Build Your Email List: 55+ Proven Methods

Are you tired of constantly striving and struggling to bring traffic to your website? 

Do you just want recurring traffic, so you can sit back and see your blog or website earning money? 

Have you been through experiences where you’re getting no visitors on your website for sales conversion? 

Or are you just simply looking for highly effective, proven strategies that JUST work as you implement them? 

Well, in any of the above cases, it is obvious that you want to build an email list because that assures you consistent, relevant traffic on your website without too much effort. 

You may be looking for tips, tricks, and strategies to help you build and grow your email list fast. 

Well, your search is over as we’re here, listing more than 75 tips, tricks, strategies, and hacks to build and grow your email list fast. 

So, here we go.  

methods to build grow your email list
methods to build grow your email list

Contents

Create Highly-Effective Email Content 

You need to work on your email marketing copy as that’s what interacts and engages the target readers in the first place. 

If your email marketing copy is not impactful, relevant, and powerful enough to connect with the audience, then there is no way more people will join your email list. 

More than that, even if you add plenty of people to your email list, they will gradually unsubscribe from your newsletter as your email content is not valuable and effective. 

What worst can happen is after getting irrelevant or bad-quality email content, they might get frustrated enough to mark your email as spam. 

And if that happens with multiple recipients, it can ruin your IP address reputation and hurt your email deliverability and the sender’s credibility. 

Here’s are a few tips to write a phenomenal email marketing copy to get you started with : 

  • Know your targeted audience 
  • Write your emails with a goal or purpose
  • Write attention-grabbing subject lines
  • Craft highly-personalized emails 
  • Put a promise in your subject line that hooks 
  • Highlight the benefits of the products, not the features 
  • Show your personality in your emails 
  • Infuse curiosity into your subject lines 
  • Be concise and to the point with your email copy
  • Make sure to integrate some CTA at the end

Use Facebook Ads To Generate Leads 

Facebook Ads, to begin with, is a powerful ad campaign platform to reach out to the maximum of your targeted audience. 

But wouldn’t it be better if you can retain all those contacts that come across your website or the landing page? 

This will give you a sudden increase in your email contact list, where you have to ask them for their email address in exchange for a lead magnet. 

Segment Your Email List 

Email segmentation is an extremely advanced strategy of email marketing not just to increase engagement and conversion on your contact list but also to gain more people. 

Segmenting your audience increases the reliability and relevance factor while you reach out to more people, increasing conversion. 

More targeted users will be inclined to be on your contact list as compared to less targeted or irrelevant users. 

Start Blogging 

Not blogging in the niche you’re selling your product is leaving money on the table. Blogging establishes your brand as an industry leader. 

It helps you reach out to relevant and targeted potential customers. You help them with your content on a particular niche, and they instill their trust in your brand. 

Through blogging and content marketing, you can gain more and more potential subscribers over time. 

Since you’re providing value through your articles, they will be inclined to sign up to receive regular content from your side in their inbox. 

Blogging is one of the highly effective and credible ways to reach out to the maximum of your target audience and build an email list. 

Offering An Email Course 

This is actually one of the best lead magnets to attain more and more subscribers from your opt-in page. 

When you offer people to send them one chapter or video course daily directly into their inbox with value-packed information, they will be very encouraged to sign-up. 

Content-driven blogs or websites very well receive such organized content in the form of a course. 

Providing A Free Tool 

Consumers love free things. Nothing free can escape from a prospective buyer. So one of the best ways to catch their attention is by offering them something free. 

Not just you can gain attention, hence more reach to your blog or website but also ask for their email address to sign up for the free tool. 

For example, if you’re running a financial blog, you can create an online free tool for debt management and calculations and give them free access to their email addresses. 

Make Sure Your Email List Is Clean

You need to constantly refine your email list to make it better quality-wise and get higher conversion while running campaigns. 

Cleaning your list means removing irrelevant, inactive, or non-interested subscribers from your contact list. 

Well, removing subscribers from the email list to grow the email list might sound counterproductive or contradictory, but it’s not. 

Growing your contact list isn’t just about increasing the number of your subscribers but also the quality of it. 

For example, if you have 50,000 subscribers but only 5000 are engaging, then you cannot call this a ‘huge list. 

The subscribers need to be engaging, relevant, and participative in your emails, at least most of them in one way or another. 

So, you need to clean your email list from time to time to ensure you are growing a list of relevant and engaging subscribers, not just numbers. 

Here are a few tips to clean your email list : 

  • Prefer to use double opt-in forms 
  • Remove inactive subscribers
  • Identify and remove duplicates 

Up The Competition By Offering A Better Lead Magnet 

One of the effective ways to grow your email list is by beating your competition in their lead magnet offering. 

Lead magnets are elements such as Pdfs, checklists, guides etc, which you offer on your website to collect the email address from visitors. 

You need to make your lead magnets bigger and better in every way possible. 

For example, if your competitor is offering the “50 Secret Ways To Earn Money Online Ebook, you can up the game by offering something more specific and better.

Like you can give out “100 Ways To Earn Money Without Investment And Practical Step-By-Step Guide To Do It” 

Offer Coupons & Discounts 

This is also a highly convertible method to convert your visitors into subscribers. 

If you are getting a high number of visitors on your blog or eCommerce website, but not many sales or you want more, offer them coupon codes. 

Customers are extremely attracted to freebies, coupon codes, and discounts. They don’t want to miss out on any chance. 

You can use coupon codes as a lead magnet to get email addresses. You will be replacing the traditional lead magnets, which are usually content-based freebies. 

Add Content Upgrades To Your Blog Posts 

Content upgrades are basically additional takeaway content offered with the blogs on the same or similar topic. 

It simply can be a condensed form of the same post, or it can be added bonus tips ready to be downloaded. 

You can also offer a free cheat sheet, step-by-step guide, or infographics on the same topic. 

And rather than putting a direct download link of these PDFs, you better ask for an email address, and this will certainly help you gain more and more audience over time. 

Not just that, since these emails are coming from specific posts, it also will tell you which topics are highly popular, and people want to know more about. 

Here are a few content upgrade ideas for your blog posts : 

  • Blog post PDF
  • Cheat Sheets 
  • Mini-Ebook 
  • Resources List 
  • Checklists 
  • Bonus Content 
  • Video Tutorial 
  • Templates 
  • Transcript 
  • Full Guide 
  • Free Trial 
  • Case Study & Examples 
  • Statistics 
  • Exclusive Interviews 
  • Reports 
  • Worksheets or Assignments 

Create A Quiz 

People love to participate in quizzes, and they are known for high engagement. Many brands utilize the same to increase their reach in a particular industry. 

There are multiple tools, such as Qzzr or Interact, you can use to create quizzes in your niche or industry to reach out. 

But more importantly, when they do participate, they have to enter their email address to get the results of the quiz, as that will be sent to their inboxes. 

Pin Your Opt-In Landing Page On Pinterest 

This is using Pinterest to increase your reach and then the traffic to get their email address. 

But in this case, you have to offer them something in exchange, for which you will ask for their email address. 

It can be content-based downloadable, freebies or discount codes, or anything that serves the targeted consumer. 

Make Some Of The Content On Your Website Gated

Another highly effective and smart way to get email addresses from the potential subscribers on your website. 

This comes extremely handy when users are hesitant or just not habitual of giving away their email address in your lead magnet. 

A lead magnet can also fail because the user might not simply want the lead magnet for different reasons. 

But when you make your content gated, it means you will restrict access to your content, either some of a particular post or some particular posts, until the visitors provide their contact information. 

To unlock this gated or restricted content, readers must give their email addresses, and you will get their contact info to grow your email list. 

Not just these email contacts are highly specified or targeted but also of great quality as they want to read content like that post. 

Host Webinars 

Hosting webinars can help you get high-quality contacts in your niche from time to time. You can host webinars using multiple tools or platforms, such as Youtube LIVE or Zoom. 

They’re free and easy to use. Live webinars have been known to have high perceived value, and people are inclined to participate in them.  

This is definitely one of the fastest ways to grow your email list. Also, webinars convert really well if you want more contacts, either for joining your email list or buying the product. 

Conduct Giveaway Contest 

Giveaway contests are a marketing strategy that works great as they attract many targeted audiences in a very short time. 

When you host a giveaway, participants must sign up to enter the contest by providing their email addresses. 

And since participants are highly motivated to enter the contest, you will receive a high volume of targetted or relevant audience in a brief amount of time. 

This is one of the fastest ways to reach targeted audiences and grow your email list. 

Promote Your Blog On Pinterest 

The idea is to get as much traffic as possible on your website or blog. More traffic means higher chances of getting email addresses, increasing your email list. 

Even if they don’t give their email address right away, if they like your content and reach you out on social media or just save your content, they might sign up later. 

Or, in the best-case scenario, they will sign up for your newsletter; make sure you provide a compelling lead magnet on your website. 

Submit Your Guest Post 

Guest posting is another way to drive traffic to your website. But focusing primarily on guest posts on popular and relevant blogs in a similar niche of yours. 

Make sure you add a proper call-to-action (CTA) in your author byline. Here instead of putting a link to your website, just add the link to the opt-in landing page. 

People who liked your content on these websites will definitely click on the link to get more of those.

Answer Questions On Quora

You need to answer as many questions as possible on Quora where the topics must be related to the topic of your lead magnet. 

This means when or if the quora readers reach out to your website out of curiosity or expect more content as you wrote, they will also be interested in your lead magnet. 

If they check your blog or website, they will likely share their email address to receive similar content regularly. 

Just make sure to provide a link to your landing page or blog post so they can know more about a given link. 

Or best, since the content is related to your lead magnet topic, you can simply put the link of your opt-in landing page or form.

Find Related Questions On Forums 

Look through different and popular forums across the web related to the topic of your lead magnet, basically the niche of your blog. 

Then, answer the questions, as many as you can over time, helping people genuinely. 

Make sure you use the link of your blog or website, where they will get an opt-in form to sign up for your newsletter. But the best strategy is directly linking your opt-in landing page or form. 

Fix A Set Frequency For Sending Emails 

This is more important than you think, as your senders must know when they can expect your emails. 

Also, they need to know how often you will send the emails.  It is a strategic move for marketers to decide the email-sending frequency. 

One of the important and obvious tips is not to send emails to subscribers at inconvenient times. 

For this, you also have to know their time zones so that you won’t send them emails at their bedtime or late at night. 

78% of subscribers opt-out of the emails because brands sent too many emails. And if you send out too little, you will be forgetful and not engage with them. 

Help Out On Facebook Groups 

On Facebook, you can find similar groups or pages where people are asking about topics regarding your niche or industry. 

Answer their questions and help them out, but don’t put links in these comments because you can be banned from the group for marketing. 

Instead, you can ask members that if they want to know more or have the link to an article, free tool, or website, they can privately message you. 

Put a Call-to-Action In Your About Page 

This is another clever strategy that not everyone uses. First, focus on crafting an engaging “about us” page on your website. 

Whosoever would read it, even if they missed your pop-up opt-in form, might not miss your CTA link to the opt-in form here. 

Just make sure to creatively introduce the content where they feel compelled to click on the signup form and enter their email address. 

Also, writing a good story about us also gives you credibility and connection with the reader, increasing the engagement otherwise. 

Experiment With Pop-up forms 

Pop-ups need to be used very carefully with your blog as if it is too intrusive and troubling, it can put off your readers. 

But if they are timely calibrated to appear at certain points in the reading session, it can convert the visitor into a subscriber. 

So you have to experiment with them, and see which of the opt-in form pop-ups is working for your blog or website. 

Add A Sign-up Button On Your Facebook Page 

This is utilizing your Facebook page to its full marketing potential. The sign-up button will appear in the top right corner of your Facebook business page. 

It will allow your visitors on the Facebook page to sign up for your email newsletter directly. 

This is a great method to boost your cross-promotion marketing strategy and get more contacts. 

Make Youtube Videos With CTA cards. 

Youtube videos are a great content marketing strategy to reach out to a more and more relevant audience related to your niche. 

You can resolve problems for your targeted customers by regularly providing high-quality content. 

The best you can do to gain email contacts from your Youtube videos is to add call-to-action cards in your videos. 

You can also mention them in your videos to assure that viewers click on the button after completing the video. 

The best way to ensure this is to put free resources or downloadables in these links. 

For example, if your video is about ‘how to choose a niche for your blog’, make sure you keep reminding your viewers that at the end of the video, you will provide them with the 100 most profitable niches to choose from. 

Instead of just linking them in the description, the link of the opt-in landing page into the click-to-action button. 

So they must first provide their email address to get hold of this downloadable as it will be sent to their inbox. 

Add a call to action to your Instagram Bio. 

Instagram allows you to add one link to your Instagram profile Bio. You can use these opportunities to gain contacts through Instagram for your email list. 

Place the link of your opt-in landing page to get their email address. There are also link-sharing platforms where you can place multiple links, including this one. 

Make sure you put a sentence such as ‘“join our email list to get such content daily” or something like this just before the link. 

Create Online Surveys 

Creating surveys online gives you two benefits at the same time. First, you will get the audience’s feedback regarding the topic, product, or things you want to know. 

However, better if you make it as general as it can be but under your niche or industry. 

For example, surveys on aspiring photographers as to their challenges, etc.

When your targeted audience fills out the survey, they must first fill in their contact information. 

And this way, you can get more email addresses that are highly relevant and engaging as well. 

You can also use these surveys to know what kind of content they want. 

Add a Call-to-action Button To Your Youtube Channel 

You might have seen this if you spend a lot of time on Youtube. 

On the profile page of the Youtube channel, at the top right corner, where you usually find sharing buttons to their social media pages, there is an additional link opportunity as well. 

So if your brand also has a Youtube Channel, make sure you put the link of your opt-in landing page with some relevant lead magnet related to videos you publish. 

People visiting your Youtube channel definitely will click on these links to learn more about your brand. 

Make Sure To Take Your Customer’s Permission 

This is supposed to be the first step of building an email list, and it definitely assures you to build and grow your email list without any hiccups. 

You only have to ensure the fact that the prospective subscriber has given permission before you start sending them emails. 

This is actually the law, also known as GDPR where any email, including emails about your products, any discounts, or promotional offers from your brand only can be sent after getting permission from the respective email address bearer. 

For example, if you start sending emails randomly to people, chances are you will be considered spam which won’t be good for your reputation. 

Another unethical way this can go wrong is when you buy your email list as it won’t be counted as taking permission for the relevant purpose. 

So you are only allowed to email anyone when or if they are willing to opt-in to your email contact list. 

You Should Use Opt-in And Opt-Out Links 

Creating Opt-in forms to build your email list is one of the crucial steps because that will ask the visitors to enter their email addresses. 

The purpose of opt-in forms is to assess the benefit of the lead magnet you’re offering in exchange for which users are going to enter their email addresses. 

The opt-in form can be used in different ways, such as pop-up, appearing after a time on your website, or being triggered by action or inaction. 

Make sure you do A/B testing with your opt-in form before you launch it for the campaign. See what kind of content and approach works for it. 

The email marketing tools allow you to create customizable and dynamic opt-in forms whether you want single opt-in or double opt-in. 

Apart from this, you also would want to create opt-out pages or forms where the opt-out links will be mentioned in every email. 

This is when or if a user wants to unsubscribe from your email list, it must have some opt-out page or form where it can take required information, such as the reason for leaving. 

It will help you to improve your email marketing experience for your campaign. 

Becoming an Expert On LinkedIn

You cannot use the same strategies used on Quora or even Facebook with LinkedIn. Here you must work towards registering yourself as an expert in your niche. 

You will do that by creating a strong profile and helping others on LinkedIn as much as possible. 

Participate as much as you can, and when you feel the time is right, you can sometimes post the link to your opt-in landing page. 

You have to be more subtle on LinkedIn as compared to other platforms. 

Ask Them Face-to-Face 

This basically works for in-store marketing, where you meet your consumers or audience on a daily basis. 

One of the obvious strategies is to just simply ask your visitors for their contact information right away in the store. 

Whether they buy something or not, focus on providing good customer service and get their email addresses. 

Make sure your employees are trained to do the same.

Deciding The Placement of Your Opt-In Form 

multiple placement options for email opt-in form 

The placement of your opt-in form will dictate how effectively it will work. It is one of the factors for its success, apart from the lead magnet. 

There are multiple pages or placements possible for opt-in forms, such as : 

  • Splash page
  • Floating bar 
  • Welcome Gate
  • Blog page 
  • Page header 

Splash page 

These are basically introductory pages often used by webmasters as a gate to the show up on the initial loading phase of the website.

You see this coming on the website before the actual site content. This is a good strategy as the user first sees the opt-in form as soon as he or she lands on the page. 

They have some time before they see other content on the website. 

When you move the navigation from the top of the page to the bottom of the page, one can manage the structure of the splash page. 

It will become the page’s center attraction display, highlighting the opt-in form, hence increasing the chances of more sign-ups. 

Floating Bar 

If you want to steer your opt-in form clear away from the other content on the website, a floating bar is a good placement option. 

It establishes the call to action in a clear sight yet away from the primary content. You will find these either at the top or bottom of the page while scrolling. 

Blog Page 

You must have seen the opt-in form appearing while you read some articles, possibly for a long enough time now to guess that you’re enjoying it. 

This placement of the opt-in form is called the blog page. It is true that you can actually put an opt-in form on multiple pages of your website such as the “about us” “resources page,” “contact us” page etc. 

Page Header 

Another smart placement for your opt-in form has to be located just above the fold at the header of your webpage. 

This is actually one of the best places to put your opt-in form to get most sign-ups as this comes to the eyeliner of the user very quickly.  

In this case, they don’t even have to scroll the page to see the opt-in form. 

Use Slideshare lead forms. 

Slideshare lead forms are also quite effective in capturing the list of your contacts who also can be your potential customer. 

You can make it mandatory to fill up these lead forms in order to move further to the next slide. 

Set A Powerful Lead Magnet 

ideas for effective lead magnet 

Lead magnet plays a critical role in getting more and more email contacts for your email marketing campaign. 

Getting email contacts from visitors and prospects is all about transactions. They will exchange it with their email addresses if you give them something good enough. 

The lead magnet is what you offer your prospective subscribers in exchange for their email addresses. 

So it needs to be highly relevant, quality-stuff, and something tangible. You can’t give them something they cannot make out of it. 

That’s why content downloadables such as cheat sheets, practical guides, ebooks, secrets etc work great. 

More than that, free trials, tools, resources, coupon codes, discounts, etc work even better as a lead magnet. 

You can always create a lead magnet without spending any investment or, at worst, with some little investment. 

Add Sharing Buttons To Your Email Signature 

This is a powerful strategy that very selective marketers are doing. You can put a share button to your email signature, helping your recipients to spread the word easily. 

You can leverage your existing subscribers to grow your contact list. You can add this sharing button to the email signature, thank you page, and lead magnet. 

Create a “Reasons for Sign-Up” page 

This is a dedicated and creative effort to convince the visitors why they should sign-up for the newsletter or give their email addresses. 

It works great on people who are often hesitant to give their email addresses or are simply not motivated to do it. 

Having a dedicated page, something short and to the point about why they should subscribe, will greatly impact them. 

Tell them the benefits of signing up with you and it should be something that can compel them or change their mindset about not giving their email address. 

Use Social Media To Build Your Email List 

Now, this can be a really effective method to grow your contact list.

Since social media is based upon more intimate conversation and engagement, chances are you will get a really good audience from there. 

The idea is to offer good content through your social media just as you build an audience on these platforms. 

A lot of people prefer generating followers on social media rather than building a list but that’s not really wise. 

The real game is to leverage social media followers to build or grow your email list even more. 

For example, if you are new to email marketing but have a strong social media following, you can try to turn your loyal audience base into subscribers. 

All you have to do is share the opt-in landing page link to the CTA Buttons of social media profiles such as Instagram Bios and Facebook page buttons. 

You can even personally encourage people through interactions to sign-up for the emails. Chances are you might not even need a lead magnet to do so. 

Focus On Your Branding 

Now, you have to understand that no one wants to share their email address with a random blog or unknown source on the internet. 

Chances are, they won’t even give them attention if it is brandable. Your blog or website must show some kind of authority or credibility in the industry. 

If you’re starting out, you have to ensure consistency in your design, copy, and what you stand for. 

Having the brand attitude reflected in their copy and products and their opt-in form gives the user the impression of a responsible entity. 

So make sure your website or blog is branded and designed accordingly without any inconsistencies before you set out to build an email list. 

Building An Email List Using Offline Marketing Methods 

Online marketing and offline marketing should also be in your arsenal while you are building your email list. 

This is especially true for brick-and-mortar stores, retail stores, local businesses, and other corporations with geographical ties. 

Such forms of marketing methods to grow your email list are also very helpful for store owners and retail businesses. 

Communicate With  People In Live Events 

If you want to build or grow your email list using offline marketing methods, the best bet is to meet more and more people in general so that you can ask for their email addresses. 

But specifically, you need to meet people more in live events and seminars where similar interest people or prospects will be there. 

Communicate with them face-to-face, try to get their business card or contact information details, and add them to your email list. 

Put Your Links Into Print Advertisements 

Another traditional yet highly effective method of reaching out to a broader audience is advertising through print materials. 

You must have your marketing materials, such as brochures, menus, and booklets which need to feature the link, the website info, and even the barcode redirecting them to sign-up for the email list. 

Add Sign-up Link To Your Business Card 

It is such a good idea to put the URL of your opt-in landing page on your business card, so whenever you give someone you meet, they can sign-up for your email list. 

Make sure you habitually give away your business card to everyone you meet. 

Integrating URLs Into Inside Packages 

When you are shipping physical items to your customers, and they are satisfied and happy with your products, don’t forget to ask for their email addresses. 

Just put a small slip or marketing material inside the package with a URL and barcode through which they can sign up for your newsletter. 

In this case, you can always put some kind of benefit or lead magnet as a special discount for signing up. 

Giving Free Merchandise

This is, again a very clever offline or traditional marketing strategy where you give away or distribute your merchandise products. 

It can be like T-shirts, mugs, or anything with your merchandise to promote your website. And you can just share the link where they can sign-up for the newsletter. 

You can reverse it as if they sign-up for a newsletter, they will receive merch products from your brand. 

Utilizing Gamification Strategy For Your Visitors 

Gamification is one of the relatively new terms in digital marketing if you are not very familiar with it, one of the primary examples you have seen of them is wheel popups. 

It is basically utilizing the gaming characters to digital marketing practices or efforts. In other words, you are gamifying your email marketing strategies. 

Here when visitors land on your website, they can play by particular rules, competing against each other and collecting rewards from your brand. 

This will increase people’s interest in participating and boost their will to share their email contact with your company. 

If they promise fun and thrill-like adventure from your marketing effort or practice and some assured unknown reward, it makes them excited to put some time in it. 

In fact, they are much more willing to participate in it as compared to other lead magnets. 

However, these strategies might not be suitable or very apt for all niches and industries. 

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