5 Highly Effective (& Overlooked) Strategies for Growing Your Email List

If you are looking for ideas to grow your email list, following other people steps may not always be the best choice. Nowadays, the priority lies in building a quality list rather than increasing the number of subscribers. So instead, it is much better to stay original and try to build a genuine audience using unconventional methods.

Here are the five little-known strategies that will help you grow and improve the quality of your email list.

1. Publish free eBooks on Amazon

Putting time and effort into writing an eBook and then giving it away on Amazon for free may sound like an absolute no brainer to some, but it is a well-tested and sound strategy with a likely return.

Most of the websites today lure customers to opt-in by offering freebies upon signup. However, Amazon takes it to a whole new level. The pioneer of this approach is Nick Stephenson. He successfully managed to get over 15,000 subscribers in six months by publishing a free Kindle eBook on Amazon.

First, giving away eBooks on your website make them seem less valuable. In contrast, having them on Amazon projects you as a more credible author and generates extra leads. Essentially, Amazon is like a search engine for books. It has the largest eBook audience there is and if your book brings real value, it can remain amongst the recommended books for years.

Moreover, people who like your content are more likely to willingly opt-in to your email list, which means that you will get real subscribers – people, who have a genuine interest in your products. Just make sure to leave noticeable calls to action along the way and watch your email list booming.

2. Chatbot marketing

The chatbot hype is real this year and it only moves forward. If nothing revolutionary happens, bots will not replace traditional emails anytime soon, but someday it may. Therefore, it seems like the right time to get familiar with them.

Like emails, chatbots operate through a personal, one on one communication channel. Like emails, they allow you to set automation and send personalized ads, offers, updates, and content. Like emails, chatbots, provide analytics that lets you enhance your campaigns and improve your service. However, chatbots also offer much more.

Compared with emails, the response rate is still very high since bots are still fresh and people want to try them. Also, you can tailor and twist its features according to your needs and goals. Moreover, you can connect them with Facebook ads that link directly to the Messenger. In brief, bots offer engaging and immersive user-experience which, if done right, leaves a great first impression.

Bots may seem complicated at first, but services such as Chatfuel or ManyChat makes it easy to set it up. It functions via drag and drop interface, so no prior coding experience is required.

Eventually, one day we will look back and think about emails as we now think about transport with horse and carriage. So, maybe it is time to start promoting your bots rather than sticking to old fashioned email marketing?

3. Send readers your competitor’s best content

Most of the time interactions with the readers focus on the quantity instead of providing them with the real gems. However, if you manage to give excellent and useful updates, your readers will gladly read them, engage with you and impatiently wait for your next delivery. But sometimes that is easier said than done.

One way to solve this issue is to make use of your competitor’s content. If it is really good, your audience will enjoy it and you will show yourself as an expert who can see the bigger picture. Along with that, you may establish your name by creating goodwill in the market. The featured authors will gladly share it with others and eventually, you are going to get your share and grow your audience. A perfect example of this is Moz Top 10 newsletter, where its editors share 10 best online marketing articles gathered online. As a result, it is one of the most desirable newsletters on the web.

It is fairly easy to underestimate the power of promoting others instead of yourself.

4. Organize a virtual summit

By organizing virtual summits, Chandler Bolt of Self Publishing School managed to acquire 25,000 new email subscribers in just ten days. His secret? Well, for starters, it has to be a truly epic summit that generates buzz for months, even after it is done.

Usually building an email list takes a lot of time and effort, but if you are going to do it, you might as well aim big. Running a virtual summit is neither quick nor easy, but it is one of the strongest strategies there is.

It is critical to be incredibly organized to make it happen. In Chandler’s case, it was a top level event with the best speakers of the industry. That does not mean you should aim any lower. Many speakers are going to say no, a lot of things might go wrong, but the opportunities to network, promote and reach many people along with the experience are priceless.

It is a growth hack tactic practiced by some of the biggest names in their industries. And although it appears to be a tough one to pull off, if you start with the end in mind, plan thoroughly, see promotion opportunities in every step, recruit the most interesting speakers you will certainly be on your way to growth.

5. A 15-word website

A stagnating email list growth can also be broken by being playful and adding an element of fun in your campaigns. One original example of it is a 15-word website. What exactly is it? In principle, it works like tags on Facebook and has potential to go viral.

A Reddit user Optimus Chime was looking for a way to promote his bill-splitting app. Thus, he created a website that enables you to send an anonymous note to your friends, reminding them that they have not been paying their share of bills. After reading the letter, the recipients had two options: either come back to the website and forward the message to other friends or start paying up their share. The genius behind this idea also inserted app’s social media pages, that contains direct links to the website. As a result, up to 500,000 recipients generated over 50,000 opt-ins.

With some creativity, the application of 15 words page is almost limitless. It creates buzz, allows users to raise awareness, empowers people to point out issues and leads people to your product. On the contrary, it might cost some money to set up the website, but other sorts of viral campaigns are way more expensive.

The chances are that the more elaborate and fun your site is, the more shares it will generate. It is also possible that some of the subscribers may not be genuinely interested in your product. Either way, it is a promising strategy to grow your email list.

Over to you

Building a quality email list takes more than just following the instructions blindly or watching tutorials. As illustrated above, no matter which strategy you choose, creativity, open mind, careful planning and effort always plays the primary role in your campaigns.

Tomas Laurinavicius is a lifestyle entrepreneur and blogger from Lithuania. He writes about habits, lifestyle design, and entrepreneurship. Right now, Tomas is traveling the world with a mission to empower 1 million people to change their lifestyle for good.