Email is often at the center of a company’s marketing efforts.
Web traffic, paid advertising, social media… for many companies, the goal of these things is to entice people to sign up for an email list.
There are good reasons for this…
Half of all people buy from marketing emails at least once a month, according to research done by Hubspot.
Hubspot also found that 59 percent of consumers state that email messages influence their purchasing decisions.
And the return on investment for email is off the chart, clocking in at an average of $40 for every dollar spent.
Because of these numbers, marketing managers and business owners are keen to employ list-building strategies that will attract relevant, interested subscribers.
In this article, I’m going to give you an overview of 25 skills and tactics you can start learning that will position you to help your clients with their marketing.
Get to Know Best Practices
Cutting corners in your list-building efforts is a bad idea. At best, you’ll attract people who aren’t a good fit for the list. At worst, you could run afoul of the law, which is never good.
So, spend a little time getting to know best practices surrounding email-list building.
1. Choose a reputable provider: Whether you’re building your own list or helping a client with their list, it’s important to choose an email-sending service that has a good reputation. The service you work with can affect the deliverability of your emails, so choose a provider who takes best practices seriously.
2. Understand opt-in options: An opt-in is when a user joins a list. They opt to become a subscriber, hence the term. You can use a single opt-in, meaning your new subscriber enters their name into a field and clicks subscribe. Or you can use a double opt-in, where the user takes an additional step to confirm their email address and their intent to subscribe. Single opt-ins make the process simpler, but double opt-ins result in higher-quality subscribers. You’ll need to discuss your client’s goals to determine the best option for them.
3. Start segmenting: List segmentation is where you tag subscribers based on actions they have taken. Tags could be based on things like what sign-up form they used to join your list, what purchases they’ve made in the past, or what links they’ve clicked. Then, based on what you know about different groups of subscribers, you can send more relevant and targeted information to them. Segmentation is one of the most effective ways to increase revenues generated from emails.
4. Keep it clean: The responsiveness of your list can affect deliverability rates, so periodically remove inactive subscribers, and recommend the same to your clients.
5. Easy unsubscribes: Make the link to unsubscribe from your list easy to find and make the process easy to complete.
Learn About Sign-Up Forms
Sign-up forms are where people fill in their name and email address to sign up for a list. I’d lay good odds you’ve filled in more than a few sign-up forms in your day.
There are several different ways you or your clients can use sign-up forms on a website, and it’s good to get to know each option.
Also, you aren’t limited to just one option. You can use a combination.
6. Simple forms: Simple opt-in forms are the ones you see in the footer, sidebar, or elsewhere on a web page. It’s smart to place an opt-in form on every page of a website, which is easiest to do in the footer or sidebar. But, there are other times when you might also want to have an opt-in form somewhere else on the page. For example, if you’re writing a blog post, you might include an opt-in form midway through the post. Some sites require visitors to opt into a list to make blog posts visible. You have a lot of options here, so consider running some tests to see what works best.
7. Exit pop-ups: Now, I know, everyone hates pop-ups. But, companies keep using pop-ups because they work. My recommendation is to use an exit pop-up. This is a form that opens over a page’s content when the visitor takes an action that suggests they’re about to leave, like moving their cursor toward the back button. An exit pop-up is less disruptive to the user experience on a page, but still takes advantage of the benefits of a pop-up.
8. Dedicated sign-up pages: A dedicated sign-up page is a web page completely focused on asking for the sign-up. The page is typically brief, describing the benefits of subscribing and asking for action. A dedicated landing page can be useful for paid-ad campaigns, social-media campaigns, and other situations, where you’re asking someone to sign up from a location other than your website. You can also use multiple landing pages, customizing them based on the situation — say you’re guesting on a podcast, and you send listeners to a sign-up page just for them — or based on the sign-up incentive on offer.
Landing pages average 160% higher conversions than other types of sign-up forms, so don’t ignore this option!
Give Readers a Reason
One way to encourage sign-ups is to offer an incentive — a special, valuable resource a person gets in return for subscribing. There are many, many options, and this isn’t an exhaustive list, but learning how to create the different types of incentives I list here can put you in a good position to help your clients.
9. The classic special report: A special report is a 12- to 20-page pdf download that teaches your audience how to solve a problem related to the service you offer. For example, imagine you’re working with a client who owns a chiropractic office and wants to grow their email list. You could create a report on 10 stretches that help relieve and prevent the most common types of pain your client could then offer as an incentive.
The key to a successful special report is that it provides genuine value relevant to your audience.
10. A more in-depth ebook: An ebook is typically longer than a special report (35 to 75 pages) and covers a topic in more depth. It can be very effective as an email sign-up incentive.
11. The email course: An email course is a more hands-on type of incentive, and it’s excellent for clients who offer services or information products. For example, a coaching client who teaches freelancers to land clients might offer a five-part email course on how to create a freelance brand. And they might hire you to write the email lessons.
12. A high-value webinar: A webinar is a video-training presentation. It can be live or recorded. A recorded webinar can be used again and again… but a live webinar can be more interactive and, therefore, seen as higher value. As a writer, you might create the outline for the webinar, the slide contents, and the sign-up materials. You might also advise your client on the best topics for a webinar incentive.
Increase Response With Interactivity
You can get more people to subscribe by creating interactive elements that work as part of the sign-up process.
13. Create a quiz: Inviting someone to take a quiz and then offering to share average results or a detailed analysis of their results is an effective way to bring in more subscribers.
14. Create a survey: The key to using a survey as a sign-up incentive is to make the survey results something your audience would be interested in. Thinking back to our coaching client, a survey on what client-getting methods work best for you would be a good topic, because freelancers would be curious to see what’s working for others. Part of the sign-up incentive is that they’ll receive a snapshot of the results after the survey runs its course.
15. Host a contest: For a contest, you come up with a desirable giveaway, and people who sign up for your email list are entered to win. Then you promote the contest to social media and through other channels. There are also software services that can add layers, like extra entries for people who share the contest to their social-media channels.
16. Wheel prizes: With a wheel prize, the sign-up form contains a wheel-of-fortune-like wheel with different special offers — these could be different coupon discounts or different download incentives. When the visitor clicks the subscribe button, the wheel spins, and the visitor is awarded a prize at random.
Be Active in the Broader Community
List sign-ups don’t have to happen only on your website. New subscribers can also come from other people’s audiences.
17. Be a podcast guest: Consider guesting on podcasts that reach your target audience. Be sure to talk about something that will showcase your expertise and be useful to the audience. Then, invite listeners to sign up to your list, using a dedicated landing page.
18. Become a guest speaker: Whether you speak at small events at your local Chamber of Commerce or at bigger events serving your target audience, this gives you another opportunity to invite people to join your list.
19. Contribute to industry blogs: Figure out which blogs your target audience reads. Then, of those, find the ones that accept guest posts and start contributing on a regular basis. At the end of each post, include an invitation to join your list, along with how they’ll benefit when they do.
20. Generate buzz: Whether your client is launching a new product, sponsoring a popular event, or raising money for a good cause, help them get their audience talking about what they’re up to through press releases, social-media posts, and partnerships with industry influencers. Invite readers to learn more at a dedicated landing page, where they can also sign up to keep in touch.
21. Use offline techniques, too: Include a sign-up URL on any print materials you use in marketing your business, including your business cards. If you’re attending an event, like a local meetup, invite people to join your list using a registration list form, where they can jot down their name and email address for you to add manually. If your client is running a booth at an event, encourage them to do the same thing and help them set up the materials they’ll need.
Don’t Overlook Simple Opportunities
Some opportunities are so simple, clients don’t even think about them. And, while these methods might not generate a windfall of sign-ups, they take almost no investment to put into action.
22. Email signatures: Add a line to your email signature inviting recipients to sign up for your email list. Include a link to a dedicated landing page with a sign-up form.
23. Social-media profiles: Update each of your (or your client’s) social-media profiles to include a sign-up link and invitation.
24. Leverage LinkedIn: If your client uses LinkedIn Creator Mode, they can invite followers and connections to sign up for their email list automatically. (You can use this for your own list, too!)
25. Networking: When you attend networking events, as part of your conversation with others, ask if you can add them to your list. If they say yes, collect their business card and make a quick note on it. After the event, follow up with them, let them know you enjoyed talking to them, and remind them they’ll be receiving your email newsletter going forward.
Each of these best practices and tactics is something you can suggest to your clients and use for yourself. When suggesting them to clients, don’t forget to explore the possibility of having them hire you to create the materials they need.
Whether you create the materials or not, though, using a combination of these tactics, you can create a valuable list-building strategy your clients will pay good money to have.
