The bottom line is that you need to be in control of your traffic, and that means you need to build a better email list. That way, no matter what happens with Facebook, Google, Twitter and all the others, at least you still have access to your list. Below are six ways to grow your email list and get tons of targeted traffic to your website.
1. Build an Email Marketing Funnel
One of the best ways to grow an email list is by creating a marketing funnel that utilizes email automation — and then keeping it active.
For those who haven’t set up a funnel and who simply put up a subscription widget in their blog sidebar and forgot about it, you need to understand that you can’t expect much to happen that way anymore. Today’s readers aren’t giving up their email addresses so easily. Marketing Automation is important!
You need to have a lead magnet — a free product for joining your email list — which gets people to sign up. Then you need to have email automation set up with an auto-responder like mailchimp and a sequence of pre-written emails that will provide targeted info to your new subscribers and will eventually lead them to your other product landing pages. Once you get new subscribers onto your email list, the auto-responder does the rest.
2. Prominently Place Opt-In Forms Around Your Website
Next you need to have opt-in forms on your site, because if your content is really good, then there will be some readers who will subscribe based on your content alone. These folks are becoming rare, but they still exist. The key to getting them to sign up is that you need to be providing them with solid value with your free content — more on that in a minute.
But another reason you want these subscriber forms to be sprinkled on pages and sidebars or on pop-ups around your site is that you want to warm people up to the idea of joining your email list. Even if they aren’t subbing through these forms right now, they are noticing them, even if it’s just in a subconscious, subliminal kind of way. But the more they come to your site, the more those forms will register in their brains.
Eventually, you’ll drop a fresh lead magnet in front of them, and human psychology will take over from there.
3. Use a Pop-Up Subscription Box
Pop-ups can be annoying, but not if done correctly and like it or not — they work! Even after all these years, they still work really well. The key is to adjust your settings so that they won’t keep popping up after people subscribe and return to the site later on. If they see that pop-up every single time they come — even after they subbed — then you’re going to start losing some of them.
But the pop-up subscriber forms still work really well today. To increase their effectiveness, make sure to include great calls to action and lead-magnets in them too. And you can also try offering different lead magnets and split testing to see which offers draw the most subscribers. Once they sign up, then your email responder kicks in and does the rest.
4. Create Really Good Content
Before we get too far into this, you need to remember that all the tactics in the world aren’t going to do you much good if people aren’t very impressed with your content and your products and services in the first place.
Slick marketing schemes cannot make up for low-quality content. Building a real business that can stand the test of time should be your goal, and that means offering real value for your readers, turning them into happy customers and devoted fans.
5. Do a Giveaway for Email List Subscribers
Another list-building tactic that rarely fails to deliver results is the giveaway or contest. Using social media is critical to really get the word out and draw in mobs of new readers to sign up for your email list. Now, you need to understand that many of them will only stick around for the freebies and will split soon after the contest is over. That’s a given. It’s a part of the process, and it is something you need to be mentally prepared for.
However, if your content is good — there’s that concept again — then you can still manage to hold onto many of these new subscribers.
Now, the thing about giveaways and contests is that there are some legal issues that you can get tangled up in, so you definitely need to know what you’re doing. The main thing is that you want to structure your sweepstakes so that it does not cross the line into “lottery” territory. Social Media Examiner has a good explanation about the differences HERE.
6. Push Traffic to Your Landing Pages
Some marketers go through all the trouble of setting up an automated funnel and a ton of content to go out to their email list, but then they fail to consistently push traffic to their lead magnets and landing pages for other products. They try for a little while, and then they give up and expect Google to send traffic to their landing pages for years to come.
Sure, you should build links to those offers to build their rankings and pull in search traffic, but if you’re not pushing traffic on your own, then you’re leaving a lot of money on the table.
So go share links to those pages on social media posts and in comments on social posts where permitted. Then do the same thing on related blogs, media outlets and in forums. You can also buy traffic through Google ads or your ad network of choice. But don’t just sit there and expect traffic to magically show up.
Building an email list and driving traffic to your offers is a proven method for traffic generation and online marketing. By following these six marketing tips, you’ll make sure that your list continues to grow and that you always have a steady flow of profitable traffic to your site right there at your fingertips.
