By now you know the importance of email marketing and how it can help bring in current and new people into your business. (If you don’t, shame on you. Read some of our past blogs.) Email marketing has proven to be a fantastic way to keep your fans and followers engaged in what you do. But if you aren’t one of the lucky ones who already have a sizable distribution list, how do you get there?
Building your list is actually a lot easier than it seems. Here is a simple formula that practically guarantees success in building your list:
Offer a valuable incentive + make it ridiculously easy to subscribe
Offer an Incentive
Here are some ways you could do this.
- High quality content – If you are just one of a thousand others doing what you are doing, your subscribers aren’t looking for thought leadership. But if you have a unique perspective to offer, get it out there and see if it gets traction. Once you have a sizeable list, high quality content keeps your subscribers tuned in.
- Discounts and special offers – You know the drill here. One thing we like to see is our clients doing special offers on underutilized equipment. For instance, if you have a laser hair removal machine that isn’t fully booked, offer a discount to keep it churning revenue.
- Access to exclusive promotions – If you put the same offers from your newsletter on Facebook and on your website, why subscribe? Make your newsletter offers your best ones, and make them exclusive. This also makes it easier to track where people are coming from as when people inquire about a specific special you know where it was advertised.
- Giveaways and contests – It’s no surprise, we all love to win prizes. Send subscribers to a custom landing page with the giveaway details and any rules of participation. Make sure you are familiar with the laws governing contests for your business and get your counsel involved, especially if you are planning a higher dollar giveaway.
Make It Easy to Subscribe
Opting in to your newsletter needs to be super simple.
- Contact forms – Every form on your site should have a checkbox at the end to easily subscribe to special offers and updates.
- Social icons – The place on your site where you list your social links (Facebook, Twitter, etc) should also have a newsletter subscribe option. A little envelope icon will do nicely here.
- Facebook page – You can easily add a newsletter app to your Facebook page to encourage your FB fans to opt in.
- Feature box – You can add a feature box to your pages encouraging opt in and describe why they should subscribe to your updates.
- Subscribe landing page – Use this page to explain the benefits of joining the newsletter. One benefit of this over a feature block is that you can link to the new page from your email signature, giving you another way to promote your newsletter signup.
- Content offering – If you have a whitepaper or other exclusive content, make it accessible after a user subscribes.
- Offline sign up – Make it easy to subscribe to your newsletter in your physical business. Provide a sign-up sheet, a kiosk, a checkbox on forms, etc.
Of course, it doesn’t hurt to do all of these things if you are really determined to build your list. If you follow the simple steps above you will be on your way to building a sizable email marketing list.