"7 Easy Ways to Grow Your Email List"
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Here are the 7 easy ways or tactics most successful businesses use for growing their email address lists:
1. Ask!
Do you have people who are currently supporting your business or just coming in to browse? So why not ask them to provide your business with their email address to enable you to contact them whenever you get new products or services that might be of interest to them?
All you have to do is to create a page where everyone walking into your business will simply put their email address to receive important alerts regarding offers from you.
But don't expect everybody who walks in to magically part with their email. You have to ask for it. And if they think that you deserve it, they will gladly write it down for you on the page you provide.
It' that simple!
2. Website Opt-in Form
One of the best and sure-fire way to get the email addresses is by putting an Opt-in on every page of your website or blog or any other page through which they will be able to arrive (or land) on your website or blog.
However, it is not easy for a visitor to just giveaway their email address. Unless you have something that they perceive as valuable to them which you can give out for free as an inducement for them to to be able to part with the email address.
For example, you could write something like this; "Subscribe to our newsletter and you'll receive a 7-week financial planning course on wealth creation!"
Or, "Join our mailing list and get an opportunity to download The Science of Getting Rich ebook - Free!"
Alternatively, you could use a pop-up opt-in form that comes out as five seconds after the visitor lands onto the page or is about to leave the page. Most of the time, pops out bring better results than the conventional opt-in form.
Best thing is to test which opt-in option works best for your email building campaign.
However you decide, don't just put a form that does not compliment your website or blog page. Let everything the customer see first hand as professionally possible as you can, and your expected results will increase.
3. Send Postcards.
Another great way to grow your email list is through the use of postcards to get in touch with your current customers and target prospects.
Although not cheaper than sending out email referral requests to existing clients, postcard mailings can prove very profitable in the long run. But if you have extra cash to spend, why not use some of it to grow your business by trying different methods?
After all, you're in this business to make more money for yourself or shareholders, right?
Although not cheaper than sending out emails, postcard mailings can prove very profitable in the long run.
Most successful businesses mail postcards at regular intervals to keep their customers up to date regarding new products, offers, or just to wish them well on reaching special milestones in their lives. Think birthdays, anniversaries, and many more!.
Perhaps you wish them to refer you to their friends, family members or co-workers? Use this opportunity to ask them to include their friends' email addresses when sending back your postage-paid reply-card.
Best thing is, if other's who are currently using this marketing method say it works for them, why not give it a try yourself? Who knows, maybe this is the opportunity you've been missing out on to have thousands of prospective customers waiting in line to hear what you have in store for them in the next offer you'll be sending out soon!
4. Offer Free Gifts.
You're probably asking: "Why should I offer people a free gift? Will that not prove too expensive as I am currently low on funds?
Hardly!
You see, a free gift does not have to be something very expensive that you wish to get for somebody. There are hundreds of gifts out there most people will appreciate if send to them by a thoughtful person.
For example, you could offer your customers a discount in exchange of giving you their email and those of their friends and family members.On the other hand, you could offer customers free advice on how to store their perishables in their fridge with the purpose to minimize damage and increase the product's shelf life.
As already mentioned in Part 2 of "7 Ways ...", you could also offer a free pdf report, mp3 format messages, or a productivity software or script for customers to use on their computer to get things done in less time than usual.
All you have to do is search the Internet for these freebies or join giveaway sites to make sure you have the right giveaways to send out to your customers or website visitors just for asking their friends to join your newsletter, membership site, and so on.
The main thing is that your business will be scoring top marks by growing your current email list by the hundreds, maybe thousands, of targeted new prospects. And all this at no cost to you, except the time it took to produce pdf report or setup the script.
5. Link Your Opt-in Form to Email Signature..
Why should you link to your opt-in form from the email signature.
Multiply that figure by the number of emails you send out every week/month. Say, for example, you're sending 350 emails each week, then 250 X 3 means there are 750 more people who read your emails, and more especially, your signature at the bottom of the email.
As it happens, most people also like to own what their friends are currently enjoying. So if 1 out of 3 extra people who read your email decide to they also want to receive your newsletter, information, or whatever, you stand to gain 250 subscribers for your business. Which means more profits for your business when some of the people on your list respond favourably to your product offer by making a purchase from the business!
Have you already setup a signature for every email or newsletter you send out? If not, what are you waiting for? Go email something today, and get many friends...er...subscribers!
6. Advertise!
The majority of people out there don't know you exist! But what if you could get them to notice you?
Fact is, you don't want to be seen by every Tom, Dick and Harry who won't bring value to your advertising efforts, right? So it stands to reason that you only want to attract those guys who will be worth every tiny dollar you spend on the advert. And that means you will have to choose the right place from which to attract your target market.
So do you know which is the right place to get your name in front of your target prospects?
First off, we both know that the conventional method used by big businesses to advertise their products, examples, TV, newspaper and billboards, is beyond the reach of most small business, right. Granted, a couple of lines in the classifieds column of your local paper might do the trick, but will that be enough to help your business to grow beyond the corner shop level? I guess not!
So where do you go from there?
Well, the Internet is crawling with websites which specializes in getting your business in front of people with similar needs. For example, you could join a forum where people are searching fr information regarding, for example, trading on NYSE stock exchanges, productivity software, financial planning and investing, or information on starting a business online.
Here's a short list to check out...
a) Forums. By joining these forums, you could soon be regarded as an expert in your field such that people would start to regard you as the person to go to for advice on a specific product or service.
b) Article Directories. If you're an expert at something, say, financial planning, write information articles and place them in an article directory, such as www.EzineArticles.com, and link your opt-in form from the author's resource box. Readers who find your articles interesting will be able to register their email address to be alerted when new articles are posted.
c) Banner Exchange Directories. Place you banner in a free banner directory and link back to a website landing page with an opt-in form ans ask visitors to sign up with their email to receive something of value plus weekly issues of your newsletter.
d) Link Exchanges. Although not a good place to make offers of your products or services because the majority of people in the link exchange programs are also trying to sell something to you.
So your best bet would be to use a link exchange program as a gateway to get people to visit your website - nothing more.
There are many other advertising avenues you could take advantage of out there which are too many to list in this newsletter.
7. Social Media
Social media. Twitter, for example, are growing more and more everyday with people signing up to get their information across to their targeted audience.
Nowadays, most professionals, politicians and small business owners keep in touch with their target prospects and customers through the use of 'tweets' (short sms-like messages) to connect with them. For example, everyday I receive CBS News messages and click on a link which takes me to the page from which I read the full message.
Likewise, you can write a short message on your Twitter account and let the people who join to receive your messages - also known as followers - know what you're doing that will benefit them.
As a business owner, you can also write regular short messages inviting followers to click on the link and subscribe to your website or blog newsletter.
You could also join some of your followers and visit their websites or blog and link back to your website/blog after you leave your comments.
Click here to Test-drive email marketing software - FREE!
Click here to Test-drive email marketing software - FREE!
2010 Andrew Molobetsi. All rights reserved.
