It is really important to grow your email list, as it is the one audience that you own. But most people concentrate on creating an engaged audience on social media (which of course is great too) without putting much thought to their email list other than a pop up window that often sees poor results. The trick to growing your list is to give them a really good reason to join so that they cannot wait to hand over their email address. Here are 10 ways to do this.

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Create A Lead Magnet

Creating a free lead magnet, opt in or freebie in the form of a guide is the most recognised way to get people to sign up to your email list. This usually is a PDF which you can design yourself using free tools such as Canva that helps or supports your ideal customer with a subject matter important to your business. A teaching guide works well followed up by an email sequence to make sure that they are bought into you and not just the freebie. Most businesses create this guide when they are selling something as a means to an end, but consider making an evergreen one to grow your list all year round. These don’t have to be huge either (remember it is free content after all) - we suggest starting with a one page infographic or cheat sheet. We have one called 15 Simple Blog Ideas To Grow Your Audience and Position Yourself As An Expert which you may wish to look at as an example but we have also done much simpler ones in the past.

Host A Masterclass Or Webinar

This is where you invite people to join, for free, a masterclass or webinar on your chosen subject which you can do live or pre record. You would need to use a platform like Zoom, then maybe host the video on Vimeo. Your audience are giving you their email address and their time for this, so you do need to lead with value, giving them hints and tips. You can also use this way to sell your services if you are launching a new product or use it as a way to show your expertise. We have one called My 3 Secrets To Blogging With Authority for example which you can access here.

Create A Challenge

Another way to lead with value and show your expertise is to run a challenge either via email or through a Facebook group. These are usually up to a week long with daily activities to complete that lead to an end goal (again often selling but doesn’t have to). These need to be planned well in advance as you will be hosting this live with manageable pieces of work to do, that will help and support your audience. We started 2020 with a Productivity Challenge run via email and launched our business with a 10 Day PR Challenge although I would suggest keeping them from 5 -7 days long to ensure they stay engaged. We feel that these are a better way to grow trust than a downloadable guide as they will get to know the person behind the brand better.

Create A Regular Newsletter

Give your audience a reason to sign up by creating a monthly (or weekly) newsletter. However to retain their interest, this email needs to help them and not simply talk about yourself. Consider your ideal customer’s pain points and design a regular email that helps solve them. For example, we create a monthly Creative Content Calendar to help our audience plan their social media and their blogging - this is a free PDF. But you don’t have to design something like that, you could simply create an email with a super hack that will help them. You do need to keep this up though so you are best to create a years plan of emails with advice in to make sure you have enough content to keep them wanting more.

Host A Giveaway

One of the most popular ways for businesses to get people to sign up to their list is to host a competition or giveaway but be careful with this! While this can work really well, often you will attract people who are not your ideal customer as they simply want the free gift. This results in you growing an audience that you are writing to that will never buy your products or hire you. Remember you pay to host your list so you want every email address to count. If you do offer a competition, maybe run an engagement campaign to this list a few months down the line and remove anyone who is clearly not interested in your services.

Offer A Discount

Offering an initial percentage discount on your products or services is a great way to get people to sign up but beware; people often do this but have no intent to buy more from you in the future. I know this as I have often in the past signed up to an email list when a pop up offers me a 10% discount on my first purchase - but here is the thing - I was on the website to buy anyway and would have bought it full price! This works really well if your main objective is to grow your list but remember, you may have lost out on a full price sale.

Create A Survey

Asking people questions to help you focus your business plan or offerings is a great thing to do anyway, so why not gather email addresses at the same time. We do this for our wedding business but it is worth saying that most people will want something in return. With this in mind, it is a good idea to combine the survey with a giveaway.

Create A Waiting List

If you host regular events or product launches, why not create a waiting list where people hand over their email address in return for the being the first in the know. I am on my favourite clothing brands to be the first to hear about the sale (even to get a preview) and my favourite musician’s lists to get the pre sale ticket codes. This works for me!

Create A Quiz

Creating a quiz is relatively new to the UK but huge in the USA but something that can work as it feels like fun for the end user. Think about how many times you hand over your data or email to enter silly quizzes on Facebook such as What kind of toastie are you or What will you look like at 70?

Introduce A Loyalty Scheme

Finally think about creating a loyalty scheme for everyone that signs up to your mailing list such as offering everyone a small discount every time they buy, an early bird price, free postage or a points reward system. This of course may be a paid for service (think Amazon Prime) or free (Tesco Clubcard).

As you can see there are many ways to get people to sign up, that doesn’t involve sitting back and waiting for your pop up window to work. What is important is to give them a reason to join, something that adds value to their lives or businesses. People do not hand over emails like they used to, so always focus on the WHY.

By the way - we can create a Lead Magnets for you and link it all up to Mailchimp. If you would like one, get in touch!