How to Grow Your Email List from scratch
If you’re like most online businesses, having an email marketing strategy should be part of your marketing strategies and your email list should be one of your most valuable assets.
But what if you’re just starting out and don’t have a list yet?
How can you grow your email list from scratch? In this post, I’ll share some tips for growing your email list quickly that most digital marketers use.
But, before we head into the tips, let’s have a quick understanding of what an email list is.
Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links, I will receive a commission if you purchase through these links (without any additional cost to you), which helps us maintain this website.
What is an email list?
An email list is simply a list of email addresses that you have collected from people who have given you permission to contact them. These could be people who:
Most digital marketers and businesses collect this list to stay in touch with their audience and build relationships that can lead to sales.
There are many strategies in email marketing that are used to grow your email list but usually, all these tactics work the same way, which is using a lead magnet.
This is how it goes…
The most used tactic to grow an email list
The most common way to grow an email list is to create a lead magnet. A lead magnet is an incentive that you offer in exchange for someone’s email address.
It could be a free ebook, discount code, checklist, PDF guide, or anything else that provides value and is relevant to your target audience.
Then add a sign-up form on your website that collects emails in exchange for the lead magnets you created.
The next step is to drive website traffic organically or through paid ads that contain the opt-in form to encourage your visitors to give their email in exchange for a lead magnet.
Most businesses function in this way. The real question, though, is what specific measures we can take to grow our email list and which methods may be used.
Let’s have a look at it…
Some practical ways to grow your email list from scratch:
I’ll list below the 12 best-proven methods, which can help you grow your email list from scratch.
1. Create an opt-in form
Creating an email opt-in form is one of the most common ways to capture email addresses. Although it doesn’t convert well it’s still a powerful way to collect email addresses from scratch.
All you need to do is add some permanent email signup forms with a call to action button where you encourage your website visitors to add them to your contact list for things like your newsletter or some kind of free access to your offers.
You can add this kind of signup form to your websites:
- Home page.
- Landing pages.
- Sidebar, or
- In your blog content.
There are many platforms that offer pre-built opt-in forms that you can use on your website or blog.
You can also create your own opt-in form using HTML and CSS code. But it’s of course not possible to use for everyone.
So, here are some platforms that offer pre-built opt-in forms:
- Poptin (For WordPress).
- OptinMonster (For WordPress).
- Sumo (For WordPress).
- AWeber (For individual Landing pages, WordPress).
- GetResponse (For individual landing pages, In-house, WordPress).
If your website is on another website builders platform like Shopify or Wix they have their own opt-in form builders and apps that you can use.
2. Create Popups
The next one would be to add pop-ups to your website. Pop-ups are a kind of email signup form that appears on your website as a pop-up when someone visits it.
In fact, pop-ups do have a great conversion rate and are very effective in collecting emails.
The best strategy used by most digital marketers is by offering some kind of lead magnet to their website visitors to get added to their subscriber list.
From my personal experience, I found Poptin and OptionMonster to be the best lead-generation software when it comes to WordPress websites.
Different kinds of popups you can use:
- Exit-intent popups: It’s a kind of popup that appears when a visitor is about to leave your website.
- On-click popups: These are the kind of popups that appears as soon as someone clicks on a specific link or button on your website.
- Scroll popups: Scroll popups are those which appear after someone scrolls down on your website for a certain percentage.
- Time-based popups: Time-based popups are those which appear after a certain time limit that you’ve set.
What can you offer through popup?
There are lots of things you can offer through popups that can encourage your visitors to sign up for your email list.
The most used ones are:
There are other offers that can also be made, You’ll find some of them in the list that follows below.
3. Run a webinar
If you’re a coach or someone selling courses, running email marketing campaigns through webinars would be great.
The best thing about webinars is that you can offer so much value in exchange for an email address.
You can include a link to register for your webinar on your website, blog, or social media platforms like Twitter, LinkedIn or your YouTube video descriptions.
You can also promote your webinar through paid ad campaigns on various social media platforms.
4. Give valuable bonus contents
If you’re an online content creator, you can use this to your advantage by offering valuable bonus content at the end of your blog to people who sign up for your email list.
This can be hidden in more in-depth and valuable content that is only available to your blog subscribers. This can be a great way to increase your email signups.
5. Give away a video course
Just record a video course on something that provides value related to your niche and give it away for free to people who sign up for your email list.
The course can be one of your YouTube videos hosted on your channel that is listed as private and are only available for your list. It can also be hosted on your own website.
The other way would be to create your video course for platforms like Udemy and run an early access campaign to grow your email list.
You can include a link to sign up for your email list in the description of your YouTube videos or on the thank you page after someone watches one of your videos.
You can also create an opt-in form on your website or blog and offer the video course as a freebie to people who sign up for your email list.
6. Run a giveaway to grow an email list
People love getting free stuff. You can use this to your advantage by running a giveaway by organising an online contest and requiring an email address to enter.
This is a great way to grow your email list quickly while also providing value to your future subscribers.
If you’re on WordPress, RafflePress is the best plugin to run giveaways and contests. You can use Tubebuddy for YouTube.
How to run successful giveaways?
There are some important things to keep in mind when running a giveaway to ensure that it’s successful.
- First, you need to make sure that the prize is something that your target audience would be interested in.
- Second, you need to promote your giveaway on social media and other channels to get as many people to see it as possible.
- Third, you need to have a clear call to action on your giveaway page so that people know what they need to do to enter.
Lastly, you need to make sure that the entry form is easy to understand and use.
7 Add a lead generation landing page to your social media profiles
Social media gives you a powerful way to create audiences online, you can use this to your advantage by adding lead-generation landing pages to your social media profiles.
A lead generation landing page is a page on your website that is designed to capture leads from social media.
The best way to add a lead generation landing page to your social media profile is to post constantly on your social media channels in order to attract the audience.
Once you have a decent following you can start encouraging your followers to share their email in exchange for something like a course, a free ebook maybe. You can use a tool like AWeber or Getresponse to create your landing page and the opt-in forms.
You can add the lead generation landing page on your Facebook, LinkedIn or Instagram bio. You can also add a signup form on Facebook by integrating AWeber (One of the leading email marketing software).
8. Offer free ebooks
Ebooks are the most traditionally used strategy to grow an email list. They are offered as a lead magnet to your website visitors in exchange for their email addresses.
You can create a different page for your ebooks, add an opt-in form for the ebook that can be downloaded as I’ve mentioned earlier in the first point, or either offer it through popups.
There are lots of easy ways you can create ebooks or even use free prebuilt ebooks as lead magnets for your email marketing needs.
Three ways to find or create ebooks:
- The first way would be to create your using Canva (An easy graphic design tool) Learn more in this post.
- The second would be to use Designrr, a tool specifically designed to create ebooks the easy way. You can pull out and create ebooks from any source using Designrr. Even from blog posts, Microsoft Word documents, Google Docs etc.
- And the third way would be to use ebooks from PLR (Private label rights) websites. here’s a list of the best ones.
9. Provide an email course
An email course is a great way to provide value to your subscribers and grow your email list at the same time.
With an email course, you can break down a topic into bite-sized lessons and deliver them to people over a period of time via email.
This is an effective way to grow your email list because it allows you to build a relationship with your subscribers and provide them with valuable information that they can use.
There are a few things to keep in mind when creating an email course:
10. Create a free online tool that requires signup
This is a great way to grow your email list if you have a free online tools website that provides value to people.
For example, If you have a website about marketing, you could create a free tool that helps people with their marketing efforts. It can be an SEO tool website, Keyword research website or Niche finder website.
A great example of this kind of website is H-Supertools. It’s a tools website that has lots of free tools that most online businesses need.
If you go to this website and use their keyword research tool, it will give you a limited keyword and to get some extra in-depth keywords you’ll need to sign up as a member of this website, which I think is a great way to grow your email list.
The key here is to make sure that the tool is something that people would find valuable and that it is easy to use.
11. Ask for feedback from visitors
Another simple yet great tactic would be to ask your visitors for feedback on your website or blog.
You can do this by adding a survey to your website or blog using a tool like Survey Monkey or Typeform.
This is a great way to grow your email list because it allows you to get feedback from your visitors and learn what they’re looking for.
It also allows you to build a relationship with your visitors and show them that you’re interested in their opinion.
12. Offer Coupons
Coupons are a great way to grow your email list because they provide an incentive for people to sign up.
You can offer coupons for discounts on your products or services, or coupons for free shipping.
If you’re an affiliate marketer, this can be done through affiliate products too if the product you’re promoting is providing some kind of coupons.
Either way, it’s a great way to grow your email list because it encourages people to sign up for the deals you’re providing.
These were some great ways to grow your email subscribers. But all these strategies can’t help if there’s no traffic to your website or the pages containing your sign-up forms.
So, how can you grow your traffic? Let’s look at a few things you can do.
How to bring traffic to your sign-up page?
Here are some ways you can apply to bring traffic to your offer and get your potential customers to sign up for your email list.
1. Paid search ads
Google and Bing are the top most used search engines and both of these provide paid ads. These are the text ads you see at the top of the SERP (search engine results page).
You can create an ad campaign targeting your potential customers using these search engines which can help you to bring traffic to your website and grow your email list.
2. Social media advertising
Social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are great places to advertise your business.
You can create an ad campaign on these platforms targeting your potential customers which can help you bring traffic to your website and grow your email list.
3. Guest blogging
Guest blogging is a great way to get exposure for your business and it can also help you to bring traffic to your website and grow your email list.
You can find blogs in your industry that accept guest posts and write a post for them.
In your guest post, you can include a link to your website or landing page which can help you bring traffic to your website and grow your email list.
4. Forum marketing
Another thing you can try is “Forum marketing”. It can also be a great way to bring exposure and traffic to your website.
You can find forums related to your industry and participate in the discussions.
In your signature, you can include a link to your website or landing page which can help you bring traffic to your website and grow your email list.
5. Youtube videos
Apart from paid ads, YouTube can be one of the best ways to find new audiences for your website, in fact, you can even start collecting emails directly from YouTube itself.
You can create videos related to your industry and include a link to your website or landing page in the description of the video which can help you bring traffic to your website and grow your email list.
If you’re struggling to grow your YouTube channel, you can use tools like Tubebuddy or VidIQ to boost your YouTube SEO and other features that can help you grow your channel.
6. Native ads
Another great and of course paid way to bring traffic to your website or opt-in forms are native ads.
Native ads are a bit different from the typical search ads or display ads from Google. they are shown as an article, and they are great for affiliate marketing too.
You can find ad networks that accept native ads and create an ad campaign for them. Some of the best native ad networks are MGID, Taboola and Outbrain.
In your ad, you can include a link to your website or landing page which can help you bring traffic to your website and grow your email list.
7. Get website traffic from Quora
Quora is a Q&A platform with millions of users. People ask questions on various topics and other people answer those questions.
You can use this to your advantage and get traffic to your website or blog by answering people’s questions.
Make sure you’re adding value to the conversation and not just promoting your website or blog. If you do this right, you can get a lot of targeted traffic to your website and grow your email list.
8. Get traffic from Facebook Groups
Facebook Groups are a great way to get targeted traffic to your website or blog.
You can join relevant groups and participate in the conversations. You can also post relevant content from your website or blog to the group.
Make sure you’re not spamming the group and that you’re adding value to the conversation.
Points to remember before growing your email list
There are certain things you should be doing before and after you start campaigning and collecting emails and growing your email list.
1. Convert More Visitors With Better Forms
Pop-ups, floating bars, and slide-ins can be effective ways to grab attention and grow your email list.
Your forms should be easy to fill out and offers should be enticing. other than that, Exit-intent popups can be particularly effective for converting abandoning visitors.
Remember to test different offers to see what works best for your audience. Once you’ve grown your email list, continue to grow it with every opportunity.
Better forms and more effective conversion rates will result in a larger, more engaged audience.
2. Convert More Visitors With Better Incentives
Your offer should be something that your target audience will find valuable. Think about what they would want and design your offer around that.
The more relevant and valuable your offer is, the more likely people are to sign up for your email list.
3. Deliver exactly what you promised
When you make an offer, be sure to deliver on it. If you promised a free ebook, make sure they receive it once they sign up for your email list.
Failing to deliver on your promises will only lead to people unsubscribing from your email list.
4. Create unique email content
Your email list is made up of people who have signed up to receive your emails for a reason.
They want to hear from you and learn more about your business. So, don’t send them generic content that they can find anywhere else.
Instead, create unique email content that will keep them engaged and coming back for more.
5. Understand the audience’s Demographics
If you want to create email content that resonates with your audience, you need to understand who they are.
What is their age range? What are their interests? What is their gender? Knowing the answers to these questions will help you create better email content that appeals to your target audience.
6. Clearly state email frequency
When people sign up for your email list, they should know how often they can expect to receive emails from you.
If you send them too many emails, they will unsubscribe. If you don’t send them enough, they will forget about you. So, be sure to clearly state the email frequency when people sign up.
7. Send out regular email newsletters to keep subscribers engaged
Email newsletters are a great way to keep subscribers engaged. They provide valuable content and act as a reminder that you exist.
Be sure to send out regular email newsletters so people don’t forget about you. And, make sure the content is valuable and relevant to your audience.
Conclusion
Finally, It’s time to start growing your email list. By following the simple tactics I’ve outlined in this post, you can bring traffic to your sign-up page and watch your list grow.
But there are a few things you should keep in mind before getting started.
Make sure that you have a great offer for people who sign up, design an attractive and user-friendly sign-up form, and test everything to make sure it’s working correctly.
