In this article, I will share with you some tips on how to grow your newsletter list to tap into the power of email.
Over the years, technology has changed social interaction. Some technologies having a mild reach to a closed group and others like email shooting past continental boundaries to redefining or could we say setting the standard for communication.
Hubspot reports that email generates $38 for every $1 spent, which is an astounding 3,800% ROI, making it one of the most effective marketing options available for marketers.
Hubspot’s Ultimate List of Email Marketing Stats for 2019 is a great read to glean on the power of growing a newsletter list. Here are five eye-popping facts from the list.
- 99% of consumers check their email every day. (DMA Insights, 2017)
- 83% of B2B companies use e-newsletters as part of their content marketing program. (com, 2017)
- 93% of B2B marketers use email to distribute content. (Content Marketing Institute, 2017)
- 59% of respondents say marketing emails influence their purchase decisions.
- Active email accounts are expected to hit 5.6 billion by 2019.
Studies have been done to unearth the value of email marketing to businesses, if you are curious and can dig, you will unearth a wealth of information about emails and hopefully find ways of growing your newsletter list.
You can start with these six ideas.
6 Ideas on How to Grow Your Newsletter List
1. Create Great And Useful Content
Ask yourself, why would someone want to subscribe to your newsletter?
I could comfortably put down a list of 101 things you can do to grow newsletter list, but, those gimmicks will only lead to a surge in unsubscribes if you offer shallow or zero content to your list.
There is no secret; you want to grow your newsletter list, create fantastic content. Content that your audience anxiously waits to get their eyeballs on.
Create content that adds value and solves people’s problems. If you can do that, everyone who lands to your website or who associates with you will not hesitate to signup to your newsletter because they know you are a goldmine.
Most importantly, every trick or tip or method to grow a newsletter in one way or another relies on content.
2. Add A Newsletter Signup form on Your Website
Once you have the content, you are ready to ask people for their email addresses.
Most website owners painstakingly create fantastic content but never ask their audience for their email addresses. You can never grow your newsletter list without learning to ask.
Over 70% of your website visitors will never return to your website once they click the close button.
These appalling numbers are no way an indication that the content on your website is not good. It’s just an industry statistic that reflects the competition your website faces.
With a newsletter signup form on your website, there is a fair chance to keep the traffic that comes to your site.
In addition to standard signup that you can add to the footer or sidebar of your website, you can add popup forms too.
A popup form can be event-triggered, for-instance, when someone stays on your website for some amount of time – 2 minutes, for instance – a popup form appears when someone scrolls to the bottom or halfway the site a popup appears.
Another popular popup form you can use is the exit signup form. I know they are sometimes annoying, but, they are an effective tool for collecting emails on a website.
The best way to grow your list with these popup forms is to offer a visitor something in exchange for their email address: an ebook, checklist, case study, or some secret industry tip or exclusive offer, which they can only claim by email. The bigger, the more ridiculous an offer, the better it will work at growing your newsletter list.
Seldom will someone think twice about that. They want your secret knowledge, an email address – to them – is a small price to pay.
3. Gate Certain Sections of Your Content
Another way that can work alongside popup forms is gating content.
You’ve seen those websites that hide a specific portion of their content and will only unlock it if you enter your email address. Right?
Those are examples of gated content.
Give readers a snippet of the content, and if they find it valuable, ask them to provide their email address to access the rest of the material. Simple.
4. Add A Signup form on Facebook
If you have an active presence on Facebook, then this is another excellent place to collect email addresses for your newsletter.
If you use an email marketing software like Mailchimp, you can do this quickly and automatically.
This way, people don’t have to visit your website to subscribe to your newsletter.
Now, I only used Facebook as an example, but as publisher consider the social network where your audience is most active. It could be LinkedIn or Twitter or Instagram, or whatever, that is the place you need to ask people to join your newsletter.
It is important to remember that for the same reason people will like, follow, and dine with you on social, they will subscribe to your newsletter – quality, consistent, valuable content.
5. Guest Blogging
Guest blogging is a no brainer. Of course, much weight is only placed on it for creating backlinks for SEO.
But, guest blogging does a lot more than that.
It is an untapped resource for tapping the audience of another person’s website.
6. Ask for Emails Offline.
If you have a brick and mortar business, then there is no reason why this shouldn’t be on top of your list. Customers already stroll into your shop, why, not ask them from their email addresses?
Every customer won’t deny you their email address for the occasional reminder or tip on how to use the product or service they got from you.
The other place you cannot fail to get emails for your newsletter lists are in networking events you engage in.
See someone you want to do business with? Walk over, break the ice, and chat. If you think they are of worth, ask if you can add them to your list so they can get on top of the stuff you have been talking about, that’s after you’ve exchanged business cards. Simple, right?
Conclusion
Growing a newsletter boils down to an exchange of your valuable content with their email address.
Figure out the content and then ask people through any of the methods I’ve shared with to grow your newsletter list.
That’s it! Hopefully you have found this read helpful. You may also want to learn how to auto share WordPress posts on social medias to maximize exposure.