If you are a blogger or have any type of online business, you likely heard about email marketing.
You probably also noticed that every time you visit one of the big blogs you get asked to sign up for their newsletter.
So why so many businesses and successful bloggers are building email lists?
The number one reason why an email list is so valuable is that you own your subscribers.
This is means that even if your blog disappears or you lose all your followers on YouTube or Instagram you will still have your email list.
No one can take your email list away from you.
Even if your email marketing provider goes down, you will still be able to have all the emails by backing up your email list to an Excel spreadsheet.
So do you really need to build an email list?
The short answer is yes and here are some reasons why it is important to start growing your email list as soon as possible.
What are the Benefits of Building an Email List?
1) Increased revenue per visitor
After the visitors get to your blog, you don’t want them to leave and never come back.
What you can do is grab their email address by offering something of value in return.
This way you will always stay in touch with your visitors and will be able to continue sharing your content with them and advertise your services.
So even if your visitor doesn’t buy anything from you on the first visit to your blog, they will be able to purchase your service or product later when they feel more comfortable or have the money.
Here is a simple analogy.
You go to a networking event and someone strikes up a conversation with you about the product you are offering but in the end, says that he is not ready to buy it right now and leaves.
Shouldn’t you ask for his business card in case he changes his mind in the future? Of course!
The same goes for collecting emails of the visitors that read your content.
2) You email list subscribers are more willing to make a purchase
It is always easier to convince someone to buy your product if you first build some rapport.
With an email list you will have a lot of opportunities to build a connection with your subscribers which will make them more willing to spend money on your products or services.
3) An additional traffic source to your blog
With an email list you will be getting more traffic to your blog.
However the best thing is that this traffic will not be affected if Google decides to change its algorithm and move your blog lower in search results or one of your pages on Facebook gets shut down.
You are in full control of your email list.
4) A higher number of returning customers
Depending on your niche you can sell services to your email subscribers over and over again generating consistent revenue without putting any extra work.
5) Higher engagement
The engagement rate on the internet is decreasing more and more because of all the distractions and it is not easy to grab your visitor’s or followers’ attention anymore.
Even if you have 100,000 followers on Instagram, your engagement rate is likely around 3%.
If you have an email list on the other hand, your engagement will likely be closer to 20%.
6) Direct communication channel with your subscribers
Every time you send the email to your subscribers it will go directly into your subscribers’ email inbox and they will likely see a notification on their phone.
That’s why emailing is one of the most effective ways to reach your subscribers.
How to Start With Building Your Email List?
The first step is to choose an email marketing service provider that you will use for building your email list.
When I started with building my email list on one of my blogs, I did quite a bit of research to find the best email marketing service.
There are about a dozen different options that you can choose from.
I went with ConvertKit because they are very popular among many bloggers and offer free accounts if you have less than 500 subscribers.
This allowed me to start building my email list and play with all the settings without spending any money.
It is not that hard to move your subscribers from one email service provider to another so you can always change your mind later.
Can You Build an Email List Without a Website?
You don’t really need a blog to start building an email list.
Most email marketing services provide you with all you need to build your email list without a website.
You can use your social media to drive traffic to a landing page where you can give something for free in exchange for an email address.
This can be a great strategy for Instagramers and YouTubers that want to take advantage of email marketing to add another source of income and be able to continue generating revenue even if something happens to their current platform.
Ex. Their Instagram gets hacked and they lose all their followers or they simply get banned.
How to Grow Your Email List Fast?
1) Offer a freebie
First of all it is important to understand that you need to give your visitors a reason to subscribe to your email list.
Just because you have a subscribe box on your site asking for email, it doesn’t mean that your visitors will actually add their emails there.
That’s why one of the fastest methods for building your email list is to offer something for free in exchange for email sign up.
Many bloggers offer free eBooks, courses or access to premium content to entice visitors to sign up for their email newsletter.
Most of your visitors will not give you their email address unless you can offer them something of value in return.
2) Take advantage of smart opt-in popups
Most internet users agree that pop-ups disrupt user experience but when done properly it can be one of the fastest ways to build your email list.
Many email marketing providers have an option to program your pop-ups to only show up when your visitor is about to exit your blog.
Exit Intent technology works by displaying a pop-up to your visitors when their cursor moves away from your website.
For example when your visitor wants to exit your blog by closing the browser window or clicking on the back button in a browser.
3) Use your online presence to build your email list
To get even more subscribers to your email list use your social media presence and drive your followers to your landing page where they can get your freebie by subscribing to your email list.
Here is the list of some platforms you can use to build your email list:
- · Youtube
- · Quora
To avoid being spammy have a link to your landing page in your bio instead of adding it to every post.
You can also add a link to your email signature or at the bottom of your guest posts.
4) Don’t spam
You definitely want to avoid spamming your subscribers by continuously sending them affiliate offers or products not related to your niche.
Always try to provide valuable content to your subscribers to keep them.
The problem with spamming is that first of all your subscribers will start to unsubscribe and secondly you might get blacklisted by email providers which will result in your emails going directly into the junk folder.
5) Use paid ads to build an email list
Another way to build your email list fast is to use paid ads.
With paid ads you can get really specific on the type of traffic that you send to your landing pages.
As I mentioned in a few of my earlier posts, many ad agencies give free ad credits if you never ran ads with them.
This is can be a great way to add more subscribers to your email list by using free credits from those ads agencies instead of spending your own money.
6) Ask your subscribers to share your emails
One way to get more exposure is to ask your subscribers to forward your emails to their friends who might also enjoy your content.
This works well if you share premium high-quality content.
In the signature of the email you can have a subscription link so that anyone who is reading your email but not a subscriber yet can sign up for your newsletter.
7) Clean your email list
It is important to keep your email list clean and only keep the subscribers that actually read your emails.
A certain percentage of your subscribers will only join your email list to get the freebie that you are offering and are not planning to buy anything from you or even read your emails.
Other visitors might sign up but then stop using their current email address which might result in you sending emails to people that are not opening their emails anymore.
By removing subscribers who are not interacting with your emails anymore, you will make your email list smaller and more targeted.
This also means that you will pay less to your email marketing service provider.
Conclusion
It doesn’t matter if you have a blog or you are an influencer on Instagram, you can benefit from building an email list.
The earlier you start building your email list the better.
Think of it as an investment portfolio.
The more targeted subscribers you have, the more revenue you will be able to generate from your list.
Also as with investing, it is important not to put all your eggs in one basket and not rely on Google or Instagram to bring you all your traffic.
The email list can help you to diversify your blog traffic and become another consistent revenue source.
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