How to Grow Your Email Subscribers Marketing Address List
Email subscribers are potential and/or current clients who opted in to receive emails from you. You OWN your list! It is one of your biggest assets. This is important as those hard earned followers on Instagram, Facebook, etc. are the assets of that platform. What if that social media platform was no longer getting you targeted clients? What if that platform simply goes away (like Vine and Periscope)? You could lose those hard earned followers at any time.
Before you can start sending email campaigns, you will need to build a list. Seems obvious but growing an email list is much more difficult than before. Asking people to sign up for your weekly newsletter by itself doesn’t resonate with your website visitors. Incentives, value added information or products will make people want to opt in.
Your email subscribers list needs to consist of prospects that have engaged with you and are in your ideal target market or niche. It isn’t as important to have a large list but rather smaller highly targeted and relevant lists.
Choose an Email Marketing Platform
With an email marketing platform, you will be able to collect email addresses, segment those addresses, create beautiful targeted emails, and analyze the results. To take it even further, you will be able to create automated sales funnels and custom landing pages. Three options are listed below.
MailChimp – FREE
- FREE Email Marketing Services – Up to 2,000 subscribers
- Fees are Based on the Number of Subscribers
- Marketing Automation
- FREE Email Templates
- Custom Sign Up Forms
- Easy to Use
- Landing Pages
- Contact Management
- Analytics, A/B Testing, Reports
ConstantContact
- FREE 60-Day Trial
- More than 100 Email Templates
- Marketing Automation
- Tracking Tools
Seva (formerly ConvertKit):
- 14-Day FREE Trial?
- Marketing Automation
- Organize Your Subscribers
- Customizable
Once you have chosen and set up your account with an email marketing tool, you can begin adding names and email addresses. If you have an existing email addresses these can be uploaded to the platform.
Discover What Content Your Audience Wants
- Research what the most popular blogs for you niché. Find the most popular content on each of these blogs.
- Use Google search. Look at the very bottom of the page and review “Searches related to….”
- Google trends will give you a broad view of what topics are the most popular. I personally look for the topics that are growing in popularity.
- For plastic surgery and aesthetics, I like to use magazines such as New Beauty to find out what the most interesting and popular topics are.
- Google AdWords tool will provide a broad look at what the most popular search words are. Look for long-tail words that your niche would most likely be searching for.
- Follow hashtags in your niche to discover what’s trending.
Create engaging relevant content to attract and retain email subscribers.
Now that you have grown your list and created a email marketing strategy, what should you send to your tribe. This will be covered in a NEW blog post.
Use your current email list to get more subscribers.
When emailing current subscribers encourage them to forward and share your emails. Be sure to include a signature with links to your website and social media. Also include an email sign-up link somewhere in these emails.
Want to improve your open rates? Get my list of 100 of the Best Subject Lines for Health and Beauty Businesses.
Converting Social Media Followers into Email Subscribers
So how do you convert your hard earned social media followers into email subscribers?
One way is to simply ask for it. Create a post with an opt in form. You may get a few email subscribers this way but most will need a reason to give you their address.
Create a LEAD MAGNET. A lead magnet is a reason or value added proposition that your followers would be willing to give you their email address for. A lead magnet needs to be something your target market wants.
- Coupon or Discount
- 15-Minute Consultation
- EBook
- Guide
- FREE Treatment
- Check List
- Webinar
- FREE Styled Images
Once you have your lead magnet you are going to launch it as if it is a product or service potential clients will buy.
Examples:
CREATE Opt-Ins on Social Media
In Facebook you can create a dedicated tab and form for email opt ins and connect it to your Email Service Provider.
Advertise
– Creating a form and a tab alone on Facebook will NOT build your email list. Why? Nobody will see your posts if you are not advertising. There are many types of ads you can use on Facebook including Lead Generation. Combine this with a landing page you can create with your Email Service Provider.
Use Opt-Ins on Your Website
Create either a pop-up opt-in or use them in your website space. The types of website opt-ins are as follows:
- A lightbox which displays shortly after visiting your website.
- A Opt-in which displays when a user moves to exit your website.
- A slide in opt in for users who have viewed a page more than 5 minutes
- A mobile specific opt in
Be sure to A/B Test Your OPT IN Messages, design and methods.
Use Facebook Ads and Landing Pages to Grow Your Email List
Use a landing page that describes your offer and collects new email subscribers. Start testing the landing pages before you need them. This takes time so begin before you begin. Start by creating and testing audiences and allowing the Facebook algorithm to learn who will engage with your content. This requires testing several audiences, content your in ad or ads and the landing pages to create a campaign that converts. Many clients expect immediate results and although you may get results quickly, optimal performance is created over time. The more you test and run ads the better they will be. There is a learning period. “How to Create Landing Pages that Convert” post will be up soon.
Once you have your email accounts set up and have started collecting email subscribers create a strategy for your email campaigns by identifying the end goals and what value added content and giveaways your niche will want.
I am not only telling you how to get more email subscribers, I am executing all of these myself for multiple clients.
If you haven’t already read it check out the previous blog post on “10 Reasons why you Should use Email Marketing”.