“The money’s in the list.”
That’s the mantra in the illustrious world of email marketing.
And while all the new-fangled technology might have you thinking that email marketing has gone the way of bell bottoms and perms, it’s still extremely effective.
In fact, a majority of marketers have found that doing the work of crafting personalized messages for their audiences results in exceptional rewards.
As such, they say they’re planning to increase their upcoming email marketing budgets. So there.
Grow Your Email Subscriber List
It’s so absolutely worth the time and agony effort to do so. Here are eight ways to go about doing it.
1. Minimize Clicks to Subscribe
If you’ve got your opt-in form placed firmly on the home page of your site, you should be good to go.
You should be. But you’re not. Because if a viewer lands on another page and likes what s/he sees, s/he may not be willing to take the extra time to go to your home page to subscribe. Especially if some other shiny distraction beckons.
So be sure that opt-in form shows up on every page.
2. Offer a Little Something Extra to New Subscribers
Give them more than a simple “thanks for subscribing!” note. It’s so insincere.
We’re not suggesting you up-sell here. You’re really just demonstrating your value to potential subscribers. For example, if you offer grooming services, you could include a 10% off their first groom on that thank you page. But not a puppy. That’d be overkill. And inhumane.
This one simple edit to your thank you page could post a significant increase in profits.
3. Give Them A Content Upgrade
In the same spirit as offering something to new subscribers,
You aren’t going to be able to create a lead magnet that resonates with everyone.
Ask yourself this - What are the most popular posts on my site? Google Analytics can tell you.
Take that information and figure out how you can enhance the informational value to those posts by including a content upgrade at the end. The extended information is offered in exchange for contact info. See what you did there?
Plus, the contact info you get will be from people who are truly interested in what you’re saying/speaking/selling. It’s a great way to grow your list.
4. Cross Promote
Cross promote is another way of saying “get people from someone else’s subscriber list.”
It's not cheating.
The idea here is to make a list of other companies who serve a similar demographic, but who are not your competitors. For example, if you sell workout clothes, you could reach out to gyms, yoga studios or the creators of Squat Magic™.
Contact those companies to see if you can come up with a mutually beneficial agreement where you recommend each other’s products and services to your own lists.
They’ll wonder, “What’s in it for me?” So be sure to mention that you want to promote their products to your list at no charge. You can ask for something in return later.
5. Make Your Submit Button Interact with the User
Once upon a time, a marketer decided to test a submit button with a red border that changed to green when the mouse was moved over it. It might be that red and green stirred nostalgic holiday memories for him. We’re not discounting that possibility.
But it turns out that, holidays aside, this conversion test resulted in a 40%+ opt in rate.
That’s because color is a strong motivator. Think for a moment now. Where else do you commonly see red and green? If you said they’re the dominant colors of your chalet room, then good for you. Mostly for having a chalet room. But that’s not where we were heading.
Traffic lights. The color change from red to green visually and subconsciously moves the user from “stop” to “go,” motivating them to make that click.
Give the user a real connection.
6. Let the User Be in Control
Okay, we realize that this post is about getting email subscribers. But keeping them is part of the game too. So let them be in control of not only of what they receive, but when they receive it.
Regardless of the psychology behind it, this isn’t as much about control issues as it is about sheer exhaustion from purging one’s inbox every twenty minutes.
If you’re getting a bunch of “unsubscribes,” don’t automatically assume that they’re just not that into you. They just might no be able to keep up with you.
So instead of asking, “Why are you leaving?” with obvious desperation, simply ask them if they’d rather change the frequency of emails or types of messages they get. It gives them a chance to say, “It’s not you, it’s me.”
And it establishes you as a trusted sender who only wants to send information that’s relevant to them.
One More Thing…
Not to completely negate what we said above about “the
Yeah, it’s the old quality versus quantity argument.
Because the reality is, lists with a few hundred dedicated customers can outperform lists of 10,000+ when they focus on building relationships rather than just connecting with freebie-seekers.
Certainly another angle to consider as you’re building those connections.
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