So, you’ve set up your newsletter subscription box on your website and are ready to get some subscribers!
Now we sit back, wait, and hope people sign up…
Just kidding!
There are a few key things you can do to attract more subscribers to your email list, more quickly.
But first:
Why your business needs an email list
I’ve talked lots before about why it’s so important to have an email list as a business owner in general (and an online business owner in particular!).
It’s one of the very best ways of growing a targeted audience of interested followers and potential customers for your business.
Your email list is an opportunity to build rapport with your audience, establish yourself as a helpful industry expert, and then let subscribers know more about the products and services you offer that can continue to provide value to them.
Especially if you sell pricey products (like coaching or other 1:1 services), it’s likely that your customers may want to get to know and trust you a bit more before choosing to shell out the big bucks for your premium service, so this is where your email list comes in handy as a community-building (and, really, trust-building) opportunity.
Resources to set up & grow your email list
I’ve shared plenty of resources on growing an email list from your WordPress website that you can refer to if you haven’t yet set up your email marketing (or, if you’d like a refresher on how I recommend doing that):
- how to set up your Mailchimp (or other) integration to start collecting email addresses and building an email list from your WordPress website
- how to engage your email list by setting up your Flodesk welcome automation and creating a branded email template
And now, it’s time for some tips on how to get this all working for you, faster!
6 TIPS TO GROW YOUR EMAIL LIST—FAST!
Here are my top tips for giving your email opt-in efforts a boost and growing your subscribers faster:
1. Offer an enticing opt-in gift
To encourage email sign-ups, you’ll want to offer a valuable opt-in gift, or “lead magnet.”
My favorite (aka the most effective!) types of email opt-ins, plus some tips for how to choose an offer that works best for your business and audience (and, how specifically to add opt-ins to your WordPress website).
Check out that post for more details, but the key tip here is to thoughtfully and strategically construct your opt-in gift attract your ideal client—the type of person most likely to be interested in your specific expertise and your paid product or service offerings.
Ask yourself about your target audience:
- What do they need help with right now?
- What are their burning questions I can help answer, or pain points I can help solve?
- What format do they prefer to receive information in? (Video, written guide, etc.?)
- What type of branding will help attract them to it?
Many business owners worry that they don’t want to “give away” all their secrets in a free opt-in gift, but don’t be too worried about that!
The opt-in gift should be designed to provide real value to your potential subscriber. Its purpose is to give them a taste of the expertise and continued value you provide to your email subscribers and customers.
But, that said, an effective opt-in gift should also be a tangible and easily digestible resource—something that could provide notable benefit to the subscriber quickly, in about 15-20 minutes or less.
2. Clearly explain the value of being a subscriber
How enticing does “Subscribe for news and updates!” sound?
That’s the default messaging in Squarespace’s newsletter block.
It’s not terrible, and if someone is suuuuper interested in receiving all possible news and updates from you, on an undefined timeline, that works.
But, we can likely do better.
You can make subscription more interesting to the “right” people by clearly explaining what they’ll get from you if they subscribe. What value do you share via your email list? What can they get there that they can’t get elsewhere (on your website, blog, social media, etc.)?
It’s also helpful to clarify how often you’ll be communicating with your email list. Are they signing up to receive daily emails from you? Are these weekly updates? Only occasional messages for a specific purpose?
By giving a more specific offer, you’ll be able to attract people who are interested in exactly that. Because, let’s face it, not many people are looking for another random newsletter list to subscribe to. But, if you say you’ll be sending daily mindfulness reminders, or a weekly tip to stay more productive in your business—now that’s interesting!
3. Have a sign-up opportunity on every page
To maximize email sign-ups, be sure to offer an opt-in opportunity on every page potential email subscribers will likely be spending time on across your website.
There are a few ways of doing this:
- Add an email opt-in to your website footer, which ensures your opt-in offer appears on all pages of your site.
- Ensure any other key landing page (homepage, shop, etc.) has an opportunity to subscribe (of course, with a specific connection to why someone would want to subscribe for this particular list).
- Use the WordPress announcement bar or promotional pop-up features to call special attention to your email opt-in offer.
Here’s an example from my site, in which you can see a general email opt-in form on a blog post in the background, plus an SEO training opt-in gift in the promotional pop-up:
4. Improve your SEO
So, if you have a great email opt-in offer and you’re clearly explaining it in a way that’s enticing your target audience (aka, you’ve done your part in setting up your website to maximize conversions), now we need to get more eyes on it!
Of course, the more website visitors you bring in, the more possible email subscribers you have to work with.
SEO (search engine optimization) is the process of fine-tuning your website to help search engines see, understand, and rank your content. This is important because it helps search engines like Google put your webpages in front of people who are actually searching for the content you’re sharing—which means they’re helping you attract your target audience.
SEO is a tad complicated, but there are a few simple tips you can implement on your Squarespace website to set yourself up for SEO success.
Just note that SEO does take some time to build, so it’s not necessarily a quick fix, but is a very important long-term strategy for email list growth (and website traffic growth overall).
Now, on the topic of website traffic, there’s also something else you can do to help more people find their way to your website:
5. Pinterest, Pinterest, Pinterest
Pinterest is one of my very favorite tools for growing your website traffic. And, in growing your website traffic, it also helps to grow your mailing list.
One of the most effective ways to use Pinterest in your business is to develop a content marketing strategy in which you’re regularly creating new blog content relevant to your target audience and sharing it widely on Pinterest.
Pinterest helps out by connecting new people with your content, sending them to your website, and continuing to expand your reach because anyone who pins your “pin” to their own board is sharing it with their own followers—so your reach on any given pin grows over time. (Great bang for your buck, time-wise!)
Though starting up a Pinterest account may not be at the top of your list for growing your business, it’s definitely one of the best (and most cost-effective) ways of growing website traffic for a new website, before that website has had time to build much organic SEO.
So, I highly recommend developing a content strategy if you’re a new business owner looking to grow your website traffic more quickly!
6. Send valuable emails
Now, this may seem like it’s “after the fact”—which is true, someone needs to subscribe before ever knowing that you send valuable emails. But, there are two parts to consider with your email list growth:
- new subscribers
- existing subscriber retention
It doesn’t help to put a lot of effort into attracting new subscribers if they just turn around and unsubscribe because they don’t actually want to be there. The value of an email list isn’t in the number of people who sign up—it’s the number of people who stay on the list, and are there when you have a business offer to share with them.
Nobody wants to have their inbox cluttered with uninteresting emails. 😝 That’s valuable real estate, and it’s important to treat it as such. So, it’s important to send truly valuable emails that provide interesting and helpful content for your subscribers.
Hope this helps
Cheers
Rach