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Wondering how to grow your email list? This is a question that every blogger should be asking when you get to the point where your blog content is built out and you’re ready to increase conversions.
There are lots of moving parts when it comes to blogging which is why so many bloggers neglect email marketing. In their minds, they have this awesome website… Why would they need to add email into the equation?
Then there are the bloggers who begin to build an email list, but tend to only use it for sending out the occasional random newsletter or information regarding a current promotion.
But is that all an email list is good for? No way!
When we first started our travel blog, Adventure in You, we were in the very same boat. In fact, we didn’t even begin to grow our email list until a year and a half into our blogging journey!
And when we did start collecting emails, we had absolutely no idea what to do with them.
But today, email marketing is central to our business strategy and we have more than 100,000+ emails on our list.
Beyond just the number of subscribers, email marketing has been responsible for our consistent six-figure blogging income. We use it for so much more than just sending out newsletters and promotions… It’s one of the main drivers of our affiliate marketing approach and the top way we provide value to our audience.
What we eventually learned (through lots of trial and error) is that email marketing is actually one of the most powerful tools out there when it comes to growing your blog and your income.
In this article, I cover everything you need to know about how to grow your email list and why this is so important in the first place.
Why Your Email List Is So Important
In short, your email list is your lifeline to your audience and that’s everything when it comes to building an online business out of your blog.
If you’re keen on developing trust with your audience, increasing conversions, and growing your blog, you should be paying special attention to your email list.
The thing is, email is universal. It’s impossible to talk to every single person who reads your blog but when they subscribe to your email list, they’re giving you the opportunity to directly connect with them.
As a blogger, growing your email list is so important because it reminds people that your blog exists to help them! Maybe they found your blog through a Google search, but after they read that article, the sad truth is they’re unlikely to visit again on their own.
But with an email list, you can consistently drive people back to your blog time and time again. Instead of it being a one-time deal, email marketing builds long-term relationships with your readers, which ultimately helps your traffic and your income.
You might be thinking, “Well, I have social media channels… why don’t I just use them to get people back to my blog?”
Social media is great, but it doesn’t come close to the impact that email marketing has.
In fact, in 2019, 3.8 billion people around the world used email, compared to 1.7 billion who use Facebook daily.
Furthermore, out of people with email addresses, 44% are likely to check their email for a deal from a company they already know, compared to the 4% who head to Facebook for the same information.
Think about it – people are 11x more likely to check their email for promotions than Facebook. That’s some power to be leveraged right there.
It’s also virtually impossible to create segmented lists of the people who follow you on social media. What you post there is consumed by the entire audience instead of being tailored to fit individual preferences and needs.
Okay, so email marketing can help your audience: check. But what about helping your business?
As I mentioned before, email marketing is central to the affiliate marketing strategy on our blog. This is how we make money!
Through targeted emails, we’re actually able to drive people back to our money-making articles. And since we’ve already built trust with our readers (we do this by consistently providing value), they’re more inclined to trust our recommendations and spend money through our blog.
Your email list is valuable to your audience, your business and to your wallet. As such, you should focus efforts on growing it to make the most of this awesome resource.
If you want to figure out how to grow your email list, here are a few of my top tips that helped us go from 0 to over 100,000 email subscribers in under 3 years.
7 Effective Tips for Growing Your Email List
When it comes to email marketing, growing your email list should be a top priority. Luckily, there are some tips and tricks that make this process a little bit easier.
Check them out below.
1. Make Your Opt-In Form Prominent On Your Blog
First, you want to set yourself (and your email list) up for success by creating a prominent opt-in form to display on your blog where it can’t be missed.
If you want people to sign up for your email list, put it in front of their face!
When people can easily see and find your opt-in form, they’ll be much more inclined to sign up rather than if they had to hunt for it. Because let’s be real for a second… who’s going to hunt for an email list sign-up form?
When creating your opt-in form, it also helps to make it stand out. While opt-ins used to be as simple as “Sign up and you’ll never miss an update”, that strategy doesn’t work anymore. People want something in return for handing over their email addresses, so you have to provide some sort of incentive.
I discuss incentivizing your audience in detail below, but in terms of an opt-in, it also helps to use bright colors, add engaging text, and paint your email list as an irresistible treat for readers.
Take a look at one of our opt-in forms below. It is easy to spot, it stands out, and it is very prominent which, overall, just increases conversion rates.
2. Make It Easy for People to Sign Up
Once readers can find your email list sign up, make it super easy for them to actually sign up!
Only require a couple fields for them to fill out like their name and email address. Keep it simple and to the point. The longer your form is, the less likely people will want to fill it in.
It also really helps to have them sign in right on your opt-in rather than redirecting them. If possible, enable them to fill out the form right on the page so that when they’re finished, they can get back to where they left off on your blog.
3. Create and Offer a Value Gift for Signing Up
Don’t underestimate the power of a free gift… Value gifts are the ultimate hook to get people to sign up for your email list.
A value gift is our version of a lead magnet, which is something you’ve likely come across before while visiting other websites.
A lead magnet is marketing speak for a download that adds value to your readers in exchange for their contact information (generally an email address). It’s called a “lead” magnet because the people who sign up are probably good “leads” in terms of conversions and interest in your blog.
We’ve revamped the lead magnet concept to reflect what’s most important to capturing readers: providing value. This is why we prefer the term “value gift” because you’re providing something valuable to readers in exchange for their email address.
Keep in mind that it’s not just about getting these people’s email addresses. The main point is to build trust with your subscribers by providing them with continuous value through the content that you send afterwards.
Getting them to opt in is just the tip of the iceberg. The rest of the work comes through the follow-up email sequences that you send.
This is central to the idea of a value gift and results in an email list full of people who are genuinely interested in the emails you send out.
Honestly, most of the time, people aren’t enthusiastic about the idea of giving their email to yet another website. But if you can make it worth their while, the inclination increases.
So what exactly does a value gift look like? Well, first think about what your audience likes.
For example, when we were brainstorming value gifts for our travel blog, Adventure in You, we realized that lots of people were interested in our scuba diving content.
To play on this interest, we created a mini-ebook of the 10 best diving experiences in the world that readers could download in exchange for their email address.
This allowed us to build a segmented list of people who are just interested in scuba diving which means we were able to tailor-fit all of our emails to them.
When you’re just starting out, it helps to have value gifts that are specific to your blog niche.
If your blog is about solo female travel, maybe use a packing list for a solo female traveler as your value gift. If you have a skincare blog, consider creating a list of cruelty-free brands. It really helps to target an interest and capture that audience by focusing on their passions.
Tip: Figure out what value gift you can offer by assessing what your audience is interested in. Do you have a lot of articles about a specific topic? Can you think of something that can help or inspire your readers around that particular topic?
You can create downloadable checklists or meal planners, free presets, templates, tutorials, printable, and beyond!
Don’t be afraid to get creative with your value gift, but keep your audience central while brainstorming ideas. The main point is to provide value, so be sure to create something your audience won’t be able to resist.
To learn more about creating and using value gifts, check out our complete guide to lead magnets to create value gifts that actually convert and grow your email list.
4. Build Segmented Email Lists
While there are plenty of bloggers who do collect emails from their readers, they tend to lump all of their audience into one giant category. They send newsletters and general emails about their blog, but never really information that’s directly relevant to their readers.
This does nothing to help your blogging business! Rather, it makes subscribers quickly lose interest as most of the emails being sent don’t pertain to them.
That’s why building segmented email lists is one of the best things you can do when it comes to your email marketing strategy and growing your email list in the first place.
What really transformed email marketing for Adventure in You was when we took the time to segment our email list. By collecting emails through specific targeted groups, we are able to have a better understanding about what each individual subscriber (or group of subscribers) is interested in.
One of the first value gifts we created was a collection of bucket list items for Southeast Asia, that we offered to people who landed on any of our Southeast Asia articles.
Since we knew that the people who downloaded this value gift were interested in Southeast Asia, we were able to follow up by emailing them useful articles to help them plan their next trip to Asia.
The Southeast Asia segment doesn’t get emails about Europe, they don’t get emails about general travel; they only get emails tailored to their specific interests to say “hey, we saw you were interested in traveling around Southeast Asia… here are our best tips for how to do that!”.
This benefits both parties because readers get articles in their inbox that they’re actually interested in while we, the bloggers, get people back on our website, generally to our money-making articles.
Since we’re sending people emails that they actually care about, they’re much more inclined to actually make a purchase through one of our affiliate links. The readers end up with a product or service that they actually benefit from while we earn a commission in return.
Building segmented lists is what changed our email marketing strategy as it allowed us to really center in on our readers’ interests and provide value to them in a way that made sense.
Instead of lumping everyone together, we showed our readers that we understood what they were on the hunt for and could help with the process. In turn, we were able to build trust with our readers and earn an even larger income in conjunction with a growing email list.
Here’s a preview of our Southeast Asia bucket lists below which we used to grow our list of people interested in traveling Southeast Asia. Not only did we grow our segmented email list, but we also tripled our ebook sales for our Southeast Asia travel guides which we promoted in our sales sequence.
5. Enable Pop-Ups
Okay, I know what you’re thinking… “Pop-ups are so annoying, there’s no way I’m adding one to my blog.”
Well, let me just tell you: pop-ups work.
There are tons of case studies out there that show that pop–ups actually drive 1000%+ more subscribers than having an inline opt-in form. Seriously, people have gone from having 10 to 15 subscribers a day to 100 to 150 subscribers a day, just from using a pop-up.
Still don’t believe me? There are pop-ups that can convert 40% of your audience into active subscribers. Think about the power in that!
And according to Blog Marketing Academy, pop-up opt0-in rates are about 2% which is higher than any other kind of advertisement.
So while pop-ups may be annoying in your mind, they’re actually overwhelmingly helpful when it comes to growing your email list. But like with everything when it comes to blogging, you must be strategic about how you create and display your pop-ups.
We’ve found that it typically works best to have pop-ups on a timer so they show up after about 60 seconds of a user arriving on a page. However, you can also have your pop-ups set so they’re triggered based on scrolling.
Above all else, you want your pop-up to be engaging so that it isn’t annoying to the user. Let them know why you’ve interrupted their scrolling (because you have something awesome to offer them) and give them incentives to sign up (value gift, discount code, etc).
This is another reason why segmented lists are crucial.
Think about it like this: if you were walking through the grocery store trying to choose a bottle of wine, imagine an employee popping up to say, “Hey, want to sign up and receive emails from me whenever we get new items in the store?”
No thanks, mister.
In contrast, what if he popped up and said, “Hey, want a free ebook of the 10 best wines under $10?”
Uh, yes please!
The latter offers an irresistible value gift which will also aid me in my current task which is to choose a bottle of wine.
When you frame it in blogging terms, it really helps to tempt readers with something they may actually need while they’re perusing because it shows that you understand their struggles and know how to help!
More than anything, keep your pop-up short, sweet, and to the point. Your readers can take it from there.
6. Use Your Social Media Channels
Social media can be a powerful tool to drive users back to your blog and in the front door of your email list.
You can actually promote your value gift through social media channels which gives people more places to sign up for your email list than just on your blog.
Beyond this, you can use visual-heavy social media channels to tempt readers into wanting more.
Pinterest is a great tool for this because you can always preview your value gift and then have a “click here to see the full thing” text box. From there, people can sign up for your email list and receive the value gift. Consider their interest piqued!
If you really want to get your email list growing, you can even run promotions and competitions on your social media.
Have users enter using their email address and then give something away at the end. With this tactic, you can exponentially increase your email subscribers with little cost or effort on your end.
Just be sure that what you’re giving away is valuable enough that your readers will want to enter!
7. Invest in the Right Email Marketing Tools
Finally, one of the biggest tips I have when it comes to how to grow your email list is to invest in email marketing tools.
A good email marketing tool takes so much stress, hassle, and time out of email strategy, and simplifies the process in a way that can’t be done otherwise.
Email marketing tools allow you to do all the things mentioned on this list, plus so much more! They’re really worth the investment because of how much power they give you in building trust with your audience and increasing conversions.
We couldn’t live without our email marketing tools. They’re at the top of the list of our favorite blogging tools and resources and are in every single successful blogger’s toolkits.
If you’re hoping to grow your email list, you cannot skimp on having the right email marketing tools.
Recommended Email Marketing Tools
There are plenty of email marketing tools out there, some free, some paid. With so many options, it can be overwhelming to decide which is best for how to grow your email list.
Luckily, we’ve tried out just about every email marketing tool and we’re here to suggest the ones that we can’t live without.
Active Campaign
When people think of email marketing tools, their minds tend to jump to MailChimp. As a free platform, bloggers flock to MailChimp… but they sacrifice so much functionality in exchange for free access.
Like with any free tool, MailChimp is extremely limited in what it can do which is why we suggest that all bloggers invest in Active Campaign.
Trust me when I say that we have tried just about every program under the sun for email marketing. Active Campaign is by far the best we’ve used and what we currently stick with for all of our email marketing needs.
While it’s not free, Active Campaign plans start at just $9 a month, which is a steal compared to many other paid email marketing tools. With $9 a month, you’re granted a huge range of options in terms of what you can do with your email marketing.
We love Active Campaign the most because it’s so intuitive to use and has everything you could ever need. With it, you can build funnels, start email marketing campaigns, set up segmented email lists, and analyze metrics.
It also allows you to completely automate your email marketing so that after you set it up, it runs on its own. This is beyond handy because it means that your email marketing system can work around the clock so that you don’t have to.
Now that’s what I call a useful tool!
OptinMonster
Lots of email marketing tools have built-in opt-in creators… but none of them compare to OptinMonster.
OptinMonster allows you to create visually stunning opt-ins that fit the style and aesthetic of your blog. They’re completely and totally customizable so that you can get the look and feel just right.
Rather than struggling to create your opt-ins, this tool has a drag-and-drop builder so that you can create opt-ins with ease and integrate them seamlessly with WordPress as it’s a plugin.
There are also a huge number of campaign types to choose from!
One of the reasons we love OptinMonster so much is because of all the advanced features it offers.
This plugin can actually detect where the reader’s mouse is on the page so that a pop-up appears based on triggered behavior like scrolling, inactivity, or exit intent. It also offers timed display control so that you can show your opt-in when it’s most attractive to your readers.
OptinMonster also has targeted campaigns which allows you to display different opt-ins based on user preferences and demographics. This is an advanced feature that you’ll never be able to find with a free tool and that’s rare in other paid tools.
You can check the analytics right from the plugin, showing you what works and what can be tweaked.
Without a doubt, OptinMonster is a valuable tool that can’t be passed up if you’re hoping to grow your email list.
You’ve Got Subscribers… Now What?
So your email list has grown and you have plenty of people eagerly awaiting your name showing up in their inbox.
Now how do you use your email list to your advantage?
Above all else, you want to keep your email list engaged. You can do this by sending regular emails that give value to your readers. Remember, the whole focus of your email list should be to constantly strive to provide useful information to your audience.
If you can do this consistently through the emails that you send, people will open them and actually look forward to the next one.
It also helps to run some tests to figure out what’s working best.
Try out different subject lines, A/B split test your list, try out new content and promotions. Don’t be afraid to ask your subscriber’s opinions! This will do wonders when it comes to improving metrics like your open rate and click-through rate.
Growing and maintaining an engaged email list is part of building a Trust Marketing system on your blog, and trust us… Trust Marketing is everything!
A real turning point for Adventure in You was when we started to use our email list to drive readers back to our money-making articles. Since we already had an idea of their specific interests and desires, we were able to create targeted email lists and send them to affiliate-heavy articles full of products we know they’d love.
If you want a real-life example of this process in action, check out our high-ticket affiliate case study which used email marketing to drive affiliate sales.
This process turned our blog into a full-blown Affiliate Machine which works around the clock to provide value to our readers while earning us a hefty income at the same time.
Rather than simply inserting affiliate links into articles, we paired our affiliate articles with email marketing to consistently drive people back to them again and again… and again.
We owe our Trust Marketing system so much when it comes to our affiliate income. Without our email list, it would have been a million times harder to generate a passive income blogging.
If you want to learn more about how email marketing plays a role in our Affiliate Machine, sign up for our free training where we walk you through everything you need to know about building a business out of your blog.
All of this goes to show how undeniably powerful an engaged email list. If they trust you and your recommendations and can be driven back to your blog, the earning potential is out of this world.
With these tips, you’ll be on the fast track to growing your email list and using it as part of your blogging strategy.
It may seem overwhelming at first, but break things down and take it step by step. Don’t expect to get 100 subscribers your first day at it. It takes time to figure out what works and what’s most attractive to your audience.
It may take a little while to really build up a following but if you stick with it and continually strive to provide value to your audience, you’ll have no problem growing your email list.
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