18 undeniable ways to grow your email list

No one can deny that email marketing is an incredibly powerful tool to reach your audience and grow your business. In fact, stats show that email marketing has a whopping ROI of $42 for every $1 spent. The numbers speak for themselves. If you’re not taking advantage of email yet, you need to get started ASAP.

All you need to build your email list is the right email marketing software and the willingness to commit long-term. There is a tremendous payoff when business owners make email list growth a priority. Here are just a few benefits of having an email list: 

• It makes communicating super easy – You can reach your audience whenever you want.
  
• It’s personal – People love what you have to offer, otherwise, they wouldn’t have signed up for your email. Go you!
  
• It builds trust – Position yourself as a thought leader and offer irresistible value and you’ll gain peoples’ trust right away.
  
• You run the show! – You own your email list, no one else. Do with it what you like.
  
• You make more money – Drive conversions and sales through email marketing to make that dough!
  
• You measure your impact – Email analytics will soon be your new best friend, so get to know how your emails perform, so you can continually improve. 
  

With all these benefits, you’re probably eager to learn how to grow your email subscriber list. In this blog post, we’ll show you 18 ways to grow your email list efficiently and effectively through various channels. We’ll also include some awesome examples and visuals to help guide your list-building journey. Let’s get to growing!

‍Growing an email list through your website

1. Sign-up forms‍

A prominent sign-up form on your website is a must to get visitors to join your email list. The form should be visually appealing, clean, and easy to understand. There’s no faster way to scare someone off your website than by directing them to a busy sign-up form that asks for tons of information.

When it comes to sign-up forms, location is important. Every content management system is different, but most allow you to toggle forms to alter placement. Think about where you’d like your sign-up form to be located on your homepage (above or below the fold or on the side?).

Overall, keep it simple like the beautiful example from EO Products as seen below:

This example incorporates beautiful, eye-catching imagery with an easy to use email sign-up form connecting you to the company for more information on its newest launches, product promos, and more.

‍2. Pop-ups

‍Ah, the pop-up. Love them or hate them, pop-ups result in increased conversions and are an effective tool when growing an email list. If you have great content on your website, give visitors some time to read and absorb what you have to offer before launching a pop-up.

Once your website visitor has been there long enough to make a decision about next steps (like they scrolled to the bottom of a webpage), your pop-up should appear. Think of the pop-up as your call to action (CTA) to get visitors to convert and buy something from you.

Another way to use pop-ups is by offering a discount code to get visitors to buy something the same day. In order to take advantage of the offer, all they have to do is provide their email and they’ll receive the discount code!

We love this example from Rugs Direct that offers customers the incentive of a 10% discount and access to exclusive discounts, new arrivals, and more. All of this in return for their email address, of course. 

Lastly, pop-ups can be used when a user is about to exit your site. This is called an exit-intent pop-up and it’s triggered right before someone leaves your site as a last-ditch effort to get them to stay a little longer. Give visitors reason to stick around by providing them with a pop-up to download something of high value. A free guide, whitepaper, or check list in return for an email is a great place to start!

‍3. Gated content

‍Gated content is content that can only be accessed once a user provides further information, like an email address. If you want to implement gated content on your website, start by looking at your website analytics to determine which pages get the most traffic.

Use high-traffic pages to your advantage by placing gated content there and see if you can collect more emails to add to your subscriber list. A few ways to use gated content are by providing high-quality guides or tutorials, white papers, checklists, and cheat sheets. All of these items can only be unlocked by a visitor providing their email.

Wholesale Solar does a great job of using gated content to provide downloadable guides, for the low, low price of an email (and minimal personal info).

In terms of how to grow your email subscriber list, another way of using gated content is by providing content upgrades. These essentially give users more access to content on your website. You might do this by simply asking for an email or by having people subscribe and pay for more content. How you do it is up to you.

‍4. Create exclusivity through membership

‍Want a surefire way to grow your email list? Make your offerings 100% exclusive with a membership-based website. This type of website requires users to enter an email and establish a membership before they can view any content.

Online shopping and lifestyle website, Gilt, requires prospective customers to enter their email address to create a free account before they can shop. 

This sign-up requirement also helps weed out people who aren’t serious buyers by asking them to complete one small step to gain full access to their products. All the while, Gilt is collecting emails to add to their email lists!

‍5. Contact forms

‍Every website should have a contact form where customers can reach out to resolve an issue or get more information. This is also a great place to ask people if they’d like to subscribe to future communications. We love how The Philadelphia Ronald McDonald House utilizes a checkbox on their contact form below. 

6. Check-out forms

‍Using check-out forms is another quick and highly effective way to grow your email list. As customers complete the buyer journey and hightail it to the virtual check-out stand, make it count. One way you can do this is by asking them if they’d like to opt-in to receive up to date news and exclusive offers like Clé Tile does below.

7. Email subscription landing page

‍Having a dedicated landing page for email subscription is a great tool because not only does it drive traffic back to your website, it also takes people straight to a sign-up form. You can even link back to your email subscription page if you want to run a social campaign to advertise your newsletter. Be sure to give followers a sneak peek of your newsletter and leave them with a good cliffhanger so they click through to your landing page and subscribe for the whole story!

REI does a great job with their email sign-up landing page. It’s straight forward and collects vital customer information in a matter of seconds.   

8. Add a subscribe footer under blog posts‍

If you’re letting your website visitors read your blog with no CTA afterwards, you’re missing out on a great opportunity to grow your email list! Consider adding a footer under all your blog posts with a clear CTA. You might ask visitors to subscribe to your newsletter or provide a free, downloadable guide in exchange for an email.

‍Growing your list via email

9. Email signatures

‍People send an average of 40 emails per day for business, so don’t underestimate the power of adding a CTA to your email signature. It’s okay to be direct and ask people to join your email list. Take it a step further by including a bitly link so you can track click-throughs. And if you really want to see a higher click-through rate, consider using bitly branded links, which drive about 34% more clicks.

‍10. Email contests

‍Want to know how to grow your email subscriber list while having a little fun? Email contests are a great way to get more subscribers. First, identify what your prize will be, then create high-impact and engaging emails around your contest. End your email with a strong CTA, such as a “click here to enter” button that re-directs users to a sign-up form, where you’ll collect emails to be entered to win your grand prize.

Once you get the hang of running an email contest, you might even consider using contests in the future to launch new email drip campaigns.

11. Ask subscribers to forward your emails

‍There’s no shame in asking your email subscribers to forward your emails to their friends and family. Chances are if they like what you have to offer, they know a few other people who would like your business too.

Feel free to add a catchy “ask” in your emails requesting your subscribers to pass along your emails to their contacts. Just be sure to include a sign-up link or button, so it’s easy for people to follow through and subscribe.

‍12. Segment your email lists

‍Segmenting your lists is a great way to target specific users based on certain attributes and it’s also an important part of email list management. Not only does it help improve email open rates, but when you know your customers’ interests and behaviors, you can give them more of what they like.

For example, if you offer multiple services like meal plans, exercise plans, and coaching, you might want to segment your email lists based on your customer’s subscriptions. This allows you to target your customers with customized content like the SWEAT app does below:

Upon joining the Monday Night Meetup challenge, this user subsequently subscribed to a clean eating guide. This added their email to a new targeted email list and furthered the email marketing.‍

Growing your email subscriber list with social media

13. Sign-up button on Facebook

‍Love social media, but not sure how to grow your email subscriber list with it? The Facebook sign-up button is an easy way to get your social media followers to subscribe to your emails with the click of a button. The Huffington Post uses this Facebook functionality just right by redirecting users to their email subscription landing page on their website. 

14. Add a link to your Twitter profile

Prefer to use Twitter over Facebook? Make sure to optimize your Twitter profile with a link to your email subscription landing page. Feel free to Tweet a link to your monthly newsletter with a CTA directing followers to your sign-up page. Birchbox gets an A+ for using their profile to advertise a link to their subscription landing page below.

15. Use Instagram email button to your advantage

‍Email and social media integration has never been better thanks to Instagram’s email button. Contacting your favorite brands is as simple as one click, which is a win-win for everyone.

You get the support you need, and brands can reach back out to you to ask if you’d like to opt-in to future emails. We like how Teva links their email button to their social team, who can answer questions on the fly to create an incredible customer experience.

Expanding your email list with traditional marketing

16. Get grassroots with a business card drop box

‍There’s nothing wrong with using some tried and true old school marketing methods to collect emails. If you have a brick and mortar store, try putting a business card drop box on your counter with a sign that says, “drop your card to keep in touch.” This is a great way to passively collect emails to market your business.‍

17. QR codes

‍Most mobile devices have built in QR code scanners these days. You can easily generate a free QR code for your company that links to your email subscription landing page or downloadable content. Just make sure you require an email to access any content through your custom QR code, so you can continue building your email list.

‍18. Live events

‍Conferences, conventions, and other live events are great ways to collect emails. If you ask any seasoned marketer how to grow your email subscriber list they’ll probably tell you live events should be at the top of your list. If you’re hosting a booth, come with a plan to collect info in real-time and follow-up through email. You can also utilize a lead capture software or exit pop up integration to generate interest and foot traffic to your conference booth.

‍Manage and grow your email list with Kajabi‍

Growing your email list is an important part of growing your business. Do yourself a favor and make email marketing a priority in your business plans. Whether you implement just one or a dozen of the strategies we discussed in this article, you’ll be one step closer to a bigger email list (and potentially more revenue!).

We hope this guide inspired you with new and exciting ideas to effectively and efficiently grow your email list. If you have additional tips to add to the list, we’d love to hear them. Feel free to add your input in the comments below so we can keep the conversation going!

See how Kajabi’s all in one platform can help you create amazing marketing emails that your customers will look forward to opening.