23 Easy Ways to Grow Your Email List in 2022

Want to know how to grow your email list? This is essential for any successful email marketing strategy. 

Your email list is pure potential for your business. The more email subscribers you have, the greater your chances are of increasing sales and growing your brand. While there’s a lot that goes into successful email marketing, the first step is to gain email subscribers. 

Don’t worry, this isn’t as difficult s you think it is. 

In this guide, we’ll explain 23 common strategies that any kind of business can use to attract email subscribers. 

What is an Email List?

An email list is a database of addresses that a business has generated from people who want to receive messages from them. 

This list can include existing customers and prospects. Email lists are generated when someone adds their email address to a signup form and agrees to receive content and updates from your business via email. 

You can’t run an email marketing strategy without having an email list to start with. And the more you can grow your email list, the better your email marketing results should be. Any business that uses email marketing should be constantly applying strategies to grow its email list. 

How to Grow Your Email List: 23 Strategies

Here are 23 of the best strategies to help you get more email subscribers. These strategies can be used by all kinds of businesses.

1. Create Amazing Email Content
2. Create a Gated Lead Generation Offer
3. Host Webinars
4. Run a Giveaway
5. Set Up a Referral Program
6. Offer a Free Course
7. Offer Bonus Content
8. Offer a Coupon
9. Offer a Free Tool
10. Make the Most Of Popups
11. Attract Subscribers On Social Media
12. Add Engagement Features to YouTube Videos
13. Promote Your Email Marketing in Banner Images
14. Use Your Instagram Bio
15. Optimize Your Signup Form
16. Add Email Preferences
17. Use Instagram’s Swipe Up Feature
18. Ask Website Visitors for Feedback
19. Run a Double Opt-In Campaign
20. Promote Special Offers
21. Let Your Audience Sign Up to Your Blog
22. Add Social Proof to Your Lead Capturing Forms
23. Use the Right Lead Generation Software

1. Create Amazing Email Content

Rule number one is to create valuable, informative, unique, or entertaining email content. It doesn’t matter how many techniques you use to collect email addresses – if your email content isn’t any good, you won’t be able to hold onto any subscribers. 

Great email content will help you retain subscribers, and it will help your existing subscribers to talk about your brand and recommend your emails. 

So, make sure your emails add value to your audience and that they stand out. Without great email content, you’ll have a hard time being able to collect email addresses. 

2. Create a Gated Lead Generation Offer

Grow your email list by offering something your audience will find valuable in return for their email address. You could offer something like a free ebook or video, and host this on a landing page. Visitors can download this special piece of content after providing their email addresses. 

Just make sure that the lead generation offer is valuable, and that it matches the interest of your ideal subscribers. 

Top Tip: Add the subscribers from the lead generation offer to a special email list. This lets you understand their interest (the topic of the lead magnet), which you can send them targeted content about. You could also automatically enter these new leads into a relevant email sequence.

3. Host Webinars

Webinars are an excellent addition to any marketing strategy, and they can help you generate a lot more email subscribers and potential customers. 

Host a webinar on a topic that your audience will be interested in, and capture their email address when they sign up. The webinar should be free. 

You can even partner up with other companies or special guests to maximize your promotional efforts. In return, you coil each share the leads.

Top Tip: Record the live webinar and use the video recording as a lead magnet to continue growing your mailing list long after the event is over. 

4. Run a Giveaway

Hands down, giveaways are one of the most effective strategies to grow your email list. The easiest way to do this is to offer a free product or service to one lucky, randomly selected winner. All entrants need to do is provide their email addresses and name. 

This works because everyone who enters is showing an interest in your business, You can then target these leads with strategic content and discounts to boost your sales. 

To run a lead generation giveaway, you’ll need to use a tool to capture email addresses and add them to a database. Wishpond is the best solution for this, providing a single platform to generate leads, manage email campaigns, and more. 

5. Set Up a Referral Program

This is one of the best ways to generate a lot of email subscribers in a short space of time. To do this, you’ll need to offer your existing subscribers something of value with each successful referral they make. 

For example, you could give away a free T-Shirt to everyone who attracts 10 new email subscribers with their unique referral link. Your subscribers send the link to 10 of their friends, each of these people sends it to 10 of their friends, and so your email list grows like crazy.

As long as you have the right offer and make it easy to enter, referral marketing can be one of the best ways to grow your email list. Take a look at these referral marketing tips to help you out. 

6. Offer a Free Course

A course can be a great way to attract new email subscribers. If you already have valuable content out there, like blog posts pr videos, then you can repurpose this into a free course. 

Set up an online course that consists of multiple programs, or lessons. This could come in the form of a daily email, videos, articles, PDFs, or more. Offer all the information, and then set up a quiz at the end. 

Then offer this course for free in return for an email address. 

As long as the course is valuable, it will be a great way to attract leads. And if the course content is of high quality, this will also help you develop a stronger brand reputation.

7. Offer Bonus Content

Bonus content is when you offer something o extra value compared to what you already have available. For example, you might have a blog post that offers 10 beginner tips on a certain topic. Then, add an extra 5 expert tips available as a downloadable resource. This is bonus content. 

Bonus content works because you’re already attracting people with your free content. If they’re interested in what you have to offer, then they will want to read more. This is a great way to ask for an email address in return for valuable information. 

8. Offer a Coupon

Coupons are an effective way for eCommerce stores to grow their email lists. Instead of offering content, offer a discount. It’s incredibly effective, because who doesn’t love a discount? Not only this, but new subscribers will quickly turn into customers because of the discount. 

Promote your email signup offer across your website. A great way to do this is to show it as a popup on product pages. Users just need to sign up, and they get sent an automatic discount code.

You grow your email list and make a new sale, your customer gets a discount, and builds a more positive image around your brand. It’s a win-win situation.

9. Offer a Free Tool

This is a good idea for software companies. If you have the resources available, create a free tool that users can unlock by providing their name and email address. The tool can be simple, and it can help users to get inspired to upgrade to a paid version. 

This is an effective way to grow your email list because you’re offering a high-value product in exchange for something easy to provide (an email address). It’s also unique because not many businesses are able to create custom tools that they offer for free. 

Finally. This strategy works well because you don’t only get to attract email subscribers, but you know exactly what these subscribers are interested in. This makes it easier to target your mailing list with relevant content to get higher levels of engagement.  

10. Make the Most Of Popups

Popups are one of the best tools for any website or landing page to increase conversions. If you’re wondering how to grow your email list, using popups is incredibly important. 

You can use popups to complement all of the strategies you use to attract new email subscribers. Most websites don’t use popups enough on their pages to attract attention and get the website visitors to perform an action. 

Try to add popups wherever necessary, and strategically time them so that they appear when the user is already engaging with your content. Ideally, these popups should be personalized based on the content the web page displays. Add a clear CTA in the popup to get the user to sign up for your email list, and explain what kind of value they will get in return. 

11. Attract Subscribers On Social Media

Social media is all about sharing valuable content with your audience. You can use your social media channels to share snippets of your newsletter content to help entice subscribers. Mention in the post that the content is from your newsletter and share the signup link if they want to access more content. 

This is a great way to grow your email marketing list, while also being able to repurpose your email marketing content for social media.

12. Add Engagement Features to YouTube Videos

If you share interesting YouTube content, you can try to direct your YouTube viewers to become email subscribers. To do this, you will need to use end screens strategically. End screens are shown at the end of a video and they display an action that the viewer can take. 

You can use these end screens to direct viewers to your email signup landing page. This works best when you share general informative videos and want to get your viewers to find out more. 

13. Promote Your Email Marketing in Banner Images

Whether it’s your YouTube channel’s header image or your cover photo on Facebook or LinkedIn, you can use this space to collect email addresses. These banner images are an excellent opportunity to share the value of your email marketing and include a CTA to get users to sign up. 

Add a clear and simple CTA that displays the value of your email marketing campaigns. Then include a link that users can follow to land on your signup landing page. 

14. Use Your Instagram Bio

Your Instagram bio is a limited space where you can only share 150 characters and one link. If your goal is to grow your email list, then try to get your followers to become subscribers. 

Share plenty of valuable content on Instagram and engage with your followers. Then, when people visit your Instagram page, they will have a clear direction that points toward your email signup form. 

As always, make sure you highlight the value and benefits of signing up for your mailing list. 

15. Optimize Your Signup Form

However you get people to your email sign up form, you’ll want to make sure they add in their details. The best way to do this is to make the process as simple as possible. 

Effective email signup forms don’t ask for a lot of information. While what you ask for should expend on your specific business needs, most businesses only need a first name and an email address. Heck, you can even just ask for an email address. 

The more requirements you add, the more difficult you make it for people to subscribe. If website visitors land on your signup form only to find they need to fill out 10 different lines, they might soon leave the page. 

16. Add Email Preferences 

If you want to know how to grow your email list, the most important thing is to send out great email content that adds value to your audience. Many people are hesitant to sign up for mailing lists because they think they will just be bombarded with spammy marketing messages. 

A great solution is to let your new subscribers choose their preferences. This is when the sign-up form on your landing page has an option for the kind of content they want to receive. For example, if you are an eCommerce store, you could include options like:

• Discounts
• Promotional offers
• New product details
• Weekly newsletter

Subscribers only tick the box they want, which means they only receive the kind of emails they want to receive. You get a more engaged email list, and you give more people to subscribe to your list because they know that they won’t receive messages that don’t appeal to them. 

17. Use Instagram’s Swipe Up Feature

Unfortunately, this feature is only available to Instagram users with a business account and at least 10,000 followers. If you tick these boxes, then you can use the swipe-up feature to gain email followers. 

This feature is when you share a clickable link in your Instagram Stories, and users swipe up to tap the link. You can use this link to send your followers to a lead generation offer, a piece of gated content, or just straight to your sign-up page. 

18. Ask Website Visitors for Feedback

You don’t only have to gain email signups through promoting your newsletter. You can also gain new email subscriptions by asking customers to get a hold of you. 

Add a section to your website that asks website visitors for feedback. You can include a form that includes common questions visitors have about your business. They add their email address, select the question, and wait to hear back from you. You can capture that email address, and add it to your database. 

19. Run a Double Opt-In Campaign

Using double opt-ins won’t necessarily get you more email subscribers, but it will help you build up a more engaged email list. Use any of the tactics mentioned earlier to attract new signups, and then send them an email as soon as they opt-in for your mailing list.

This email contains a second step, where the user verifies their email address and confirms their interest in receiving emails from you. Doing this ensures you build a list of subscribers who are interested in your brand. This should mean more engagement, which can help achieve more with email marketing. 

20. Promote Special Offers

If you don’t want to run a giveaway as part of your lead generation efforts, you can also promote special offers. This could include discount coupons or special promotions like a free product or free shipping. Using special offers to grow your email list works best for eCommerce stores, although any business can try this strategy out.

Use a landing page, popups, and your social media channels to promote the special offer. For users to access this special offer, they will need to add their email list. Then you can add their email address to your mailing list, and automatically send them a discount code.

21. Let Your Audience Sign Up to Your Blog

If your business doesn’t have a blog, then it’s definitely time to start one. Blogs can help you improve your search engine rankings and attract new customers. They’re also a great way to gain email subscribers. 

Publish content on your blog that your target customers would be interested in, and offer an email signup form on your blog. New subscribers will get sent your latest blog posts. Then, once you have warmed these subscribers up, you can always get them to upgrade to more actionable email campaigns. 

22. Add Social Proof to Your Lead Capturing Forms

Once people land on your lead capture forms, you want to ensure they follow through and dd their details. Social proof is a great way to do this. 

Social proof could include reviews, testimonials, trust badges, or anything else that shows other people trust your business. A strong testimonial could provide just the push visitors need to become subscribers. 

23. Use the Right Lead Generation Software 

If you want to get as many email subscribers as possible, then you’ll need to use the best lead generation software for your business. This is essential for your marketing efforts, and for turning direct visitors to your website into subscribers. 

Some essentials that you will need for lead generation include:

• Landing pages
• Online forms
• Popups
• A leads database
• An integrated email marketing tool

Wishpond provides all of this in a single platform. Beyond the features listed above, you can also use Wishpond to run social giveaways, set up an appointments calendar on your website, and more – all of which can help you grow your email list. 

Having all of these features in a single platform makes email marketing and lead generation a far easier and more efficient process. 

Summary

There are many different ways that you can gather email addresses. As long as you have great signup forms and a compelling call to action button, you can promote this in all kinds of different ways. The more strategies you use to gain email subscribers, the faster your mailing list will grow.

Of course, this is only the first step. The second step is to end out amazing email content to engage your subscribers and get them to take an action. Get this right, and your business will be unstoppable!

If you want to learn more about email marketing, check out some of our guides below. 

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