Email marketing is still alive and healthy. In fact, it continues to grow as new users keep signing up for new email accounts. Everything requires an email address today. Even your phone needs your email to work! Which is why everyone, including our moms, has email addresses.
This makes email a viable marketing channel that will continue to flourish, even in the years to come. If you ever were hesitant to start building your company’s email subscribers, now’s your chance to get started by using the strategies in this article.
Benefits of Having Email Subscribers
Email is still a personal and intimate way of connecting with customers. Your business can start a direct conversation with a new lead or old customer with email.
That conversation can lead towards better brand awareness, product knowledge, and ultimately, a sale.
You can also use email as a medium to conduct marketing campaigns with the potential to drive sales. The more subscribers you have, the greater the benefits. Some of those benefits include:
- An increase in website traffic – Broadcast emails that link back to your website can potentially drive a portion of your email subscribers back to your website.
- A quick way to deliver crucial information – If you have a massive list of email subscribers, you can inform them about new products, promotions, and other news or events, instantly.
- Build a community around your brand – You can craft newsletters that are focused on promoting your brand and the people that use its products. You can also direct subscribers to your social media accounts to build your followers.
- Great opportunity to re-target customers – Repeat business is the way to go. You can get customers to come back to your website with email.
High-Quality Leads Are Crucial
“Everyone and anyone is a customer!” A statement that we all wished was true. Unfortunately, if you do wish to conduct successful email marketing campaigns, you will have to market your business to a crowd that is interested in your offers.
People that have no intention of purchasing your products and have no interest in your company are considered as ‘low-quality’ leads.
Marketing your company to low-quality leads is unproductive.
On the other hand, having a list of subscribers made up of high-quality leads will allow you to execute successful marketing campaigns.
Your chances of making a sale or achieving your brand-building goals will increase dramatically.
Always keep in mind that when getting people to sign up to your email list, the goal is to generate high-quality leads.
The Road to 1000 Subscribers
People say that building a list of high-quality leads will take a lot of time and dedication. However, it doesn’t have to be that way.
You can implement a solid strategy that will help you reach a thousand subscribers.
Once your lead generation strategy is in place, you can work towards tweaking and fine-tuning it for greater results. For a more targeted approach, focus on outbound lead generation strategies, and to reach a broader audience, combine them with inbound strategies.
Some of the most popular strategies to collect subscribers are:
- Creating a landing page
- Offering a lead magnet
- Hosting an online giveaway
- Blogging
Build a Landing Page
Whether or not your business has a website, you will still require a system to efficiently collect email addresses.
A landing page online is an ideal way to automate the process of collecting email addresses.
The landing page you create can serve as an online assistant that provides website visitors with information on your brand, while directing them towards the email subscription form.
You can create a landing page on your existing website or choose one of the many online services that provide tools just for building landing pages.
You can create a general landing page that is focused on your brand and its products, or a landing page to highlight a promotion or event.
A landing page does not have to be elaborate with a ton of info. A well-crafted landing page has the minimum amount of information required by the lead and is designed to align with the brand’s identity.
If a lead likes what they see and they want to learn more, then they will subscribe.
If done correctly, your landing page will generate tons of leads. However, there is no exact method of creating a landing page for your business, as design options differ according to industry.
It’s a good idea to research lead generation landing page best practices for your industry, then consistently tweak the design for better results.
Once you are satisfied with the design of your landing page you can then focus on driving traffic to the page’s URL. Some of the fastest methods of getting people to your landing page are:
- Paid advertising
- Social media
- Linking to the landing page from your websites home page or blog posts
Use a Lead Magnet
A lead magnet is anything that you can offer to a website visitor for free in exchange for their email address (or other information).
The lead magnet has to be of some value to the user for them to want to be a part of your email list.
Common lead magnets are downloadable PDFs that have useful information that the user desires. You can use an online PDF editor to create anything useful like a guide, checklist, report, or case study.
Lead magnets are great at generating high quality targeted leads. If your lead magnet has information relevant to your niche and brand, then it will appeal to people interested in what you do.
If your company sells software, then you could offer a trial or limited version of your software in exchange for an email address.
Those who download your trial software can be considered as high-quality leads, as they took the time to pass on their email address to download and try your software.
People who download trial software also get to experience your company’s software and ecosystem first-hand and for free.
They get to know your brand by using the software, chatting with support, and visiting the website for tutorials.
All they need is a small push to make a purchase, which can be done by sending them emails.
Popular lead magnets include:
- Guide
- Report
- Training or course
- Software or app
- Store discount or voucher
- Sales material
- Free tools or resources
- Infographics
Host an Online Giveaway
Online giveaways that are hosted on websites or social networks are an excellent means of generating email subscribers.
Companies are using Instagram giveaways to generate tons of email subscribers within a short time frame.
Topaz Labs, a photographer’s toolkit that features AI-powered image editing, generated 44,853 new email leads with a single social media giveaway. They offered a prize that consisted of a drone, a photographer’s backpack, and image editing software.
Social media users were requested to submit their email address to enter the giveaway.
Topaz Labs is one of many brands that have successfully generated thousands of new email subscribers with a social media giveaway. The idea is to host a giveaway on Facebook (or another social network) so you can get users from that platform to opt into your email list.
Again, quality leads are key when hosting a giveaway to generate email addresses. The prize you pick for your giveaway will determine the audience that your giveaway will attract. Carefully select a prize that your companies target audience will appreciate.
Because Topaz Labs products appeal to photographers, they chose a prize that consisted of gear and tech items that photographers find useful.
If you do use a random product like a smartphone, you might generate more leads because the prize appeals to a larger audience. However, such a prize can potentially generate an email list full of people only interested in having a new phone. They most likely will have no interest in your brand and its products.
TL;DR
All of the above email lead generation strategies have been tried and tested. They are also excellent strategies for acquiring high-quality leads, which is the ultimate goal for any business. An email list that is made up of people interested in your brand will allow for excellent communication between you and your customers.
What strategies have you used in the past to build your email list? Let us know in the comments below.
Author bio:
Jack Paxton is the co-founder of VYPER, a marketing tool that helps brands build email lists, social followings and revenue using viral giveaways, referral and reward programs. After millions of dollars spent testing different marketing strategies at his marketing agency. He then also co-founded Hyax a fast, conversion & design-focused course and funnel builder for creators.
