Email marketing is one of the most cost-effective ways to generate new leads and convert them into customers. With the help of email marketing businesses can continuously build strong relationships with their clients. However, to be able to start planning your marketing emails you need to have a mailing list. So, how can you gain new subscribers?
Smart Tips on How to Get More Email Subscribers
It will take some time to organically create a good quality mailing list (we are not talking about purchasing data here!), but it is very much possible. To have a reliable email database you do not necessarily need to have a big marketing team. In fact, businesses of any size, freelancers, sole traders – anyone can start building an email list.
Be Visible
If you want to get people on your mailing list, then it’s not the time to be modest. Your subscription boxes should be clearly visible as they need to attract attention. Use your landing page for it or if you have a website, make sure you present opportunities for your readers to subscribe across different pages.
You can insert text inviting to subscribe throughout your various blog posts, and on your home page; you can use sidebars or footers too. Utilising powerful images to attract attention can also increase your subscription rate.
Keep on Testing
Test your CTA buttons – see which colour works best. Try out different text combinations. For example, maybe your audience will respond to “opt-in” better than to “subscribe”. Don’t forget that you can test button and font sizes, call-to-action placement and many other elements. However, try to stay on brand!
We have to remind you – be mindful of the current regulations (such as GDRP) and don’t mislead your subscribers.
Uncomplicated Opt-in Forms
One of the most frequent reasons for the subscriber form abandonment is overly complicated and lengthy opt-in forms. Remember, you are asking your subscribers to give their personal information over to you willingly.
Thus, make sure your forms are short and easy to complete (however, depending on the industry you are operating, you might need to collect more information about your subscribers to be compliant with the current regulations).
Make Use of the Pop-ups
Correct usage of opt-in pop-ups has been statistically proven to increase subscription rates. For example, the Aweber blog highlighted the difference in the subscription rates between a sidebar and a pop-up (so-called “lightbox”) already back in 2012. The tested pop-up achieved a much better result.
Thus, pop-ups can help a great deal with your subscriber generation. Moreover, there are many different pop-ups out there – you can find out which ones work well for you. For example, you can set your pop-ups to appear when people are about to leave your page.
Don’t forget that pop-ups can be annoying and disruptive, so make sure you choose wisely.
What’s Trending?
An excellent article by Sumo highlights several trending subscription tools, so let’s take a quick look at some of them:
- Welcome Mat displays a full-screen CTA covering all the pages before visitors can see your website.
- Scroll Box is a type of pop-up appearing on your page after your website visitor reads a certain percentage of your page. In other words, he or she scrolls down and reaches the parameters you have set to trigger it.
- Smart Bars can be used at the bottom or the top of your website to remind your visitors about your emails without looking too “salesy”.
By the way, Smaily has integrations with different pop-up forms, so you can safely check out and test several options.
Show Your Value and Give Something in Return
Clearly show the benefits of subscribing to your emails. For example, an excellent way to do that is to showcase good feedback from others.
You will also often find businesses using lead magnets, downloadable whitepapers, various giveaways, special offers, or discount coupons for new subscribers.
Next: How to Get More Email Subscribers and Look After Your Email Database, Part 2
In part 2, we’ll have a look at how nurturing your database will help your email campaigns become even more successful, reduce bounces, unsubscribed, and, of course, abuse complaints.
Make sure you check our blog regularly, and don’t forget to subscribe to our emails. Or you may want to follow up on the last blog post on Successful Email Marketing: Introduction Into A/B Testing if you’ve missed it.