Your website visitors won’t give you their email addresses just because you are charming. There are many different factors that come into play here. Besides today, more than ever, people are skeptical of giving their emails on websites. This makes the task of building an email list even more challenging. But hey, this is what email marketing about, the challenges.
You alwas have to come up with new ideas & tricks. Let us help you on your road with our number one tips. In this article we will share you the main points on how to build a profitable email list. Building a list is always the best choice. There are some websites selling leads but we don’t recommend using them. Moreover it’s against the law sending emails to people who never ever subscribed to your newsletter. If you are really serious about email marketing than you should definitely build your own list.
1. Create a Lead Magnet
Why would people give you their email addresses? They won’t give you their addresses just to be able to create email marketing campaigns. Most likely they would give you because they are getting something in return. Lead magnet is “something in return”. You should give people something valuable for free in return for their email.
Now depending on your blogging niche and goals there are many lead magnet ideas which work. For example: eBooks, email course, template, content extension, checklist, webinar, exclusive report, toolkit and so on. You can have multiple lead magnets – the more you use, the higher chances of visitors giving you their email. You can also use common email marketing plugins like timed free course or limited eBook copies… just be creative as always.
2. Have Multiple Opt-in Forms
Continuing with the previous point if you have multiple lead magnets you definitely need to have multiple opt-in forms. But even if not even if you’re offering just one eBook or anything else having more than one form is always a good idea. It doesn’t look like a big catch but actually it is. This makes convenient for the person to subscribe and make visitors curious about the free stuff you offer. Email marketing is about the golden middle point so of course, you don’t want to be obnoxious and have subscription forms popping from everywhere… do it smartly.
3. The Position Matters
It’s also sound obvious but strategically positioning your opt-in forms can have a major impact on the number of people who subscribe. Placing one above the fold on the homepage is a popular option. This way the form will be the first thing a visitor sees which improves the chances of conversion. Actually it’s also an email marketing secret that many professionals use. Try placing a form at the bottom of every blog post. Sidebar and scroll box are other popular positions. We can’t give you the best option because the right position depends on your website layout. Do A/B testing to find which one is ideal for you and converts better.
4. Come Up with Convincing Copy
Let’s check an example so you will understand what is it exactly. By the way a lot of people learn this from email marketing courses because wording is a key here. For now here is the example;
- Please sign up and get fitness cheat sheet.
- Get the exclusive cheat sheet for free to fire your fitness regimen. Just type your email and it’ll be on way!
Which one is better? If you would use the first one you need to learn a lot about email marketing. The right one is obviously the 2nd one. Let me mention again wording is the key.
However I gues it’s no surprise that the copy/lines that accompany your opt-in form are very important in hooking the visitors and convincing them. Make sure to use powerful words like Free, Exclusive, Kickass, Ultimate and so on. Explain what exactly the subscribers will get in return for their email address and don’t let them find out it’s all about email marketing purpose. But always be short and clear because you don’t want to lost the visitors’ attention.
5. Create Personalized Squeeze Page
A squeeze page is a landing page that’s designed to capture email addresses from potential subscribers. It’s very common in the world of email marketing but there is a mistake many email marketers make… they have just one squeeze page and they try to target everyone with that generic page. Create more squeeze pages and personalize them!
Unsurprisingly this doesn’t convert high. If you can make the person feel like the page is exactly made for her/him it’s more likely you will get that email address. As mentioned before don’t let them feel it’s all about email marketing. Personalization is a very powerful tool beacuse people want to feel special. We recommend you to create multiple squeeze pages that are personalized for individual groups. For example: “Hey people from Budapest, the most beautiful city.” or something like this. The point is make people feel noticed and try to affect to their feelings.
6. Install AI-Powered Chat
This has become a legit and very powerful way to drive conversion. Install an AI-powered chat plugin which will sit on the screen; usually (and preferably) somewhere at the bottom-right corner. It will push pre-defined messages to the visitors. Through bots you can smartly engage them in a conversation or get them hooked and then ask them for their email. It’s smart and very effective solution to collect email addresses for your email marketing campaigns.
There are many AI chatbot solutions out there. Intercom is possibly the most popular one. You can also try collect.chat, Tidio, and SnatchBot. Some of them are paid ones others are free. If you want advanced chat features like higher personalization and more automated responses you will have to spend some money, of course. In the email marketing business these kind of chat bots are widespread because you can collect a LOT of addresses this way.
7. Ask People to Subscribe
Simply ask people in your blog posts or articles to subscribe to your email list for the newsletters. Email marketing is not about cheating people and doing anything just to get email addresses and generate sales. It’s about creating connection. You have to be creative again but there are many ways to ask them for their email addresses.
For example: At the end of the post something like “If you liked this post, please subscribe to my email list”. In the middle of the article you can say something like… “Hey, hold on! While you enjoy this post you should know I email more interesting and exclusive content to my subscribers. Just type your email and I’ll send you one instantly”. With such lines in email marketing experimenting is the key. So keep changing your copy (and the position of the copy in your blog post) to find out which one converts better on your website.
8. Content Cliffhanger
It’s also a very effective solution technique. Here is simple example so you will understand immediately. We publish a post titled “10 ways to build your email list fast”. Now instead of giving you all the 10 ways in the article we share only 5 which is killer ones. For more “5 ways” you have to give us your email address. This is an interesting and powerful email marketing technique but it also demands that your content is of very high-value that actually compels visitors to give you their email address.
The other one is the content upgrade technique which is kinda similar but still there is a different. With the content upgrade you give away all the 10 ways in your article and you also provide a few more exclusive ways that people can get if… yes. If they give you their email addresses. Both of techniques work quite effectively. By the way it’s also an email marketing secret lot of marketers learn from courses.
9. Remind People on Social Media
Once in a while, remind your followers/fans to subscribe to your newsletters. Give them good reasons why they should. Assure them you won’t send them spam and that they can unsubscribe anytime. Convince them with personalized and creative copies. If you’ve got a marketing budget invest in ads to promote your copy. As always in the email marketing industry, test, tes & test. Run your ads and monitor which copy collects the most emails.
10. Install the Right Plugins
There are many different types of pop-ups to build an email list. Entry, Exit pop-ups, click, timed popups. Each has its own relevance and effectiveness. Actually there are several factors you should consider before picking any for your email marketing. For instance a pop-up that comes right after someone visits your blog might not convert well if your returning visitor rate is low. Because you haven’t provided them any value yet.
If your blog design is too heavy already that loads slow picking an image or video-heavy pop-up is the worst idea. You have to factor the visitors’ intent, your value proposition, the pages you’re targeting with pupups and so on. However Popup on-exit widely used in email marketing business. It comes when a person is leaving your site so it doesn’t hinder their browsing experience and provides them the last option to engage with your blog.
We just shared tons of email marketing secrets in this article but if you still have some doubt kindly read our other articles, too.