While it's certainly an oversimplification, it would be reasonable to say that the number of email subscribers you have is a direct indication of your business' overall health. In other words, the more email subscribers you have, the more likely it is that you're pointed in a successful direction.
The Value of a Robust Email Marketing List
What email subscribers lack in the form of direct profitability, they possess in potential. In other words, email subscribers aren't valuable on their own. However, with the right amount of influencing and convincing, they have the potential to become paying customers.
The value of having a robust email list is that you get the opportunity to put your brand in front of a group of people who have already told you that they're interested in learning more about your product offering.
In this article, we're going to discuss some of the top strategies for growing your email list, so that you have the opportunity to influence your target market and drive sales.
6 Tips for Increasing Email Signups
The following tips can either be used to build an initial email list or grow an existing one. The key is to constantly try new things and tweak your approach. What works one month, may not work the next. Encouraging users to sign up is all about being relevant and enticing.
1. Offer Discounts and Push Deals
According to research, 70 percent of users open brand emails in search of a deal or coupon. If you want to satisfy this demand for deals, you need to push generous offerings on a regular basis.
While we could spend a lot of time discussing the proper implementation of deals once users are signed up, let's discuss how you can advertise these discounts and deals in order to increase actual sign up numbers.
The best way is to accompany signup forms and buttons with clear and concise claims. For example, if your company sells tires, your signup incentive may look something like, "Sign up and receive weekly emails for tire discounts and deals." You can obviously get a lot more creative and specific with the copy, but you get the idea.
2. Give Access to Something of Value
Discounts and deals aren't the only way to get users onboard. Sometimes users want something tangible, as opposed to a discount. This is especially true in B2B environments where prospects want more information and education that they can share with key decision makers.
Many companies have found success in offering things like whitepapers and eBooks in return for email signups. Here's an example from MaxCDN, a content delivery network. The landing page features a brief introduction to the whitepaper and then uses a form that asks for the user's name and email address.
3. Grant Free Enrollment in a Course
As webinars and online learning opportunities have surged in popularity over the past couple of years, many companies have begun offering free enrollment in exchange for email addresses and contact information. The great thing about offering free enrollment is that you immediately gain insight into each lead's pain points.
For example, let's say you offer three different webinar options in exchange for a user's contact information. One webinar is on the topic of choosing the best CMS platform. The second webinar is about best practices for choosing a web host. The third webinar is about design tips for new websites. Based on which webinar the lead signs up for, you're able to tell which stage of the process they're in and then follow up with targeted information.
4. Use Social Proof
Is there any aspect of marketing social proof doesn't benefit? Once again, you can leverage social proof to increase email sign ups. There are plenty of options, but a current favorite strategy is to list the number of email subscribers you have.
For example, saying that you have 10,000 email subscribers tells users that there's something of value inside your emails. Why else would that many people subscribe?
Social Media Examiner does a great job of that on their website saying "Join 445,000+ of your peers!".
That's an instant attention grabber.
Another social proof strategy is to include a quote. If you've ever received an email from a subscriber that says something positive about your newsletters, then ask for permission to publish that quote alongside the signup button. This may be the extra nudge a user needs to sign up.
For more details see: 11 proven ways to use social proof to increase conversions.
5. Present Visitors with Overlays
While overlays and pop ups are annoying to many, the fact of the matter is they're effective. According to one report, the average overlay increases email opt-ins by up to 400 percent. The key is to keep these overlays from being too obtrusive by using technologies like exit-intent.
If you want to make them effective, it's also important that you get straight to the point. The average user will close out a popup within a matter of seconds. This means you have a narrow window of time to keep them engaged.
6. Make Signing Up Simple
The worst thing you can do is overcomplicate the signup process. If your offer is confusing or users are overwhelmed with too many features, then they'll click the back button and head to another website. The key is to keep it simple.
Signup forms should be aesthetically pleasing, simple to fill out, and highly intuitive.
Never ask for more than three or four pieces of information and aim for tight copy. The less is more mantra certainly holds true in this case.
Even if you just implement one of the 6 tips here, you surely see an increase in your email subscribers.
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