Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks made email quaint, but now, more than four billion people worldwide have an email account. That’s why Charm School Digital Marketing and small businesses alike love email marketing as a means to connect with customers. But in order to do so, you need names and email addresses of potential customers, clients, and patients. And to get those, you need email list building tools and a strategy. That’s why we’ve compiled some of our favorite tips and tools to use to grow your email list in 2023. We hope these tools will help you grow your email list and sales.
Top Tips and Tools to Help You Grow Your Email List For Your Small Business
1. Decide How Big Your Email List Should Be
What’s a good size email list? You should aim to have 1,000 or more people on your email list. While it may be tempting to take a shortcut and buy an email list, you may waste your money. You want to curate your business’s email lists yourself! When you do, you’ll connect with qualified and interested customers who have an interest in your product or service.
Of course, buying an email list will cast a wide net, but it may be so wide that you waste your email send quota on unqualified leads.
2. Install Email Lead Capture Pop-ups and Plugins on Your Website
People may complain about pop-ups, but they’re still alive and well. Why? Because they work! A simple, non-invasive, and well timed pop-up will help build your email list and turn visitors into subscribers—and subscribers into purchasers.
You can choose from a number of plugins and tools for email list building campaigns. For starters, you could try OptinMonster. It allows you to integrate email subscriber boxes in various places on your website—with unique designs for each. This email list building tool is intuitive to use and has fabulous analytics to track your campaigns’ effectiveness. OptinMonster costs about $20 per month, depending on your needs. If you’re looking for a free option, check out Popup Maker or Hubspot.
The Best Email Lead Capture Pop-ups and Plugins
3. Create Prominent Email List Sign-up Bars on Your Website
A sticky, permanent email subscription bar complements a pop-up email lead form. Together, these tools and design elements will help you grow your email list. We recommend Hello Bar for subscription bars. It’s simple to use and has a free version, depending on how many bars you need. You can also create a simple CTA email sign-up bar within your website design code.
The Best Header Bar Plug-ins for Email List Building
4. Build Landing Pages for Email List Sign-ups
We love landing pages because they simplify the distance between a goal and action. If your goal is to build your email list, a landing paged geared toward that can help.
Use a tool like Leadpages that lets you drag and drop to build your landing pages. You can also hire a website development agency like Charm School for custom landing page design. Then, you can use your PPC, social media ads, or social media profile link to direct people to your email list building landing page.
Best Landing Page Design Tools for Email List Building Campaigns
5. Use Gated Content for Your Email List Building Campaigns
Offering any type of gated content, or lead magnet, will give people a reason to hand over their email addresses: They want something that you have—and vice versa.
Gated content can be anything that requires a subscription to receive a downloadable handout, webinar, or e-book. You’ll need to create valuable content in exchange for information. You can use a tool like Canva to build this kind of content or a marketing agency. Then, you can utilize OptinMonster to promote and download this gated content. And boom! Your email list will grow that much more.
6. Launch an Online Contest or Giveaway
Everyone loves a prize! That’s why running an email list building campaign via online contests or giveaways can deepen your brand awareness and build your email list simultaneously. You can use PromoSimple to launch your offer and gather those emails.
7. Redirect Followers and Users Who Engage With Your Content
If someone comments on your blog, they’re already interested in what your business offers. Use that opportunity to upsell and convert this interested person into an email subscriber! You can use a plugin like Comment Redirect to respond to comments on your posts and encourage them to sign up for your newsletter.
8. Automatically Organize Your Email Leads
Set yourself up for success with email list building by using an email marketing tool like MailChimp or ActiveCampaign. Here, you can segment audiences, refine contact information, and ensure you take care of every single email lead.
9. Don’t Forget to Collect Emails In Person!
Don’t forget to get emails from people when you’re actually with them! Whether at a trade show or in your store, ask people to submit their emails to be added to your list. Be sure to have an elevator pitch that tells them how doing so benefits them in a sentence or two. Then you just take the email list and enter it into your email management tool. It’s actually a lot less work for the subscriber because all they have to do is write it down or say it out loud to you while you’re together.
Want help growing your email list? Want to make sure your email marketing strategy does all it can to build your business?Charm School specializes in all types of email marketing campaigns, so reach out!
