How to Use Social Media to Grow Your Email List

Can you really grow your email list by using social media sites?
Sure, getting more followers, shares or repins is pretty straightforward, but to really take advantage of social media in your business, you need a way to convert your social traffic into email subscribers.
The answer, though, is yes, you can grow your list through social, but it’s going to take a bit of strategic planning on your part.
There’s more to it than signing up for an account, posting a few status updates, sharing a few stories, and then sitting back while hordes of people start tripping all over themselves trying to get on your email list.
It’s a strategy worth pursuing, however.
According to a survey by the Pew Research Center Center, 69% of the population is using social media. In other words:

• There are over 1 billion daily active users on Facebook
• Twitter has over 330 million active users
• Instagram has a community of over 800 million

This essentially means your target audience is on social media all the time.
It’s your job to get on their radar and capture their email address.
Let’s take a look at some of the key ways you can start using social media to build your email list.

Contests and Giveaways

An easy way to grow your list and drum up awareness of your brand is to host a contest or giveaway.
There’s something about contests, sweepstakes and giveaways that people find irresistible.
Whether it’s to win a product or service – or even just a gift card – if it’s of value, you can be sure people will enter for a chance to win.
What amounts to a business write-off or marketing expense can get you buzz, publicity and grow your email list seemingly overnight.
For example, Design Milk hosted a giveaway for their readers with a prize consisting of a DIY Print Shop Original Print Shop Kit worth over $600.

To enter, people filled out the form and gave their email address.
Design Milk promoted this on Twitter and Facebook.

With a high incentive like in Design Milk’s example, many people will gladly give up their email address for a chance to win.
On the technical side of things, here are some places that make it easy to set up a social giveaway or contest:

• Rafflecopter
• Wishpond
• Woobox

Write a blog post, tell your current subscribers about the giveaway, and start promoting it on your social media channels to get the buzz going.

Optimize Your Social Media Bio

What does your Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter or other social media bio currently say?
Most social sites have a spot for a personal statement or bio; are you taking full advantage of this valuable space?
Like a lot of businesses, you might have the obligatory boring blurb about your business and maybe a funny fact.
Instead of boilerplate write-ups and witty quips, tell people what you do and more importantly, what you can do for them.
Then, go ahead and throw a link to your lead magnet or landing page in there.
Use Bitly or another link shortener if your URL is too long.
Since you’ve already captured the reader’s attention – there’s a good chance they follow (or just followed) you – why not entice them to sign up for your mailing list?
This is an easy way to optimize your bio for conversions and gain more subscribers.
It’s exactly what blogger and photographer Julie Claveau is doing on her Twitter profile.
After telling you a bit about what she can do for you, she has a link for you to sign up to her free photography course.
 

Clicking the link takes you straight to a landing page where – you guessed it – you’ll need to give up your email address to join the course.

Make Use of Social Media Headers and Pinned Posts

Facebook and Twitter both allow you to upload a customized social media header image.
This is prime real estate you can use to promote your logo, company name and URL for your lead magnet or landing page.
Space is at a premium and this won’t be a clickable link, so like we suggested with your social media bio, use a link shortener like Bitly to shorten a long URL.
And, if you do use Bitly, go ahead and create a customized link that’s easy to remember (and type).
 

Not only do you want your lead magnet URL on your header image, you also want to have a pinned post.
With both Facebook and Twitter, you can pin a post so it always stays at the top of your page.
Whenever someone visits, it will be the first post on your timeline.
Brent Jones, a freelancer and blogger, pinned a post on his Twitter feed that contains a content upgrade – his preferred way to grow his email list.
 

By having the URL for your lead magnet in your social media header – and then as a pinned post on your timeline – it’s much more likely people will sign up to your list on their own.
And if they miss the pinned post or didn’t notice your header image, you still have your social media bio to attract their attention.
You’ll get them coming, and you’ll get them going – you do want to grow your email list, after all.

Add a Sign Up Button on Facebook

A great way to optimize your social media profile – on Facebook for example – is to add a Sign Up button to your header.
Start by logging into your Facebook page and finding the Create Call to Action button.
 

Just select the Sign Up option from the drop down menu and enter the URL of your lead magnet or landing page in the Website field.
 

That’s all there is to it.
You’ll have a dedicated button for people to click on in your profile header that takes them directly to your landing page – where you can work your magic to capture their email address.
It sounds so simple, but not a lot of people are doing this on Facebook.
And never underestimate how much people like to randomly click on buttons!
In addition, some email service providers enable you to integrate a sign up form tab directly on your Facebook page by using their Facebook app.
We won’t get into the technical details since each provider can implement it differently, but you can check out social media strategist Peg Fitzgerald’s Facebook sign up form to see what it could look like.

Social Media List Building Wrap Up

There you go – a handful of easy and highly effective ways to grow your email list on social media.
By running contests and valuable giveaways you’ll be sure to attract your target audience, and by requiring them to enter their email address to enter, you’ll grow your list quickly.
And with your newly optimized social media bio, social media header, sign up buttons, and pinned posts all focusing on directing visitors to your landing page URL, you’re doing all you can to push them to subscribe to your list.
Over to you – what other methods have you used on social media to grow your email list?



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9 Proven Tactics of a Successful Local Facebook Marketing Strategy

With 2.2 billion active users, it might seem like turning followers into paying customers on Facebook would be easy. At least a few of those users will want what you’re selling ... right? Unfortunately, targeting a local market on Facebook is a little more challenging than that.
Building a local Facebook marketing strategy is challenging, but extremely rewarding when executed correctly. Here are nine proven Facebook marketing tactics you can use to drive foot traffic, build brand awareness, and increase revenue potential.

9 Tactics for Your Local Facebook Marketing Strategy

1. Share Reviews

Standing out can be difficult when you’re surrounded by hundreds of other businesses all vying for attention. The key often lies in using social proof. People trust businesses that can prove what they say is true -- especially if that proof comes from a customer.
Here are two review tactics we use:

• Share screenshots of positive reviews from other social sites.
• Ask customers to share the experience they’ve had with your business.

Screenshot positive reviews on sites like Yelp and Google+, and then share them on your Facebook page. Tag the reviewer’s business in your post with a sincere “Thank you,”, or just happily boast that you have the best customers. Sharing screenshots of emails from happy customers works too, just be sure you ask permission first.

If you’re just starting out and your business doesn’t have any reviews yet, give your audience an incentive to leave positive feedback. Ask your followers how their last experience was at your business. Offer a product giveaway to the first five people that leave a comment describing why they love your company. Even if you don’t get an official Facebook review, someone will probably comment on their experience. That’s social proof.

2. Create an Event

Having a live band perform at your restaurant this weekend or throwing a big sale at your retail store? Facebook events are a great way to notify your followers and generate some buzz for your business. Even if people can't attend in person, it shows that your business is actively engaged with the community.
Creating an event on your Facebook page is easy. First, navigate to the “Events” tab.

Select the blue “Create Event” button.

Fill in the details:

• Date and time
• Event category
• Event keywords
• A link to the ticketing website

Finally, add a compelling photo, and you’re good to go.

A few tips to improve the reach of your Facebook event:

• Add directions or a map to make it easy for people to find your event.
• Invite up to 500 people.
• Share your event and/or promote it as an ad.

3. Use Groups

Groups offer a wide variety of local Facebook marketing advantages. Some of the best include:

• Listing and selling products
• Building a community
• Establishing expertise
• Networking
• Offering great customer service

The possibilities for creating and managing a group on Facebook are only limited by your imagination. Groups are the perfect place to create a controlled community within your target audience. As the admin of the group, you can approve or reject all posts, accept or block members, and direct the commentary.
Groups allow you to build a micro-community that is hyper-focused on the subject of your choosing. For example, a business that sells laptop cases could create an entire Facebook group centered around laptop cases and their various uses, the best kinds, how to determine product quality, and humorous customer stories.

4. Share Local Content

One thing that’s consistent across Facebook is that people love to celebrate local pride. Align your business with famous events, history, people, landmarks, sayings, and other nuances that are part of your city’s identity. Share content from local organizations that captures the essence of your locale and will interest to your audience.

These are examples of good local content topics:

• 13 Things Keeping Austin Weird
• How Boston’s “R”-less Accent Became So Famous
• The Best Festivals to Attend this Summer in San Diego

Make your Facebook page an extension of the culture and traditions surrounding your location.

5. Mention Local Businesses, Events, and Groups

If you’re looking for ways to build engagement and gain traction, tag accounts that share content which aligns with your audience’s interests. As with all things on social media, tagging can be overdone, so don’t start tagging pages in every post. Rather, choose the ones that will have the greatest impact and provide value to your audience.
Tagging is another great way to support local marketing efforts. Build hype for an event your company is hosting using a Facebook live video, or showcase company culture with a group photo at the next conference you attend. One word of caution: if you decide to try Facebook live, write a script. The last thing you want to do is live-stream without a plan.
In addition to page tags, groups can also be tagged. This is especially effective when you’re attending industry events or working on collaborations. Athletic wear brands, such as Puma, do an exceptional job promoting their collaborations on Facebook.

6. Tag Locations & Events

I’m not talking about tagging your latest check-in at Olive Garden, I’m talking about event marketing, company outings, and business development trips. Manning a booth at Comic-Con? Post a group picture that tags the event and location. Taking the team out for someone’s Birthday lunch? Tag the location and upload a boomerang. Checking out your latest digital billboard downtown? Tag the location and upload a picture.
Add some variety to your Facebook page by tagging locations and show off your company’s personality at the same time.

7. Run a Contest

Everybody likes to win things. There are many different ways to run a Facebook contest. The two most popular include hosting a promotion on a Facebook app or on your Page’s Timeline.
Pay close attention to Facebook’s content rules because disregarding them could get your contest shutdown. Here are just a few things you can’t do:

• You can’t require participants to share a page or post on your Timeline to enter
• You can’t require participants to like a page to enter
• You can’t require participants to tag themselves in pictures to enter

The list goes on. Review a thorough breakdown of what you can and can’t do when running a Facebook contest here. Helpful hint: even though you can’t require page likes, photo tagging, and timeline posting, you can still encourage the audience to complete those actions.

8. Encourage Foot Traffic

Retail companies often struggle to make Facebook work in their favor. The biggest problem is getting people online to come into the store. Here are a few tips to start turning Facebook followers into foot traffic that have revenue potential:

• Create polls and contests centered on popular products and their uses
• Run regular in-store events your customers are interested in
• Promote in-store coupons, giveaways, and sweepstakes
• Build a shop directly on Facebook where your customers can purchase your products
• Align your page with causes your audience cares about

Think of Facebook as your marketing email and your store as the landing page. In order to get people from the digital universe to visit your physical business, you need to have a compelling message and offer they can’t refuse. For example, if there’s a large sales conference in town you could create a set of Facebook ads that are focused on the area surrounding the conference center and targets sales professionals over the age of 21. Offer a lunch discount and provide all the details they need to make a quick meal grab before heading to their next session.

9. On-Site Promotion of Your Facebook Page

Try to convert the foot traffic your business attracts into online brand advocates. Use signage, receipts, business cards, flyers, coupons and more to ask for page likes, check-ins, reviews, and posts on your Facebook Timeline.
Here are a few ideas to get you started:

• Give away a $200 gift card that requires participants to post a picture taken in front of a branded mural, sign, or display that tags your Facebook page.
• Offer a 20% off discount for everyone who checks-in at your store on a Wednesday.

 Executing successful Facebook local marketing tactics requires consistent testing and experimentation. What works for a retail business might not work for a restaurant, and vice versa.
Take the time to figure out what your audience responds to the best and what generates the most business for your company through Facebook. Successful Facebook local marketing can take time. Be patient, detail oriented and persistent.


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4 ways to use social media to increase your email list

Anyone who’s done customer outreach via email marketing understands that the bigger your subscriber list, the more people you can reach with any given email campaign. That means more leads and sales. An additional benefit of a large readership: the ability to segment those readers into groups based on demographics, buying habits and other factors. Targeting your readers with messages they want also increases your leads and sales.
In other words, increasing your email list is all upside. Yet many business owners don’t utilize all the tools at their disposal. One of the most powerful ways to grow your email list is with social media. Here are four ways to put your social media accounts to work:

1. Use a Facebook sign-up button

A business page on Facebook is essential in today’s digital landscape. Assuming your business already has a Facebook page, you can add a call to action button to your business page, and set it to collect sign-ups. When you create the button, point it to a page on your website where the visitor inputs his or her contact information. A VerticalResponse Landing Page or plugin makes this information especially easy to collect. If you don’t already have a Facebook page for your business, now is the time to get one.
Here’s VerticalResponse’s sign-up button on Facebook, along with a few other examples:

2. Offer exclusive content, but keep it gated until followers provide their email addresses

If you want something from your social media visitors — in this case, their email addresses to add to your subscriber list — offer something in return. Handing over premium content (rich information that isn’t easily accessible elsewhere online) in exchange for an email address is a tried-and-true practice.
This exclusive content could be, for instance, product-specific tips and tricks, thought leadership related to the services you provide, downloadable white papers or ebooks, or a link to a video not yet available to the general public. Be sure it’s something of value or interest to your followers and visitors. If it’s not enticing, they won’t trade their email address for it.
Our partner company Deluxe recently offered exclusive early access to Small Business Revolution videos in exchange for email sign-ups:

3. Use Facebook Ads

Facebook Ads are extremely effective at narrowing in on your target audience and enticing them to take the action you want, thanks to Facebook’s wealth of data on its users. Use a low-cost Facebook Ad campaign to put your advertising in front of the people most likely to want and need your services. You can control the call to action in a Facebook Ad, so take this opportunity to solicit email sign-ups.
For more on Facebook Ads, download our free eBook.

4. Create a contest or giveaway

Everyone loves contests and freebies. Create a contest or giveaway to promote on your social media channels. Advertise that you’re giving away a free product or service, and consider asking users to submit photos or videos of themselves using your products. Or simply allow anyone willing to provide their email address with a contest entry. Direct your social followers to a landing page you’ve created to collect the entries. Make sure your website is updated to send visitors to the entry page as well. Capture participants’ email addresses and make it clear that entering the contest also entitles them to receive your email campaigns.
Don’t forget to create a fun and catchy hashtag to go with the contest, so you can promote it across your social channels. Encourage your followers to share it with their own networks, possibly offering them additional entries for helping spread the word.
Prolific romance author Marie Lavender recently ran a contest offering a whopping 164 prizes, but required an email address in order for people to participate:

Bonus tip: Show potential readers what they’re missing

Another way to encourage people to sign up for your email list is to show them what they’re missing by not subscribing. Publish your past newsletters, or parts of them, on your social channels. This gives your followers an idea of all the useful news, information and specials they’re missing by not being on your list.
For more than 100 additional ways to grow your email list, check out these can’t-miss tips and ideas. 



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12 Ways to Integrate Email and Social Media

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Ever have the feeling email marketing and social media were being set up to be enemies?

It comes up when the social media people say stuff like “email is dead.”

Then the email marketing people snap back with “social media never earns any ROI.”

Everybody just take a deep breath, okay?

Email and social don’t have to fight.

In fact, they can support each other beautifully.

And the more you see all the ways they work together, the more it looks like they’re the perfect compliment.

If you’d like to get more out of your email marketing, and get more out of your social media marketing, try these ideas for blending them together.

1. Drop social posts into emails

Want more content for your newsletters? Social is the perfect solution to this!

Include your most popular social media posts in your email messages to really get subscribers excited!

Not only do you have a great stream of content to pick from, but you’ve also got sharing stats.

You know which posts and images have performed best.

So use just the best-performing content in your emails.

It just might kick your click-through rates up, too!

This retailer uses their best-performing Instagram posts in their emails.

2. Social sharing buttons

If you have a really awesome email that is full of content, why not make it shareable?

You can set your emails up to be shared online – just like any other type of content.



Bonus: You can add “click to tweet” calls to action, too. These are pre-formatted tweets based on a sentence or two of your email content.

3. Social links

You want your audience to cross over from email to social, right?

Well, then, why not include links to your social accounts in your emails!

These are different than sharing icons.

Here I’m talking about the links (or linked images) that go to your profile pages on social media.

If someone is willing to sign up for your emails, they’ll probably be interested in following you on social media, too.

4. Ask for the follow

Sometimes the direct route is best.

Not only should you include links to your social profiles in each email, but specifically ask for them to follow you.

You can even do it when they sign up for your list!

Know that final page your new subscribers see after they’ve confirmed their email addresses?

That’s a great place to ask them to follow you on social media.

People tend to be really enthusiastic when they first sign up – they’re into you, and so if you offer them other ways to stay in touch, they’ll probably say yes.

Here’s how Marie Forleo does it:



Conversely, when people unsubscribe, it’s good to ask them to follow you on social.

If you do this right, you’ll be taking an negative action (the loss of a subscriber) and turning it into a positive (a new social follower) without alienating anyone.

Why would someone who is trying to ditch you, ever agree to make the jump?

Well, that’s a great question, but think about it: most people unsubscribe simply because they’re getting too many emails.

If you offer them another way to stay in touch – without clogging up their inbox – they might say yes.

Check out this super simple CTA from Canva that does just that:



There’s nothing pushy about this at all.

It’s just a thank you along with another option before closing the page!

5. Announce your newsletter

Announce your about-to-be-published email newsletter in your social media posts.

This is a great way to build your list, plus it gives you more content for your social media feeds.

If you’re willing to kick things up a notch, add a short article or other content to your emails that’s not available anywhere else.

Mention that exclusive content when you announce your newsletter on social.

This gives people more of an incentive to sign up and check it out.

6. Capture opt-ins on Facebook

Adding an email sign up button to your Facebook page is about a ten-minute set-up, but it can net you a whole new stream of email subscribers.



The goal is to increase your impact, right?

So why not make it easy for anyone to join your list!

7. Use Lead Ads

Did you know you can build your email list with Facebook’s Lead Ads?

Well, it’s true! Lead ads are an awesome way to get more subscribers.

There is one hassle, though – you’ll have to manually extract the email addresses from Facebook… unless you’ve got LeadsTunnel.

Then the whole process is automated for you.

8. Create custom audiences

If you’re a Facebook user, you can easily set custom and lookalike audiences to attract more people like your current audience.

You’ll need about 1,000 email subscribers for this to really work well, but once you’ve got them, there’s a way to upload your email list to Facebook.

Then you can advertise to those same people on Facebook, or you can use those names to create a “lookalike audience” of folks who are like your subscribers.

Bonus: You can do similar things with Google’s  “Customer Match” via the Google display network.
Or with Twitter’s “tailored audiences”. Oh yeah – and Yahoo offers the custom audiences feature, too.

9. Lead generation cards

If you are on Twitter, you can use their lead generation cards to request sign ups.

If you’ve got the budget, this can be a great way to build your email list.

Especially if you’re more into Twitter than you are into Facebook.



This is a great way to get more social viewers to make the jump and become subscribers.

10. Contests

Contests are a fun way to grab viewers, get them engaged and also encourage them to join your list.

This works best if you’ve got a large following on Facebook, and you’d like to convert them into subscribers.

If that sounds like you, take a look at our article about how to run a Facebook contest to learn more!

Bonus: When you’ve got a winner, add a section about the contest to your next email update.

11. Use overlays

You share other people’s content on social media, right?

It’s good for your authority, and it makes people more likely to follow you.

But there’s one drawback: When people click on the link in the post you’ve shared – whoosh – they’re gone.

Off to somebody else’s site.

There’s a way to fix that.

Use a social media overlay tool to add a prompt to join your list to everything you share online.

You can embed code in your social media links that creates a neat little overlay, like this:



And with tools like Snip.ly, you can add a call to action to join your email list in that overlay.

Now everything you share becomes a micro squeeze page. Like this:

12. Use lead magnets

Got a new lead magnet? Announce it on social media.

I could just tell you, “Ask people to join your list from your social media posts.”

But that’s not really enough.

You’ve got to sweeten the pot.

So anytime you’ve got a new lead magnet, make a big deal about it on social media.

And – of course – include a link to sign up for your list.

Integrate email and social media

See, I told you everyone could relax and get along!

Email and social media can work together in harmony.

And there’s plenty of evidence here to prove it!

Why not choose one of the 12 ways to integrate email and social media and start implementing right now?

Most of them are super quick tips that won’t take much time or effort.

You can easily start adding them to your marketing mix without much thought.

The little things add up, so what are you waiting for?

Want to share your idea on how to integrate email and social media? 

Speak up and leave a comment! 

We’d love to hear from you!



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Get More Email Subscribers (Or, how to convince someone to join your email list)

Growing your email list is no easy task, but if you’ve been around bloggers long enough, you’ve probably heard just how important building your email list is. That direct communication and permission to meet a reader in their inbox is your number one mission whether you’re new to blogging or have been around the block a few times.

It’s in those personalized moments that you can send targeted, directed, and specialized content to urge your subscribers on a journey that hopefully ends in you making money. But before you can get to any of that, it all starts with that email list.

Eight lead magnets you can use to convince a reader to join your email list

It’s a great privilege for someone to allow you to pop up in their inbox, and you should treat it like the honor that it is. Most people aren’t just going to give you their email address. Sure there are people who love signing up for anything and everything because they either love information or just want to be a part of it all.

But more often than not, you’ll find a resistance, and rightfully so! Too many people have been burned by joining an email list and then receiving countless spam messages without the ability to unsubscribe. To break down those protective walls, you need some strategies to help you convince people to trust you enough to join your email list.

There are infinite tactics passed around on the subject of growing your email list. Some work, some don’t, and some are just super scammy. But you just can’t go wrong if you’re bringing readers into your fold by providing them with excellent content that solves their problems.

Whether you’ve heard them called lead magnets or incentives, these bonus materials are something you can give a reader in exchange for their email address. That way, if they’ve never heard of you before or are hesitant but still liking what they see on your blog, you can give them an extra nudge of confidence in you by giving them something completely free. It’s that extra step that helps you build trust with a reader and show them a little more about what you know about your topic.

Here are eight lead magnets you can use to convince a reader to join your email list:

Newsletters

Let’s get real for a second. If you’re going to offer a “newsletter” as your opt-in incentive, you better be one of the most interesting bloggers in the world. Your content needs to speak for itself if you’re going to use this as your call to action.

Newsletters are the old standby of email marketing. Whether you release them weekly, monthly, or just whenever you have something to announce, a newsletter (we call them Broadcasts) is the standard way for bloggers to directly connect with their audience right in their inbox.

While any blogger certainly has the ability to create their own newsletter and use it as an incentive, I wouldn’t recommend this channel as the end all be all to a beginner blogger. For a newsletter to really be worth the while of a new audience member, there has to already be a large amount of trust and authority between reader and blogger.

Newsletters will only work as a true incentive to opting into your email list if you are at the level of authority where people want to read everything you write. I’m talking Maria Popova, James Clear, and Marie Forleo level. That’s not to discourage you, but just to be clear: if you’re just promising content they could read on your blog, it needs to be great. So follow through.

If you’re a mere mortal like the rest of us, a promise of a newsletter probably won’t be enough of an incentive for a reader browsing your blog to hand over their email address. You still need to prove yourself worthy of their interest and time. For you bloggers that fall into this category, the rest of this article is how you can make it happen.

Downloadable giveaways

Readers signing up for your email list generally want something in return– it’s just the way the blog-o-sphere works these days. And one of the most popular means of incentives is the downloadable giveaway.  

These free downloads can take many different forms. When deciding what kind of download to create you should consider what type of content your reader most wants from you, what your business is and does, and what content and assets you already have on hand. For example, if you blog about graphic design you can create a font bundle or if you blog about wedding cakes you can create a video teaching how to create flowers with frosting.

Other examples of downloadable giveaways are:

• eBooks

eBook from WayneStiles.com

• Video files

Video training from TheOrganisedYou.com

• Worksheets

Cheat sheet from Successfulblogging.com

• Templates

Template from StartUpGeist.com

• Tools (calculators, budget sheets, etc)

App toolbox from LearnAppMaking.com

Content upgrades

A content upgrade is a bonus piece of content that you can offer your readers in exchange for their email address. Sounds just like a downloadable giveaway, right? They are very similar, but the major distinction between the two is that content upgrades are linked to a specific blog post where as downloadable giveaways can be found statically throughout your site.

This form of incentive works well because you can capitalize on the fact that your reader is already interested in that particular blog post. By upselling and elaborating with more information on that topic, you’re giving your reader more of what you already know they want. Just make sure your upgrade is perfectly aligned with the original article and keep it evergreen so that a reader who sees that post months from now will see the same value as someone who sees it tomorrow.

To start implementing content upgrades to your blog, find the five to 10 most visited posts on your blog and think about what you can create to add even more value to that post. Would your readers benefit from a checklist of your actionable steps, a printable of your design to hang on their office wall, or a bundle of your stock photography images? Some more examples of content upgrades are:

• List of top resources or tools
• Checklists
• Timelines
• Transcripts of a podcast
• Report/whitepapers
• Assignments

Email courses

One of the most powerful ways to build your email list is through a free online course. Courses are a handy, timely, and effective medium your readers can access at any time to buck up on the topic at hand. And as for you, courses help you grow your email list by being seen as the authority that you are.

To make your course as effective and beneficial as possible, make sure your number one focus is on your audience. What are they struggling with and how can you/your business help them overcome that struggle to reach their goal? The more valuable information you can pack in your giveaway course, the more likely your new reader is to trust you on your subject matter and buy your products when you pitch them later on, like a full course on the same subject.

Email course from TrainECommerce.com

Email course from 42yogis.com

Discounts for physical products

If you sell products on your blog, sometimes offering a discount is well worth the small dip in revenue. First, making your product more available to the reader is a sign of good will, but you can also exchange that discount for their email address. Often these discounts come with a limited time offer messaging to create scarcity and urge readers to act quickly.

You can let the reader know about the discount with a pop up (also called a modal) window. Understanding that this type of offer works best for readers who are already browsing your products and reading your blog, you could set your pop up to engage either after a certain scroll percentage or after a certain amount of time on the page.

Webinars/workshops

Webinars are your best bet to clearly communicate to your audience and add a personal touch to your marketing strategy. Getting your face and personality out in front of your audience helps you build the trust and credibility you need to be known as an authority on your subject. That’s why webinars are an incredible way to convert casual readers into devoted subscribers.

They’re also a go-to for list growth because anyone who wants to attend your webinar must register with their email address. You can move those emails right on over to your list after your webinar and now you know you have a list of people who are interested in whatever topic your webinar covered.

Make sure to record each webinar as well to use as downloadable giveaways later on. You can keep them as a limited time run to create a little scarcity or turn them into an evergreen piece of content. Either way, you’ll have high-quality video you can continue to give your readers in exchange for their email address.

Personalized content deliveries

Everyone enjoys consuming content in their own way. We noticed this need in our own readers when we published our first issue of Tradecraft. Version 1 was available on the blog or through an email sequence, but we had so many people email in asking us to create a PDF version they could download and read when they had time.

By doing this, we were not only giving our readers what they wanted, we were also creating an extra way for us to gather emails. Just as we had previously done for sequences, we create forms on the blog for the PDF download so readers can opt-in for their personalized experience.

You can easily do this with the content on your blog as well. Whether it’s a PDF, an email sequence, a podcast transcript or even an audio file of you reading your blogs out loud, giving your readers a choice in what format they want most is a great way to incentivize them to join your list.

Contest/giveaways

Contests and giveaways are a great interactive way to grow your email list. When they’re constructed well with clear communication, ease of use, and exciting prizes, people are always happy to volunteer their email address to enter.

To enhance the contest for your list building benefits, make sure your prize is something that can help you validate readers. It should be niched down to something that your ideal reader is already looking for or wanting. So again if you’re blog is about wedding cakes, your prize or giveaway could be a set of high-priced piping tips. The more specific your prize, the more likely the people entering to win will stick around your blog after the contest is over.

Just be ware, there will be people who could care less about what your mission is and are just after the freebies. So when you’re considering a giveaway, either make sure that what you’re giving aligns with your mission and values to attract the niched down audience you desire, or don’t worry about it all and know that you’re going to get quite a few unengaged subscribers.

Delivering your incentives

Now that you have eight ways you can convince someone to join your email list, you can go out and start creating interesting and valuable content that blog browsers just can’t resist. But your job isn’t done when the reader opts in for your incentive. There’s one more major step to follow through on that can make or break your entire opt-in user experience– the delivery.

You have to make sure you can deliver on those promises. How quickly, easily, and efficiently your readers receive their downloads, discounts, and upgrades can either create a raving fan or stern critic. But if you’ve done your job well with creating valuable content on your blog and can honor your word to deliver, these exclusive pieces will continue to set you up as a trusted blogger and an authority on your topic.

Setting up an incentive email form

If you’re using ConvertKit, we’ve made delivering your incentives extremely easy! Here are some quick steps to upload your content:

1. Simply create opt-in forms in popular areas of your blog, website, and other entities for your readers to come across. Obviously, for content upgrades you should create in-post forms in the corresponding posts and upgrades, but for all these other incentives, you can place your forms throughout your site.
2. In the Settings tab of your form, click on Incentive Email in the left toolbar.
3. Customize the content for your subject line and message. That can include what you’d like your button to say as well.
4. Upload your incentive by clicking the URL button to redirect your reader to a site you’ve set up or click the Incentive download and upload the file you created.
5. Click Save and you’re ready to go!

It’s as easy as that. Your readers can have their incentive and you’ll have a new email list subscribers in minutes.

Take the challenge

Choose one of these incentives and implement it on your blog this week. Think about what your readers are struggling with and create a valuable asset that they just can’t pass up. Let me know how it goes or if you have any questions about what type of incentive would work for you.

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