If I had a penny for every time I’ve mentioned how important email marketing is, I would be writing this from my private jet. However, it bears repeating that, alongside Search Engine Optimization (SEO), email marketing is the best thing you can do to drive traffic to your site.
The problem is, building a sizable email list takes time, even if you get lots of visitors. You still need to convince them to sign up for it, which often involves more work than just adding an opt-in form somewhere and calling it a day.
In this article, I’ll walk you through five different methods you can use for getting more email subscribers so you get the most from your marketing efforts. Let’s get to work!
1. Using Facebook Lead Ads
Facebook is one of the first places that advertisers go when they want to promote their products and sites. With Facebook ads, you can target any subset of users you want, no matter how specific you want to get.
On top of their more traditional ads, Facebook also enables you to set up publication for lead collection. They work just like regular ads, except they include Subscribe or Signup buttons:
When users click on these ads, Facebook takes care of collecting emails for you. Once they’re in your power, you can either connect Facebook to your email marketing platform or export those emails manually.
The advantage of Facebook lead ads is they enable you to target huge subsets of users who may have never found your site otherwise. Keep in mind, though – Facebook ads are not cheap. If you intend to use Facebook lead ads to scale your email list, you’ll need a considerable budget, which means it should wait until your site is monetized.
2. Holding Contests Via Social Media
If you spend time on Twitter on Instagram, then you’ve probably seen at least one contest-related publication lately. The way they work is whoever’s running the contest will ask you to sign up using your email and share the contest via social media:
It goes without saying that people like free stuff. If you make your reward tempting enough, you’ll have no shortage of signups to your email list.
The primary downside to this approach is a lot of the people that subscribe to your list due to contests will usually end up unsubscribing. Even so, if you manage to snag a couple hundred emails thanks to a contest and lose even half of them, that’s a pretty decent increase.
3. Adding ‘Private’ Content to Your Website
A lot of websites entice you into signing up for their email lists by dangling eBooks as bait. You give them your email, get a freebie, and they get to keep contacting you. It’s a win-win situation because you get access to private content and we get access to your inbox.
There are ways you can add a bit of a spin to that approach, though. For example, if you’re using WordPress, you can ‘restrict’ parts of your website. Then you can give access to these areas to people who sign up for your email list.
The upside of this approach to collecting emails with a members-only area, is you can provide much more value than a single eBook might. Plus, it also gives users an incentive to keep coming back, particularly if you update that private section often.
4. Use Exit-Intent Pop-Ups
Just thinking about pop-ups is enough to make the hairs on the back of my arms stand up. However, the numbers are in and it’s impossible to deny that pop-ups work great for capturing email leads.
I’m talking about one very specific kind of pop-up, though – the ones that appear when you’re about to exit a page:
These are unlike the pop-ups of old in that they don’t show up in their own window, but rather as overlaid elements. They can still be a bit annoying, of course, but if you keep yours tasteful and you make it easy to close, they can do wonders for your email numbers.
If you’re using WordPress, there are a lot of ways you can add exit pop-ups to your website. My favorite plugin to use for this purpose is Exit Popup:
We published a full guide on how to use the plugin to configure and add exit pop-ups to your site a while ago, so check it out!
5. Add a ‘Subscribe’ Option to Your Contact Forms
Adding a contact form to your website is a great way for visitors to ask you any questions they might have. It becomes even more important if you use your blog to promote any types of services or products. After all, potential buyers need a way to be able to get in touch with you.
Most contact forms these days require you to leave your email to prevent spam. You can take advantage of this by asking visitors if they want to subscribe to your email list while using that contact form:
In most cases, people do this by adding a simple checkbox below the message field. For the best possible results, we’d recommend not checking the box by default, which may confuse some users who didn’t realize what it was. Instead, make sure you explain what the option does and that it’s easy to see.
To be fair, this method probably won’t drive hundreds of signups to your email list. However, it’s an additional source of emails that is easy to implement, so there’s no reason to avoid it.
Conclusion
The more subscribers you have, the more you can get out of email marketing. However, building a list that’s hundreds of even thousands of subscribers strong takes a lot of time. That goes double if you just set up an opt-in form and wait for users to come to it.
What you should be doing is trying multiple approaches to getting more email subscribers, such as:
- Using Facebook lead ads.
- Holding contests on social media.
- Adding private content to your website.
- Using exit-intent pop-ups.
- Adding a Subscribe option to your contact forms.
Are you already working on building an email list? Share your experiences with us in the comments section below!
Article image: Pixabay.