4 Simple Ways to Grow Your Email List

In today’s world, Email Marketing is hands down, one of the best marketing strategies a business can have. It tends to be one of the biggest converters in sales, and it’s a place for you to really connect with your audience and build that know, like, and trust factor. Well, this blog post is intended to dive a little deeper into email marketing, and explains in detail 4 Simple Ways to Grow Your Email List.

So let’s get started!

In-Content List Building Is Perfect For Building Targeted Sub-Lists

If you’ve ever created an audience avatar or created an audience persona you know how hard it was to narrow down one specific person to focus the information create on. But, even within that targeted audience persona, there are ways to target people even more. A good example to look at is thinking of who has purchased certain products you have or downloaded certain opt-ins. How can you go deeper? How can you go broader?

Not Everyone is Interested in Everything

The fact is, not everyone is interested in every single topic in a particular niche. For example, some of your audience may never take you up on your one-on-one coaching offers. However, they may take you up on a group coaching opportunity. It’s not that they’re not interested in your expertise it’s just that one-on-one coaching isn’t for everyone. That’s where segmentation comes in as well as in-content opt-in offers that laser target certain people in your audience.

Check Your Tech

It depends on the type of autoresponder system you use on how you accomplish this. Let’s say that you have a PLR company and you create content for several niches. Obviously, your entire audience will not want every single type of PLR that you create. Therefore, you should offer opt-in offers for each type of PLR that you create. That way you put them on the right list. 

If you use software that uses tagging on segments like Drip.com, or Convertkit.com, everyone is really on one big list. They are only segmented by the tags used that triggers certain campaigns to be delivered to them. If you use Aweber.com you’ll use it to build sub-lists by creating a separate sign up form. They are starting to implement some tagging so that you can go back in and segment after the fact too.

Advantages of Segmenting and Creating Sub Lists

The advantage of segmenting and creating sub-lists is that you won’t be giving anyone on your lists information they don’t want or need. In fact, some people get upset and will unsubscribe if they don’t want certain types of information. As you know, once you get someone on your list you can market things to them that you don’t make. If they respond to the offers, move them to a new sublist. That way you can start sending more offers to the people who have responded positively. 

When you use the technology you have, along with specialized laser-targeted opt-ins both in-content on your blog, in social media, and your email list you can create many different sublists so that you can curate, create, and offer them exactly what they need when they need it.

You can build super targeted lists by using this idea. By segmenting more rather than less, you’re going to be able to know exactly what your subscribers want to know and need to know in order to be lead through your marketing funnel to make more purchases of the products you’ve created just for them.

Checking Your Stats To Figure Out What’s Working 

Nothing is ever completed properly in marketing without studying your analytics. You really don’t know why you experience success (or failure) without looking at the stats and understanding what they mean. Let’s look at a few ideas.

Lots of Click Throughs to Post but No Conversions

Sometimes you’ll do great getting traffic to a post, but no one converts. Go into your analytics and find out how many people are really reading the post. If you can use heat maps you can even see where they’re looking on the post. The point is you want to look at all the analytics to try to figure out what is going on, why it’s happening, and how to improve. 

Often when you get a lot of click through’s, but no conversions it’s because the opt-in isn’t right for this particular audience. But sometimes it’s because the opt-in isn’t apparent to the reader. Is the opt-in obvious to the reader? Do they understand the benefits of getting opt-in? Do they know that the opt-in solves a problem they have? Change it up a bit to try to improve these aspects of the opt-in then check your stats again in a couple weeks.

No Click-Throughs

Sometimes you’ll share content on social media and no one even seems to notice it. They might like it on social media, but no one is clicking through. Why not? What’s going on? Check the link to ensure it works, if the technology is working, work on the headline to ensure that it focuses on benefits to the readers and doesn’t look like clickbait.

Try sharing the content at different times with different images and blurbs. Make a post about the content and share your feelings about the content and why it’s important and how it will help your audience on Facebook, then share the link to the content in the comments instead of sharing it directly. 

Click Throughs, Conversions for Opt-in, No Sales

If you’re transferring people onto your email list through your in-content opt-ins but you’re still not making sales when you promote a solution to your list, look at the stats to find out when people are opening your emails, when they’re unsubscribing, and how it all fits together. 

If a lot of people unsubscribe when you share a certain type of content reassess whether the people on that list needed what you promoted or not. Maybe they really weren’t your right audience, maybe the offer was off the mark. It’s up to you to do some in-depth research to find out which and then adjust accordingly. 

Are your pitches too salesy? Do your pitches match the audience on that list? Are you spending enough time giving good solid information to educate and nurture your list before you make a huge sales pitch? Are you sending emails often enough? Too much? The only way to know is to look at the analytics and study the stats.

Text Links vs. Pain Text Opt-Ins vs. Graphic Opt-In Forms 

There are several ways you can present in-content opt-ins to your audience. You can use text links, plain text opt-ins, and graphic opt-in forms. It’s up to you how to do it, and you should probably use all three types to find out what works best for your audience, but in any case, the best way to start is by creating a landing page for each opt-in that you create. 

Text Links

When you use a text link this means that you create anchor text for the link that makes sense. You often see this on menu options, when linking to a blog post, or other internal content. This is also a good way to deliver opt-in options. 

To use a text link, first create a landing page for your opt-in offer that is attached to your email list and signs up people for your list when they provide their email addresses to you. Often this is on a double opt-in basis depending on the software you use. 

An example of this is mentioning the opt-in within the post. For example, you might say something like, “…for more information you might want to check out this freebie about this topic I know you need to know that I’m offering. Then link the URL of the landing page to the words about the topic.

Plain Text Opt-ins

These types of links just look like hyperlinks and don’t use anchor text. Sometimes you may want to do this on social media, in text-based email options, in the video, or even right in a blog post because it can be more transparent or seem that way to some of your audience.

A great way to do a plain text link is to use software such as tinyurl.com or another way to make the link look pretty that also goes to the freebie landing page. Then just share the link within the content you create and tell them to go to this link for the information that they need expressing the benefits of doing so.

Graphic Opt-in Forms

You can create beautiful opt-in forms using either landing page software or your autoresponder software to accomplish it. You can even attach forms to links so that when they hover over anchor text the form pops up. The possibilities are endless.

Using a graphic form that pops up, pops under, slides over, or is within the content white space of your article, blog post, or other content. This will stand out a lot. It should provide the information that’s on the landing page but work as a landing page too. 

That way they don’t have to leave the page and can simply fill out the form which once done will take them to the download page or it might deliver a double opt-in message first that then provides a link to the download page.

These different choices of presenting a way to sign up for your list are all great options to use and you should use all of them at different times. What ways do you think you can use these options for presenting your subscription opt-ins to your audience?

Using Pop Up Forms As Part Of Your In-Content List Building 

Using pop up forms as part of your in-content list building is a great way to get more sign-ups. Many people claim to dislike popup forms but the facts when looking at the data suggest that popups convert more than other types of forms. This is true if the information you’re offering is well targeted to the audience and traffic you’re bringing to your website.

A pop-up form is just a little bit of code that you can create by using landing page software or in some cases your autoresponder software. Some good software to look at is Leadpages.com for landing page software which integrates with many types of email marketing autoresponder software like Aweber.com but they also have an email option with their service called Drip.com. Any of these will work well to help you create a pop-up form.

Pop up forms can be placed sitewide or even be page specific. It is recommended that you use both types of options. Having a sitewide opt-in offer is a great way to capture people who come to your site’s homepagedirectly, and a specific freebie should be offered based on each page’s content. Doing this with a popup is a very effective way to capture your audience into your email list with the right offer. 

There are some best practices to use when incorporating pop up forms as part of your in-content list building.

• Be Bold & Clear – Don’t try to make the pop up hidden. Instead, make them beautiful with color, good graphic design principals, and with a clear offer. Think of it as an advertisement for your opt-in offer and not just as a pop-up form. Make the message and the intent of the pop up clear by keeping it simple but hard to ignore. 

• Make it Mobile Friendly – Responsive design today should be automatic but there is still some technology out there (and templates) that aren’t responsive and will not look right on mobile. Double check how the pop-up form looks on various devices and make sure it works. Today, more people are using mobile devices than personal computers to do things online.

• Keep it Branded – Be very consistent with your branding on all your forms. It’s important because for example if it’s an exit popup you want there to be no mistake that it’s a pop up from you. Branding can consist of fonts, colors, and other aspects of your website. Make each pop up look like it belongs toyour site and isn’t an afterthought.

• Use the Right Tools – There are great tools out there that will make your pop up forms look better and even work better to deliver the opt-ins seamlessly to your audience. The right software, plugin, and systems will make it all easier for you and more effective too.

• Make it Easy to Say No – Don’t hide the exit button from your audience. When you use pop-ups, while you want them to be bold and clear, you also want them to make it easy for your audience to say no so that they don’t become irritated by the pop-up and then leave your site. 

Remember to always test everything. Conducting A/B testing is a great way to try different headlines, colors, calls to action to find out what works best for your audience. Plus, make sure that the information you show on the popup is honest, direct, and easy to understand surrounding the benefits of downloading the opt-in. 

4 Simple Ways to Grow Your Email List

Well, there you have it, my 4 Simple Ways to Grow Your Email List! For more of my Personal, Travel & Lifestyle, Blogging Tips, and Entrepreneurial Inspiration be sure to subscribe to my newsletter where I drop in weekly with inspiration, my newest blog content, and FREE trainings designed specially just for you! Let’s be Friends & Connect, Click the link below to find out more!