Grow Your Email List the Right Way
Proper list growth is critical to having a highly engaged and profitable email program. Most email programs should drive 20% to 30% of a company’s revenue, and a key component of that is having the right people in your list.
You could have a list of 1 million people, but if they’re not converting, you’re wasting your money sending to the wrong people.
Here are some great ways to grow your list and keep it clean:
1. Clean your list at least once per year
I typically recommend doing a list cleaning (through a company like NeverBounce or similar) before Black Friday when companies are inclined to do more full list sends.
This removes duplicate email addresses (which you hopefully don’t have anyway), spam traps, expired email addresses, and other invalid addresses. This improves deliverability and engagement.
2. Invest in email validation at the signup form
This makes your yearly list cleaning much easier as you’re validating in real-time as people sign up for your newsletter.
It should catch misspellings, invalid addresses, and more, to keep your list cleaner on an ongoing basis.
3. Collect primarily via popups
You can have multiple sign-ups on your website. Pop-up on visit, footer, exit intent, back in stock, etc. can all be utilized to capture your visitors information.
4. Use lead magnets
Offer something valuable to your site visitors. Sometimes that’s a discount code, sometimes it’s an e-book.
Whatever it is, make sure it’s truly adding value for your customers and is something they’re going to be drawn to (like a magnet, duh).
5. Run giveaways and sweepstakes
There are a number of ways to do this. You can do it on your own website and offer prizes yourself for entrants. You can run it on your site, but partner with other brands, sweetening the deal for the winners and helping those brands grow their lists too!
There are also companies like FindKeep.Love that partner a few brands together for a bigger sweepstakes, and all of the brands that participate get the email addresses of anyone who entered. This one can be a hit or miss, but typically worth testing out.
6. Other lead gen platforms
There are a number of lead gen tools and platforms that are focused on conversions for brands. A few notable ones to checkout are AdWallet and LiveIntent.
There are a number out there, so do your research!
7. Referral programs
Word of mouth is one of the primary ways people are introduced to new brands.
Run a referral program (I personally love Talkable) and get new people in the door that are more likely to convert than most!
These are all reputable ways to grow your email list and keep it hygienic so it’s performing the way it should. Remember, NEVER buy lists, and keep in mind GDPR and CAN-SPAM compliance based on the data you’re collecting.
Get growing!