How to Get Email Subscribers

One of the more intimidating questions a new business owner gets asked is, “Do you have an email list?” “A what?” you ask. Email marketing can feel daunting but we can help you get new email subscribers, serve your list well, and grow your business in a sustainable way.

Why do you need email subscribers?

In the world of social media, you might not be clear on why you even need an email list. “Isn’t email dead?” The short and long answer is — no. Email marketing is an essential part of your business and if you have a growing social media platform, you absolutely should start funneling your followers to your email list. Here’s why.

Building an Email List

Whether you have just started doing email marketing or have been doing it a while, you want to constantly get new people to subscribe to your email list. But with so many businesses out there competing for attention, how do you capture your customer’s attention and get them to subscribe to your email list?

The trick is balancing the quantity vs. the quality of subscribers. As much as it is nice to have a bunch of email subscribers, the goal is to capture valuable subscribers — those that are genuinely interested in your organization — so that you can eventually convert them into paying customers. Either way, whether your goal is to gain a large audience or to curate a small list of valuable subscribers, there are lots of strategy options!

Here are 5 tips you could use:

Offer a Freebie or Lead Magnet

People like freebies! Depending on whether you’re going for quantity or quality subscribers, your freebie offer would be different. You could either offer a low ticket item to get lots of people to subscribe OR something that will give your customers a good idea of your product or service so they can try you out before making a bigger commitment. Examples are an instructional video, a short book, a worksheet, an article, a tangible product, a class etc.

Give a Sneak Peek

This is similar to offering a freebie except you hook your customers in with a public sneak peek on social media or your website that before viewing the rest of the content, they will need to provide their email address. Make your sneak peek so good that they’re willing to hand over their entire estate! 😛 Examples could be a portion of your course, an excerpt from a workbook, or behind the scenes of your session with a client.

Offer a Discount

The fact that someone is viewing your website or social media means they are already interested, but they may still be on the fence about making a commitment. So instead of rushing them into making a purchase decision, ask them to subscribe to your email list with the offer of a discount. One yes opens up the opportunity for more yeses in the future. Serving your subscribers well via email is a great way to help push them over the fence! To the customers, subscribing to your email list feels way less of a commitment but from a business perspective, it is a big win! Once you have them on your list, you have plenty of opportunities to charm them into signing up for your services!

Create Contests & Giveaways

This is where you have a big ticket prize (e.g. a YETI cooler) and people will need to enter their email address for a chance to win. This could be something related to your business or just something that is highly sought after. Coupled with a strong social media strategy, this will be a great way to expand your email list quickly and to create awareness of your business.

Promise Exclusivity

And make sure you deliver on that promise! Make your customers feel like a VIP and play on the FOMO mentality here. For example if you are sending a “Tips and Advice” piece to your email list, you wouldn’t post that entire content on social media. Instead, you can say something like “Sign up for our email list to learn more about…”

Serving Your Email Subscribers

Once your audience is happily on your email list, don’t leave them hanging! Offer them even more value with additional advice, freebies, support, and materials. The worst thing you can do is invest in building your email list and let them sit there and get stale. They joined — rest assured they want to hear from you. We compiled a huge list of ways to serve your email list if you need help with ideas.

What other ideas do you have? How can you customize these ideas to your business? Take some time to think about it and make a plan. Feel free to share your thoughts with us!

Emails in a Nutshell
DIY emails without the DIY

Need help with setting up your email marketing service? For a small one-time fee, we can get everything set up and running for you so all you have to do is maintain. Check it out for more info!