If you’re reading this, chances are you either don’t have an email list or you already have one — but it’s not growing the way you expected. Having a growing email list is a super important (and valuable) digital asset. Email lists can act as your business’s very own stream of attention. And marketing via email is one of the cheapest marketing options.
But there are a few reasons why email lists don’t grow as expected. But the main reasons revolve around having a bad strategy — or no strategy at all *sinister music plays*.
In this article, I’m going to give some simple steps to create an email list and grow it using some easy-to-follow strategies.
Starting an Email List
If you already have an email list, jump to Growing Your Email List. But if you haven’t, buckle in, because this is how you start one. Starting an email list is easy. All you need is a few easy-to-use tools.
First, you need to decide on the email marketing platform you want to use. Here are a few:
- ActiveCampaign.
- Mailchimp.
- AWeber.
All of these platforms offer a wide range of tools to start an email list and create well-designed emails. My personal preference is ActiveCampaign. It has so many tools and cool features that let you build complex automated email sequences to get the most from your marketing strategy. But it’s also straightforward to use for beginner users.
If you want to know more about ActiveCampaign, read our CEO’s honest review of this email marketing tool.
Second, you need to create your first email. This isn’t difficult, as most email marketing platforms offer a huge variety of templates. Your first email doesn’t have to include a huge amount of information — a simple, personalized “Thank you for subscribing to our email list” message inside the email is enough. But feel free to add as much (valuable) information about your business.
You should automate this email, so it automatically sends whenever someone subscribes to your email list.
Important note: Always send an “Opt-in” button with your first email, which enables a recipient to confirm that they want to receive emails from you. This is a legal requirement in many countries. Luckily, ActiveCampaign has a simple option to include an opt-in option into emails whenever someone subscribes to your list. Easy!
Growing Your Email List
So, you’ve got your email list set up, and your first email is ready to be sent. So what’s next?
Incentivize your audience
You need to incentivize people to sign up! But how? Simple. You need to offer them something valuable. The list of things you could offer depends on the type of business you operate. But here are some examples:
- A free eBook.
- A discount code for your products or services.
- An exclusive research report.
- A free trial of your products or services.
- A competition to win a big prize.
What you offer depends on what your audience would want. But always make sure it’s something valuable.
Create a landing page
Next, you need to set up a landing page. This can be set up by a web developer, but it’s much easier to use ClickFunnels. ClickFunnels makes setting up a landing page really easy. There’s a bunch of great templates, and the platform is user-friendly.
As well as all of the information about your offering, you need to include a web form on your landing page, so users can input their name and email address to access the offer.
You need to connect your email marketing platform to ClickFunnels so that entries sync across from your landing page to your email list (don’t worry, ClickFunnels makes this process pretty easy).
Once you have this setup, grab your landing page link, and get ready to advertise your offer.
Advertise your offer
One easy way to advertise your offering is by using social media ads. Setup Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn ads — depending on your target audience.
Create an image that advertises your offer. You can use tools like Canva for this. Be sure to include a clear image (or video) of what it is you’re offering and post it with a detailed description — giving instructions on how your audience can claim the offer. Include the link to your landing page in the post description, and make it clear that your audience has to click the link to claim your offer.
Post your offer on your social network platforms and boost the post using target ads. For more information on social media ads and how to get the most out of them, you should listen to this podcast on how to get massive success with Facebook ads.
Summary
So, in short, starting your email list and growing it should go something like this:
- Choose an email marketing platform.
- Create a “thank you for subscribing” email.
- Choose what you’re going to offer your audience (and make sure it’s valuable).
- Create a landing page using ClickFunnels.
- Link your email platform to your landing page.
- Advertise your offer on social media platforms (and include your landing page link).
This is a reasonably simple strategy template, but it’s proven to generate results. If you’d like more information on specific parts of this strategy, please leave us a comment below.
Check out the Intentionally Inspirational blog or podcast for more easy-to-follow information on your business’s marketing strategy.
Written by Lewis James