As a small business owner working exclusively with other businesses, there’s a lot you need to communicate. And while your website can cover a lot, you need a better, more direct way to reach the businesses you work with (or want to work with). And the best way to do that is to grow your email list!
What Is An Email List?
Your email list should consist of all the addresses of businesses you work with, or people who have interacted with your website before. When you grow your email list, you’re also growing your chances of helping businesses that are in need of your services, landing new clients, and nurturing your prospective client relationships.
You can use your email list to send updates to subscribers. Let them know about flash discounts, new revelations in your niche, or new blog posts.
Related: 5 Important B2B Email Marketing Functionalities You Need For Your Business
Why Is It Important To Grow Your Email List?
Email is an easy way to reach out to people. The convenience of cell phones has everyone checking their email all the time!
That means that if you want to expand your business, you have to grow your email list.
Email marketing has a leg up on other Internet marketing: email feels more exclusive and direct for those on the receiving end than simply tripping over information on social media.
Think about how special you feel each time an email pops up in your notifications. Especially if that email provides a lot of value, you’re able to seriously wow prospective clients.
How To Grow Your Email List
There are a few strategies to grow your email list. Read on if you are ready to take your business to the next level with email marketing!
Pre-Work: What To Do Before You Start Focusing On How To Grow Your Email List
You need to collect some information before you can jump into expanding your email list. Crunch the numbers: how long was your contact list in January, and how long is it now?
If you have had prior goals for growth, did you meet them? Why or why not?
Look at where you are and where you’ve been. Collect some data and take the time to reflect. This makes it easier to set a realistic goal and design a better plan moving forward.
Related: 5 Must-Have Email Sequences
Think About Your Existing Freebies and Content
You will need to leverage your best resources and most enticing campaigns to grow your email list. Your objective is to put irresistible content out there with genuine value that will interest your audience so that they are excited to learn more.
Providing value is a great way to land new list members. Creating a lead magnet will help you reward these interested audience members with a free resource.
Once you’ve developed this lead magnet, be sure to invest a fair amount of time perfecting the imagery and verbiage for your promotional posts! You will want to saturate all of your social media accounts for a few days with information about your new resource. This helps communicate to other business owners that your lead magnet is a kind of a big deal.
Optimize Where People Sign Up For Your List
You basically want people to trip over the option to sign up for your emails as they are exploring your website. Pop-ups and side-bar widgets can help with this endeavor. You may also want to use an exit-intent opt-in to encourage your site visitors to grab your lead magnet before they navigate away from your site.
The strategies you use depend largely on the businesses you mean to attract. Make signing up for your email list easy, urgent, but not annoying. Be sure to carefully track the effectiveness of the strategies you choose and tweak them accordingly so that you can grow your email list.
Strategize an Exciting or Fresh Way to Grow Your Email List
Although PDF guides are a popular lead magnet format, it’s certainly not the only type of content upgrade that you can use to grow your email list. Dig a little deeper and think about designing something fun, new, or interesting that will get your audience excited about sharing their contact info.
For example, put together a quiz that is designed around helping your target audience navigate a pain point they struggle with. When they reach the end, require that they enter their email addresses before you share their results.
Another option is to schedule a free live webinar, challenge, or training series that people won’t be able to pass by. When they register to attend, they will need to provide their email address to receive further details from you.
Related: Avoiding the Spam Filter: 7 Best Practices for Successful Email Marketing
Implement & Review Your Progress
Once you have a plan in place to grow your email list, put it into action. Then, make sure to review your numbers!
It won’t be long until the data starts flowing in and you’ll be able to check things like:
- How many new subscribers do you have?
- What is your lead magnet conversion rate?
- Are these new subscribers converting into sales?
This period of reflection is important because the growth of your business should be ongoing. Every piece of information that you collect about what works for your business’ expansion and what doesn’t is extremely important.
The absolute best way to reach out to the businesses you want to serve is through email. While it can be difficult to grow your email list, it is necessary in order to develop your brand and help you reach your fullest potential. Get thinking about growing your contacts and have fun chasing those results!
Outsourcing your email marketing (or even the strategy behind your email marketing) is one of the best ways to grow your email list AND achieve your business goals. Let’s strategically plan your email marketing strategy together so you can see amazing results!
