6 Easy Tools To Grow Your Mailing List

Deciding on your email marketing strategy and what email marketing platform to use is one thing. But how do you get people onto your list once you’ve created it?

Most people opt for a freebie incentive or discount off the first order. These work well and come highly recommended, but be wary you’re not just attracting the person who hunts free handouts and cheaper products. The idea is to attract the right customer who will engage and ultimately buy from you. 

There are many creative ways to entice the right people onto your mailing lists. We’ve compiled a proven list as recommended by our professional Digital Mums that will grow your mailing list ten-fold.

1. Website Pop Ups

A website pop up is the notification box that appears at a set interval after you land on a website. These are most commonly used to entice a purchase so they might be 10% off your first order for example. 

Pop ups are widely used in most business models however and have proven very effective in growing a mailing list. The trick is to make sure you encourage and not annoy. Pop ups should be set to appear at least 20 – 40 seconds after a person has landed on your site. The reason for this is too soon and you run the risk of it being closed straight away. Too late and you might miss them all together. 

In order to set a pop up marketing strategy on your website, you will need a plugin. The two popular WordPress plugins are OptinMonster and Sumo however if you’re using Mailchimp as your mailing platform, Mailmunch For Mailchimp is also very serviceable as a free plugin option (and it’s in the WP Library). For Shopify, Privy is a popular option with cart abandonment features as well.

Tips: 

• Don’t set your popup to appear straight away – Give your customer a chance to experience your site and see if you are going to meet their needs.
• Make it catchy and to the point, people want to know what’s on offer straight away.
• Make your sign up process simple to follow. Email address and first name is all most lists need these days for simple retargeting.
• Look at your Google Analytics traffic to see how long visitors are on your page and set your pop up to catch them before leaving.

2. ‘Hello’ or Floating Bar message

The topbar of your website is prime real estate. It’s the first thing visitors see when they land on your page. The only thing is, most people only see it for a total of 2-3 seconds before they scroll down unless you set it to floating.This space is great for linking to your primary page, advertising lead magnets or even advertising store wide notifications like free shipping. The Hello bar or Floating Bars are very effective as they are unobtrusive and don’t tend to annoy. You can also place them along the bottom or to the side of your pages and set to pop up as the visitor scrolls.

Tips:

• Keep your floating bar short, sweet and to the point.
• Use contrasting colours to make the bar stand out i.e. white on black or yellow on blue.
• Highlight a call to action clearly with “Sign Up Now” or “Don’t Miss Out”.

3. Facebook lead magnets

Millions of people are on Facebook every day. So it makes sense to capture leads from such a rich resource. Facebook lead magnets are a very efficient way of collecting marketing leads with a few simple clicks. Unlike sending someone to your website and trying to capture their details there, Facebook lead ads keep it simple with an instant sign up form. The key with this process is people stay on Facebook and it doesn’t give them time to back out or get distracted. Just make sure you target your ads to your audience otherwise you could get a lackless list of non engaged people. 

Tips:

• Great for a freebie or lead magnet to your business i.e. checklist or eBook.
• Make sure you target to your niche market for better ROI.
• Keep your ad on point and use a video if possible for better reach.

4. Messenger BOTS

Similarly to the lead magnets, Messenger BOTS are becoming increasingly popular due to the frequency that people are on social media. There are a few ways you can implement them, most commonly through asking for comments on a Facebook post or having a “Send to Messenger” call to action on your website. By introducing this into your marketing strategy, you too can be in the moment with your potential customers and lead them to your mailing list through the chat.

Tips:

• You will need to create an account with a third party platform and integrate it. I use ManyChats which I find really good.
• By using a platform such as Messenger you can deliver instantaneous messages to your potential customers seconds after their initial interaction with you. 
• They remain on Facebook so there is less chance for them to be distracted.
• Little to no set up costs involved.

5. Instagram

This is a little trickier as Instagram isn’t as keen to allow active URL’s in their platform. However, many people have had great success in leading people to their mailing list through the profile URL. The BIO URL can be changed as many times as you like, so if you’re running a promotion or freebie change this URL to your sign up landing page rather than your homepage. By doing this you’re making it a one click sign up with easy access to your lead magnet.

Tips:

• Pop your URL into a URL tracker program like bit.ly and you can also track your leads and clicks from Instagram to your sign up.
• Use your Instagram post image and content to attract your customer and then lead them to click on your BIO URL for the goodies.
• You can reach a much larger audience through the use of #hashtags

6. Facebook Business Page

As simple as it is, there is the option to have a subscribe button on your Facebook business page. You receive many visitors to your page and these days hitting the “Like” button just isn’t enough for you to reach them later on. Activating the “Sign Up” button may entice a potential customer to sign up so they can stay up to date with news and remember you at a later date. 

Tips:

• Change your Facebook banner image to advertise your lead magnet and strategically have an arrow in your graphic pointing to the button.
• Send a post to your Facebook followers about your lead magnet and how to access it. Pin this post to the top of your page so it’s the first one visitors see when they land on you.

Building your mailing list does take time, but the rewards are endless. Your list is money and the stronger you make it the better your return on investment will be.

Do you need help with your Email Marketing?

Why not contact one of our email marketing experts on the Digital Mums Directory to help with your business email marketing strategy or simply someone to manage it all for you, we also have some awesome Business Coaches and Virtual Assistants.