How To Grow Your Email Subscribers


Every marketer has a nightmare, of his email list growing smaller and smaller by unsubscribes, by becoming irrelevant, by becoming black-listed by end users. So what steps can you take to ensure that your list grows, legitimately and provides customers the value they need, and you, the reach you want?

Every email address that you acquire as a marketer is a potential customer, and hence, that email address to you is future business currency. So how do you build that list? How do you ensure that this list is accurate, relevant and most importantly, monetizable?


Image source: http://bit.ly/Liqqd7

1. Opt-in marketing
Rule of thumb: You are acquiring someone else’s data─and using it, and sending him emails about your value proposition. So always ask first, period. Opt in marketing, or permission based marketing ensures that every bit of user information collected is acquired post securing the user permission. That means no harvesting user information illegally (email IDs), no buying lists from unlisted agencies and no underhanded techniques to build data. Though your list will be small, but it will be populated by people who want to be part of your brand story. Legislation in the US,the UK, and other developed countries has already made it difficult to secure non-permission based user data and marketers should embrace this readily and build this into their list growth techniques. Even if you don’t want to practice opt-in marketing yet, always respect user privacy and provide them the option to unsubscribe.

2. Increase your brand depth
Increase your brand footprint, make it easy for others to find you—that is make signing up for your newsletter or email campaigns easy by extending that window to your customers, at events have an event sign up form, have a sign up form online for every user interaction. At the end of whitepaper download, request for a short signup, just name and email address will do at first
i.On all your social media exchanges, run a sign up campaign. Willing customers will fill it out for a brand that they wish to engage with.
ii.On your website, prominently display your sign up form.
iii.At events, position your sign up forms at the stand.
iv.Run an online contest, create excitement for your target group by offering something that is the first rung of your core value proposition—for free, for example, if I am running an online learning business, can I run a contest in which the winner gets a coveted course for half price or deep discount? Span this contest out for a couple of months, and you will see your list grow.

3. Increase your brand width

On the same lines, increase your discoverability, make yourself hard to miss, but not in your face, and then follow up with a form. Are you there in that industry group on LinkedIn? Did you create an event on Facebook for your webinar? Are you there on Pinterest? Okay..now that’s too much. So find out where do your prospects hunt…and follow up. There is no harm in asking for information.

4. Provide the Why?

Why would anyone want to sign up? For your email campaign? Already their inbox is cluttered with countless, perhaps non permission based marketing messages from innumerable brands. So outline the ask clearly and identify what is it in for them.
Provide something valuable for your readers, a whitepaper, a free trial, a how-to guide, and ask for their information. Value-based incentivization will increase your email list.

5. Ask them to Share

Multiply your reach and engagement by enlisting your target group as your brand advocates, ask them to propose names of people whom they think will find this relevant. This will ensure that you again acquire pre-qualified leads of people relevant to your list.

6. Prune Your List

Its not enough to have a list of 10000+ names. How many of them are still your core TG? What if someone changes careers mid-path or switches industries? And hence no longer remains part of that list. While it is not possible to achieve 100% list hygiene, do conduct sanitization tests periodically. Ask users to fill in their most recent details through an email campaign.

Keep these elements in mind, and your list is sure to grow. Don’t forget to prune and maintain your list hygiene though!

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