Email marketing begins with collecting subscribers who opt in to your mailing list. Without subscribers, you don’t have an email marketing campaign at all. Considering how important getting subscribers is, it is surprising to find out how many beginner marketers make mistakes at this step.
First off, let’s clarify that getting subscribers to your email list doesn’t have to be difficult if you go about it the right way. All you basically have to do is let potential subscribers know about your mailing list and give them a reason to join. Then, just make sure that nothing else goes wrong in the process of opting in.
Letting Potential Subscribers Know About Your Mailing List
There are numerous places where you can put opt-in forms for your mailing list: your Facebook page, your homepage, when a customer makes a purchase, etc. Surprisingly, most beginner marketers only include an opt-in form on the home page of their website and omit it everywhere else. If you want subscribers, you have to repeatedly give them the chance to sign up meaning that your opt-in form should be all over the place.
Give Them a Reason to Join
Most of us already get enough email every day that we don’t necessarily want anymore – unless you give them a good reason. Depending on what your business is, there are many reasons why someone would want to sign up. Maybe you give subscribers special discounts, valuable information, updates, daily jokes, or chances to win prizes. It doesn’t matter what you give: if your potential subscribers aren’t aware of it, they aren’t likely to join up. Make sure that you clearly and obviously state what subscribers can expect in your emails if they join.
Promise Privacy
Make sure that your potential subscribers know that you keep their emails private and will not share them with anyone else. If a potential subscriber suspects that you are going to do something shady with their emails, they aren’t going to sign up.
Make it Very, Very Easy
As you probably have realized, people have very short attention spans when it comes to the internet. If you give them some complicated opt-in form which requires them to put in their language, area of residence, favorite foods, etc, they probably aren’t going to bother filling out the form. Only make the information which is absolutely necessary required for opting in. You can ask for other information but be clear that it is optional. A good way to increase the amount of information that people are willing to give is by explaining why you need it – like that they will only get the emails most relevant to their interests.
Once you have subscribers for your email marketing campaign, it is important that you keep them. Make sure that you only send emails which contain what you promised and are always of the best quality