Top 6 Ways To Grow Your Email List

One thing that many people don’t realize about email lists is that it is vital to keep them growing. The main reason for this is because each year your email marketing database is going to shrink by over 22%.

This is due to several things:

  • People change their email address as they switch jobs
  • Many abandon old email addresses for personal reasons
  • People opt out of your email communications

As an email marketer you have to make sure that you are keeping your contact list fresh, that is how you will keep making conversions. The one thing to remember is that you want to grow your email list naturally, never resort to purchasing email lists if for no other reason than those are not targeted contacts.

Here are six ways you can grow your email list the right way:

Have quality content

This is probably the number one most important thing you can do to grow your list. You don’t just want good content, you want content that is so good people can’t help but share it with their friends and family members.

Encourage sharing

The easiest way to do this is to include sharing buttons in the messages themselves. You can add social sharing buttons and “email to a friend” buttons that make this simple for your readers to do.

What makes this such an important point is that each time the content is shared you have a good chance of having the people that see it add themselves to your list. This type of organic growth can be the lifeblood of your list.

Host contests and giveaways

If you offer the opportunity to win something to those signing up, you will see your list grow by leaps and bounds. Everyone wants to win stuff. Just remember to promote your contest on social media as well.

Reinvigorate an old list

Using an opt-in campaign to refresh an old, stale email list is a great idea. Write a quality and engaging opt-in message asking old contacts to resubscribe. You should also offer to remove anyone who doesn’t answer the email from the list.

While this might sound like it would hurt your bottom line, in fact it does the opposite. There is no point to having people who have completely lost interest on your email list. They aren’t adding any value whatsoever. It is a far better plan to have the list contain only people who are interested in your topic and who will be motivated to share your emails with others.

Create a new lead generating offer

Giveaways like free ebooks and reports can really work well in growing your email list as long as you remember that to get this free thing people need to share their email address with you. But again, make sure the content is out of this world. Make sure what you offer isn’t just fluff and you will have people coming back for more as well as sharing the information with others who are not yet on your list.

Use social media to promote, promote and promote

Social media can be an email marketers best friend. Always promote contests and lead generating offers on social media. You can do this on both Facebook and Twitter.

You should also make sure you have a call-to-action button at the top of your Facebook page as well as on any landing pages you create.

Use these six tips and watch your email list grow the right way.