14 Ways On How To Grow Your Email List As A Blogger In 2020
Email marketing has always been a key player in digital marketing. This blog will teach you 14 ways on how to grow your email list as a blogger in 2020.
Every year, as the holidays approach, we experience a flood of emails to our inboxes. Endless advertisements, special offers and coupons are bound to find their way in front of our eyes.
No matter what you do you just can’t seem to get away from them. Why is that? How did they get your email address in the first place?
Let’s look at one possibility.
Sometime in the past, you may have drunkenly indulged in an online shopping spree. Don’t worry, we’ve all been there.
Well, during that time you most likely entered your email address and unknowingly opted-in to receive emails from that company upon your checkout.
That right there is one way you became part of what is called an email list.
But, why do corporations do this?
The answer is quite simple…because it works, and as a blogger, you can use an email list the same way businesses do. Except instead of increasing sales, you’re increasing your audience.
I am going to share with you 14 helpful methods on how to grow your email list, all of which I have used to grow mine successfully.
Table of Contents
Strategically Place Sign-Up Forms On Your Website
You can place a sign-up form just about anywhere on your blog. But where is it most effective?
I’m sure you are like me and can’t stand constant pop-ups interrupting your screen as your scrolling. Or forms that are distracting in general.
So, where do you place a sign-up form on your blog that will still catch the user’s eye without interrupting the natural flow of your blog?
Optinmmonster has a full list of where to place your email sign-up form, but as a blogger, I found the least distracting places to add sig-up forms are in the header, the sidebar or as a floating bar.
Blog Header:
Digital marketers will tell you first hand, anything that is important for the user to see should be placed above the fold. Your header is an ideal place as it is always something users will see whether they scroll or not.
Place either your form or a clickable button in your header that will catch the user’s eye the minute they land on your blog.
The Sidebar:
The most classic email sign-up form placement is in the sidebar. More specifically, your sign-up form should be placed at the very top. Again, this is because the top of your sidebar is usually above the fold.
Since the sidebar is one of the most common locations for email sign-up forms, your users will expect to go there to find it.
Floating Bar:
Another common location for an email sign-up form is not exactly in a specific space but is a floating bar that appears at all times on the screen.
Commonly, a floating bar is placed either at the top of the screen or bottom and will stay in place as the user scrolls.
Having a floating bar sign-up will have your form in a clear view for your blog’s visitors at all times. Just be sure to keep it as least distracting as possible.
Simplify Your Sign-Up Form
Today, everything needs to be fast, fast, fast. It has been said that you only have about 3 seconds to get your blog visitor’s attention before they abandon your website.
The same could be said with email sign-up forms. The day of long sign-up forms is over! Simplify your form fields. It should take no longer than 10 seconds for a visitor to fill yours out.
In reality, you really only need two pieces of information:
- The visitor’s first name
- The visitor’s email address
Unless you’re selling a service or product, there is no need to clutter your form with extra fields.
Add An Exit Pop-Up Form For Abandoning Users
An exit email pop-up form is your last effort for persuading your blog visitors to sign-up for your email list.
The whole purpose of an exit pop-up form is to create one more chance for the visitor to take some sort of action on your blog, which in this case would be for them to enter their email address.
Exit pop-up forms can be triggered in multiple ways. You can have them appear once a visitor scrolls to the bottom of your blog, if they hover over another link or if the visitor goes to exit out of your blog altogether.
Ask Current Subscribers To Share Your Content
This is pretty self-explanatory. As a blogger, you probably are in some way already asking or encouraging your current audience to share your content. Whether it be through posts on social media or CTAs in your blog posts.
You can do the same through email blasts. Through emails, kindly ask your recipients to share your blog post or content.
It is just another way you can utilize your audience for spreading the word about your blog.
Most likely, they will share your content with friends and family who would be interested in your content and are willing to sign-up for your email list as well.
Encourage Subscribers To Forward Your Emails
Similar to encouraging your recipients to share your content, you should also encourage them to forward the emails you send them.
By doing this you are opening up the opportunity to connect with your recipient’s friends, family, colleagues and other networks.
Additionally, if your email is sent from one of your recipients, the person they sent it to will be more likely to open it.
This is simply because people trust their personal contacts. It is a lot more personable coming from a friend than it is from an address someone is not familiar with.
Something as simple as adding a sentence saying “please send this email to anyone you think would enjoy our content,” will go a long way.
If you choose to use this method, I suggest adding a CTA or link that directs the user straight to your sign-up form.
Create Engaging Emails
It should go without saying that the emails you’re sending need to be absolutely amazing and well constructed.
Think about the last time you opened up an email from a business or sender you weren’t familiar with?
What urged you to click open?
Whatever it may be, you need to replicate the same interest with your emails.
Strong subject lines, creative imagery and memorable content are key aspects of your email that will not only help you keep your current subscribers but will help you gain more.
There is no foolproof way to compile an email. I suggest testing out a few different styles and running A/B tests. Measure what emails were most successful by noting their open rate. Check out some creative email ideas here.
Utilize Your Old Email List
This method is for those of you that have a previous email list that may have died out. It takes time to accumulate an email list so there is no sense in giving up on your previous efforts.
Send out one last email to the contacts on your old list encouraging them to opt-in to your new mailing list.
The key to success here is to make your email stand out. Rely on eye-catching imagery and try to offer them a special deal or gated content that they would find valuable.
You can also use this as an opportunity to purge your old email list of any contacts that are no longer active.
Create “Gated Offers”
Gated offers are a way you can give visitors something valuable in exchange for their email. Think of it as a promotional item you are offering.
Below are some ideas for Gated Offers:
- E-Books
- Access To Webinars
- Demos
- Tutorials
- How To Guides
- Professional Advice/Insight
The Gated Offer you create needs go above and beyond what you usually create and post on your blog. It has to offer something extra that a visitor typically wouldn’t get through viewing your normal content.
Now, you get the visitor’s email address by promoting this offer to them either through social media, blog posts, paid advertisements or whatever channel you use to communicate with your audience.
The only way they can get the content is by submitting their email address.
Remember, if someone does sign-up for your Gated Offer you must provide them with what you promised. Failure to do so can result in a bad reputation.
Promote Your Offers On Social Media
Social media is a blogger’s best friend when it comes to building an audience.
It is also one of the best places to grow your email list.
Assuming you have social accounts on all major platforms, you can use your following to secure more email addresses by offering sign-ups through posts, tweets, pins, etc.
Pinterest has been the platform where I have had the most success in gaining email addresses. That is because Pinterest is a great platform to advertise Gated Content.
Creating an eye-catching pin will hook your following. Once they click the link they will be taken to your Gated Landing Page, which if they have gone that far, they will most likely fill out your Sign-Up form.
Now, this method doesn’t just work on Pinterest though. Each social platform is different but with a little trial and error, you can use this method the exact same way across the board.
Offer “Bonus Content”
Bonus content is similar to gated content but you’re instead offering an extension on the content the visitor is already reading about.
This works best for blog posts that offer tips, tricks, advice or tutorials.
Basically, what you do is present the visitor with only a section of your blog post and then offer them the rest of the content in exchange for their email address.
Think of it like you are only giving them a taste of the pie. Once they get a taste they are going to want more. That is when you offer them the rest of the pie in exchange for their information.
Create Fun Quizzes
Creating quizzes is a sneaky way to get a visitor’s email address.
There is a phenomenon where people just love to find out “what kind of pasta they are,” or “where their next vacation should be.” These goofy quizzes have been a way blogger’s have been increasing their email lists.
How it works is that you create a quiz using a website like tryinteract or qzzr. You then add the quiz to your website, social media accounts, or wherever you wish to promote it. Once a user fills out the quiz they will be prompted to fill in their email address to receive “their results.”
It may seem like many would not be gullible enough to actually do this, but you will be surprised at the number of users who will put in their information.
Quizzes can take time to make and they should relate to your blog niche. Something would seem fishy if you created a “What Disney Princess Are You?” quiz if you run a sports blog.
Ask For Feedback After Blog Posts
Everyone loves to give their opinion and provide feedback on topics they find interesting.
You can use this to your advantage to grow your email list.
Add an additional form to the end of your blog posts. Here is when you can disregard the simple sign-up form rule and can add form fields that ask your visitors about what they think.
Not only will this tactic provide you with feedback that can help improve the overall quality of your blog, but you can also use it to snag their email information.
Guest Blog On Other Websites
As a blogger, I am sure you are familiar with the importance of guest blogging. It presents us with new opportunities like gaining backlinks and increasing awareness among an audience that is not yours.
However, guest blogging can also be used as a way to increase your email list.
Typically, this is done through a CTA on your guest blog that will direct the visitor to one of your landing pages. More specifically, a landing page that has your sign-up form available.
Run Facebook Ads Offering A Sign-Up
This is the only attempt for increasing email subscribers that will require some money.
Trust me, I know as a blogger money can be tight at sometimes and you may not always have the funds available for ad campaigns.
However, that is why I am suggesting Facebook ads in general. Running Facebook ads is cheap and you have full control over how much money you spend.
What is nice about running Facebook ads is that when you go to set up the campaign, Facebook will provide you with a prompt specifically for creating sign-up advertisements.
They are easy to create, and more importantly, they are proven to work. By creating Facebook ads you can target certain audiences that you know would be interested in signing up for your blog.
Conclusion
Were these tips helpful? If you liked these methods please share with your blogging friends!
Lastly, I would love to hear any methods you use for increasing your email list! Please let me know in the comments below!
This is really helpful. Thanks for all the tips! Will try to incorporate them on my blog 🙂
This is such a useful post. I’ve been trying to build up my email list for months.
These are great tips. This is something that I have to work on with my site. I’ve been hobby blogging since 2012, but now I’m ramping it up and need to add a subscriber opt in. It’s next on my list. Thanks for sharing this great post.
You’ve certainly covered a lot of information and provided some good tips. I’ll need to use some of them.
Nice post, you are definitely giving a great and helpful tips to all blogger to grow their email list. I will definitely share this with my blogger friend.
I am planning on creating some freebies for my blog’s visitors next year, to get them to subscribe to my email list. I need to develop my email list next year.
Thank you for the tips! I am always looks for the best ways to grow my subscribers!!
Huge kudos for these reminders! I think we all need a gentle kick to use as much as we know in developing and taking good care of our email list.
Numbers 4 & 12 are the ones I can try. I think leveraging the readers I already have can really help me.
Thanks for the tips!
I still haven’t work on my email list. Need this. Thanks for the tips.
These are great tips..! Thanks for sharing your knowledge, now I know how to grow my subscribers.
I don’t have an email list. Thanks to you, I guess I think I have to build one today.
These are helpful tips. I am trying to grow my email list/ Thanks for sharing this info.
These are all really great ideas! I like offering gated content. I’ll have to try some of these. Thanks for sharing!
THANK YOU for sharing this. I desperately need to do this in 2020.
I used mailchimp for 1 year. Looking for a change though. This is gonna help for sure.