If you’re looking to grow your email list, you’ve come to the right place. In this article, you’re going to discover the best methods to do so. First off, you need to decide which method is the most effective for you.
The Best Ways to Grow My Email List
In order to subscribe to an email list, you need to perform four steps:
- First, you need to decide what type of content you will share.
- Secondly, you need to determine how you will share it.
- Thirdly, you need to collect the email addresses of people you know or that you can find online.
- Finally, you need to perform the action of subscribing (or unsubscribing).
Each method has its advantages and disadvantages. Let’s take a closer look at the four methods and their pros and cons.
Active Marketing vs. Passive Marketing
Active marketing involves you sharing content while passive marketing involves you doing nothing more than gathering email addresses. One advantage of active marketing is that you are bringing value to people by sharing useful information. For example, if you are a realtor in Denver, CO and you want to learn more about buying a home in the Mile High City, you are actively providing value to people by sharing your opinion about the Denver real estate market. This is a form of offering something valuable in exchange for someone’s contact information. In contrast, passive marketing is anonymous and you are not providing any value. Your only goal is getting as many email addresses as possible.
The disadvantage to active marketing is that you are relying on someone’s interest in your content to drive sales. People have to want what you have to offer in order to purchase it. In the example above, someone has to be interested in buying a home in the Denver area in order for you to pitch them on your real estate platform. Similarly, if you’re trying to grow your email list for the purpose of selling your own products or services, you’ll need someone to want what you have to offer. If you want to grow an email list for general marketing purposes, passive marketing is a better fit.
Direct Marketing vs. Indirect Marketing
Direct marketing involves you giving people your contact information right away rather than waiting for them to find you. For example, if you are a retailer and you want to promote your brand of jeans, you could create a direct mailing list by giving your email address to a mailing list service such as MailChimp or AWeber. With direct marketing, you are providing value to people by offering your contact information right away. The disadvantage is that you are cluing people in that you have something to offer. If your goal is to grow a general email list, then direct marketing is a bad idea because it will only yield limited results. Your best bet would be to use indirect marketing.
Indirect marketing is a little bit like direct marketing but instead of giving your contact information right away, you are sharing content that is relevant to people who might be interested in your product or service. For example, if you are the CEO of a software company and you want to grow your email list to promote your product, you could create a blog post that is relevant to people who work in software. You would then share that blog post with your list, resulting in more people subscribing to your email list.
The advantage of indirect marketing is that you are not giving your contact information right away so it is less likely to result in unwanted emails from spammers or marketers. People who subscribe to your email list will get value from your content because it is relevant to their interests. If you want to grow an email list quickly, indirect marketing is your best bet.
Generate Web Traffic vs. Build a List
Generate web traffic is a method of growing an email list whereby you set up automated tasks to populate the internet with the words “free” and “website” in order to attract people to your website. This is often done with a tool such as Google Adwords or Facebook Ads. If you’ve ever shopped at Nordstrom, you may have seen these ads. People are often attracted to free stuff so this method of growing an email list is a great way to get people to subscribe to your list. The disadvantage to this method is that you have to invest in the traffic which makes it far more expensive than the other methods. However, if you don’t have the money to invest in a traffic source, building a list is the next best thing.
The advantage of generating web traffic is that you are able to target your audience based on keywords and interest. However, if you want to build a sizable email list, you will need to rely on others to find your website. You are not going to randomly pop up all over the place with your content, hoping that people will discover you. It takes work.
Building a list is exactly what it says: you are constructing a list of people who have explicitly said they want to get more of your content. The disadvantage to this method is that you are not going to be able to target your audience based on interest. Instead, you will need to settle for a broad audience who might be interested in your content. Also, most major news websites have a list of bloggers that they read and follow, which means they are constantly sending out new content to their audience. If you want to grow a list quickly, building a list is the way to go.
Grow a List With Guest Bloggers
If you’ve gotten this far, you must be interested in growing a list. Good. We’re interested in you too. One of the best ways to do so is by involving others in the process. That way, you can get more people on your list.
The benefit of having guest bloggers on your list is that you can target your audience based on interest, resulting in higher conversion rates. For example, if you have a guest blogger who writes about dating, you can target your dating-related content to her audience. In this case, you are leveraging someone else’s interest in a topic along with their connections to gain access to their audience. The disadvantage is that you are giving up a lot of control because you’re depending on others to contribute value to your endeavor.
The takeaway from this article is that you need to decide what kind of content you will use to build your email list and then use that information to choose both the method and platform that are most suitable for you.