest assets and you should treat it that way.
Do you have any creative ways that you have utilized to grow your email list? Share below.
You Might Also Like:
- 8 Benefits of Email Marketing and Why You Must Build Your List
- Have A Blog? Here’s a Simple Way to Make Your Top Posts More Effective
- 10 Reasons Why Email Marketing Still Trumps Everything Else (Yes, Even Social Media)