E-mails have been used for over 25 years and it is not going anywhere soon. In fact, in 2022, 4.3 billion people used e-mail on a regular basis. That’s more than half of the current world population!

I understand that e-mail marketing isn’t as “sassy” as some of the newer marketing techniques like push notifications and social media. However, it continues to be effective in converting people into paying customers. 

Another statistic that you should know about when it comes to the power of e-mail is that for every dollar you spend on e-mail marketing, you expect to get $32 in return. A 3,200 percent ROI is a good number and you should not take this lightly. 

Further, 81 percent of businesses still rely on e-mail as their primary customer acquisition channel compared to other platforms like social media. Lastly, 49 percent of consumers say they would like to receive promotional e-mails from their favorite brands on a weekly basis. 

With all these statistics surrounding and supporting the findings that e-mail marketing continues to be on top, it could still be easy to forget how effective this tool is in helping you build your business. Know that many people may ignore notifications on social media and screen their text messages and phone calls, but people pay attention to their inboxes. Like anything, it requires strategy and effective implementation which is why clients turn to us to build out an email marketing ecosystem that converts.

We are serious about helping you grow your business in 2023 and if those stats haven’t convinced you that email marketing should be a priority, we’re even giving you our blueprint so you don’t have to go it alone. Don’t slow your scroll!

What Is An E-Mail List 

An e-mail list is a list of people who have expressed interest in your business. It is a collection of e-mail contact information from people who have the required permission to receive updates and promotional e-mails from your business. 

There is something about your business that interests them, and they want more information. Take charge of that “want” because if you feed them with the information that they need, you will most likely gain new customers instead of just followers or onlookers. 

Why An E-Mail List Is Important 

If you can gain access to someone’s inbox, then you have access to their attention, and there are few things more valuable than a person’s attention.

Erik Harbison once said, “If Social Media is the cocktail party, then e-mail marketing is the ‘meet up for coffee.’ The original 1-to-1 channel.” This means if you have a business of any sort, build your e-mail list because that will bring in potential customers and potential dollars in the bank. The larger your list grows, the more you’ll be able to directly interact with those who are truly interested in your business. Nothing beats a personal reach to your target audience and that’s what e-mails exactly give your potential customers! 

Building An E-Mail List Is Not A Simple Task

Building an e-mail list is not a walk in the park. It is difficult but it is doable. People can give you their e-mail addresses because they know that they can get something valuable from you. People just don’t give out e-mail addresses for no reason. 

Be sure that your e-mails won’t be tagged on their “spam” folder. That is why you need to give people a compelling reason why they should continue opening your e-mails and a reason for new people to give their e-mail addresses to you. 

Continue reading below because in this blog, I will give you 13 tactics that will help you build your e-mail list rapidly. These are solid strategies that can help you add hundreds, if not thousands, of new e-mail addresses to your e-mail list. 

Tactic Number 1: Create Valuable Content 

Before helping you with the tactics on how to actually acquire e-mail addresses for your e-mail list, you have to create valuable content first. Like what I said earlier, you need to give people a compelling reason so they entrust you with their e-mail address. 

Once you have created high-value contents, put these on your website. If people visit your website and other platforms where you want your value to be seen, they will be convinced that you are going to add value to their life. Remember, they don’t simply want to increase the number of unopened e-mails on their inboxes. They want to have more VALUE in their inbox. 

For example, the content that you create should solve their biggest pain points, or your content should thoroughly answer your target audience’s biggest questions. These contents could include things like in-depth blog posts, high value videos, whitepapers, case studies, tutorials, and how-to guides. Your contents should be all about solutions, how you can help them, how you can serve them, or how you can guide them. 

Know that this is not the case all the time. You will most likely send promotional e-mails along the way, but first send them valuable content that will make them stay on your e-mail list and look forward to the next e-mail you will be sending out! 

If you are unsure of your target audience’s concerns or questions, consider sending out a survey. You can use your social media page to put out a poll or send out a survey to your current e-mail list. You can even check out what your competitors are putting out. That way, you can strategically create content that makes your services or products stand out! 

Tactic Number 2: Create Pop Ups 

Now that we’ve set you up for creating valuable content before actually growing your e-mail list, tactic number 2 is one specific strategy to help you with your list. 

E-mail pop-ups are one of the most basic ways to capture e-mail addresses. Do you remember a time when you visited a website and a box pops up asking you if you want to sign-up for an e-mail list? How about when you were reading an article and the box popped up? You can close that box or sign-up. 

I understand that it could feel intrusive, but it has been proven to have relatively high conversion rates compared to other methods of building e-mail lists. 

To make pop-ups less intrusive, you can have the pop-ups set-up to be not so often. For example, you can show the pop-up to visitors who are on their third or fourth visit on your website. Another way is to have the pop-up when it looks like the person is about to exit your site. This is called “Exit Intent” and is a highly effective way to capture e-mail addresses. 

Another note for creating pop-ups is to make sure you tell people why they should sign-up for your e-mail list. Don’t just simply say, “Please sign-up for our e-mail newsletter.” Remember the COMPELLING REASON I discussed above. People need to know why they should sign-up for your e-mail newsletter and how can they benefit from it! 

Once you have decided on creating a pop-up on your website, check out these software platforms that makes pop-ups easier to make and manage: 

• Flodesk
• Sumo
• Thrive Leads 
• OptinMonster 
• MailMunch 

Tactic Number 3: Create A Landing Page 

First, you need to know what a landing page is. It is different from a pop-up because it is an entire page that exists solely to capture e-mail addresses. Further, the landing page is not usually accessible through the main navigation page of your website. 

So, to help you create your landing page specifically for the purpose of getting e-mail addresses, you can:

Send people directly to the landing page when they ask how to sign-up for your e-mail list 

Include more information on the landing page because this is the advantage of a landing page compared to a pop-up. For example, if you are giving away an eBook, you can include more reasons why people should download the eBook. 

Create different landing pages for different purposes. The beauty of landing pages is that it’s not just for asking e-mail addresses. For example, if you have a podcast, you could create a specific landing page where you send your podcast listeners to. 

How Can You Create Landing Pages? 

1. You can have someone code one for you. This is necessary if you aren’t too knowledgeable about the backend works of your website or if you need specific customizations done on the landing page. Propelcon can help you with this or you can consider Upwork or Fiverr to find a developer. 
2. You can use a landing page software to build your landing page. Through this, you can simply drag-and-drop tools to help build your landing pages that look good and convert at a high rate. You can use landing page builders like Unbounce, LeadPages, Instapage or Flodesk which is our fave for anyone looking to send both awesome emails and landing pages without a website. You can even use the code PROPEL to get our business discount.

Tactic Number 4: Give Away Lead Magnets 

Before I give you tips about this tactic, you have to know what is a lead magnet first. A lead magnet is something you give away to people in exchange for their e-mail address. The people are the “leads” and your giveaway is the “magnet.” 

For example, if you are a financial coach and you are giving away a free eBook that gives tips on saving for retirement, that’s a lead magnet. If you are a fitness professional and you are giving away a checklist of exercises for a particular workout routine, that’s a lead magnet. 

Other examples of lead magnets: 

• Checklists 
• Cheat sheets 
• Product samples 
• Discount coupons 
• Templates
• Free trials 
• Case studies 
• Webinars 
• Podcasts 
• Premium content 

For lead magnets, you can give them away through pop-ups or specific landing pages. 

Other Things To Keep In Mind Regarding Lead Magnets:

1. When people sign-up for a lead magnet, they have a problem that they want help with immediately. Be sure to send the lead magnet as soon as a person gives you their e-mail address. You do not want to upset someone by making them wait. Otherwise, you could lose the opportunity of converting them into a paying customer. 
2. Lead magnets need to be highly valuable. If they’re not, people simply won’t give you their e-mail address. Be sure that what you’re giving away truly is valuable. 
3. When writing the copy on the pop-up or the landing page, focus on all the benefits that your page visitor will get if they download the lead magnet. You want to show them just how valuable your lead magnet really is. You need to convince them that your lead magnet is worth giving up their e-mail address. 

Tactic Number 5: Do A Giveaway 

If you are looking to skyrocket the number of e-mails on your e-mail list, giveaways are hard to beat. How this works: in order to sign-up for the giveaway, people must first give you their e-mail address. 

For the giveaways, you can give away just about anything. It can be your physical product, it can be consulting sessions, it can be digital downloads of your content, or anything you can think of as long as it is related to your business. 

A Few Things To Think About When You Do A Giveaway

• The bigger the prize, the better. It will be more likely that people will sign-up. 
• Aside from bigger prizes, the prize must be something your audience would really love. For example, if you are a fitness coach, it makes much more sense to give away free training sessions than gift cards to unhealthy restaurants. 
• Use a giveaway platform to make is easier for people to enter their e-mail addresses and easier on your end to choose winners.  You can use giveaway platforms like KingSumo, Gleam.io, Rafflecopter, and ViralSweep. Through these platforms, it will also be easier for people to share your giveaways on social media. And we all know that when something is on a social media platform, there is a good chance of it going viral. And when your giveaway is viral, that just means more people will likely give you their e-mail addresses.
• The last pro tip I have for you regarding giveaways is to consult with an attorney to obtain the proper page wording, marketing methods, and more for your state or country. Each state and country has their own specific laws regarding anything that has a prize, and you certainly want to stay on the right side of the law! 

Tactic Number 6: Run Facebook Lead Ads 

We are almost halfway through the tactics and I’ll discuss about Facebook Lead Ads. This type of ad allows you to give away lead magnets and collect e-mail addresses directly within the Facebook platform. Basically, people can fill out a form and download a lead magnet without ever having to leave Facebook. 

Why you should consider this as one of the ways to grow your e-mail list is because Facebook has over 2.5 billion active monthly users. With this number, you can be absolutely sure that your target audience outside of your website is using Facebook and you can reach them through Facebook Lead Ads. 

Because Facebook tracks users’ preference on what they want to see o their feed, this marketing technique allows you to be hyper-specific in your ads. For example, if you are a success coach, you could run Lead Ads to people who have shown interest in goal setting, productivity, and financial success. Because you target your ideal costumer, you will eliminate the possibility of filling your e-mail list with random people. 

Gordon Donnely of WordStream puts it this way: It takes six to eight touches to generate a viable sales lead. And when you start to think about all the steps a prospect has to go through in your own organization before they become “viable” or “qualified.” That number might seem pretty conservative. It takes legitimate time and effort to get quality leads. Any time you can streamline that process, you’re giving yourself a huge advantage. 

By using Facebook Lead Ads, you minimize the amount of work someone must do in order to get on your e-mail list. They don’t have to go to your website, encounter a pop-up, and then enter their e-mail address. Rather, as they browse Facebook, they come across your ad, enter their info, and BOOM, they’re on your list. 

Tactic Number 7: Utilize Content Upgrades 

Content upgrades work like this: First, you create a highly valuable piece of content like an in-depth blog post. Then, you create an “upgrade” that accompanies the blog post. For example, you wrote a blog post about keto diet. You could then create an “upgrade” by adding five downloadable keto recipes that go along with the blog post. And to access that upgrade, people have to give you their e-mail address. 

What’s great about content upgrades is you are not interrupting the content experience like with that of the pop-up. You are instead offering additional content of value that supplements what they are already reading. 

Brian Dean, the SEO guy, saw a 65 percent increase in his conversion rate over his generic pop-up offer when he stated implementing content upgrades on his blog. 

What You Need To Do When Creating A Content Upgrade

• Come at the subject from a different angle
• Cover additional material that you didn’t cover in the original content 
• Create something that supplements the original content 

Tactic Number 8: Create A Free Tool 

A free tool is when you offer something that will help your target audience and you can give them access to this free tool in exchange for their e-mail address. 

For example, CoSchedule created their “Headline Analyzer” tool, which analyzes a blog post headline. They grade it for you. However, to access the score, you need to first sign-up for their e-mail list. 

HubSpot also created their “Website Grader,” which grades the strength of a person’s or a business’s website. They give you your grade once you give them your e-mail address. 

You can create a free tool in whatever industry you are in. The options are limitless just make sure it provides valuable service. 

If you don’t have the technical know-how to develop a tool yourself, you can find someone to do I for you on Upwork and Fiverr. 

Tactic Number 9: Create Quizzes 

Have you gone on Buzzfeed to take a quiz on “Which Harry Potter Character Are You?” There are dozens of websites that create these quizzes and to get the results about themselves after answering the questions, there are times when e-mail addresses are asked of them. So, you can definitely create quizzes so you can build your e-mail list! 

The thing with quizzes though is that they need to be related to your business in some tangible way. If you create a “Which F.R.I.E.N.D.S Character Are You?” quiz, you may get a lot of responses and e-mails but they might not be your target audience. You will just be adding people to your e-mail list who will most likely never purchase from you or work with you. 

So, make sure that your quiz is closely tied to the objectives, desires, goals, or pain points of your ideal customer. You need to attract quiz takers who are also interested in your products or services. Your goal is to get the RIGHT people to take the quiz and not to have as many people as possible taking your quiz. 

To create quizzes, you can use Survey Monkey or check out these platforms:

• Qzzr 
• LeadQuizzes 
• TryInteract 
• SurveyAnyplace
• Typeform

Tactic Number 10: Promote Your List On Social Media  

In this day and age, you might have already hopped on the social media train. Check how many followers, friends, and connections you have on your Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and the like. All of these people are potential subscribers to your e-mail list and potential customers in the long run. That is why it is a smart move to consistently promote your e-mail list across your social media channels. 

One tip when promoting your e-mail list on your social media platforms is to not simply say, “Hey, come join my e-mail list!” This brings us back to the compelling reason I mentioned a couple of times above. You should create that compelling reason so your social media connections would want to join your e-mail list! 

Another question you need to answer: How often should you share about your e-mail list on social media? The short answer to it is: Enough that people know about it but not so much that it feels like you’re spamming. 

Tactic Number 11: Add Social Sharing Buttons To Your E-Mails 

Almost every Email Service Provider (ESP) allows you to add social media sharing buttons to your e-mails. Take advantage of this feature because it is beneficial for you to add these to your e-mails so your readers can easily share your e-mails with their social media contacts. 

The Three Distinct Benefits Of Adding Social Sharing Buttons To Your E-Mails 

1. Attracting new potential customers – By giving people to share your e-mails, you expand your reach beyond just your e-mail list. If people love your content, they will definitely share it with friends, coworkers, and other contacts. 
2. Increased web traffic – Assuming that you’re linking back to your website in your e-mails, more shares equals more web traffic. 
3. Enhanced customer experience – If people like your content, they don’t want to have to copy and paste it to share it with their social media contacts. By providing the social media sharing buttons, you provide a better experience for those on your e-mail list, making it much more likely that they will share your content. 

With these in mind, note that your e-mails should be so good that they want to share them. Put enough time into crafting your e-mails that your readers will feel compelled to share the content you created. The question you need to ask when crafting content is: Am I adding value to my readers? 

Tactic Number 12: Add A Link In Your E-Mail Signature 

Your e-mail signature isn’t just for people to know who you are. It is another way to link your e-mail list building tactics. 

For example, if you have a quiz, you can add the link to your e-mail signature. I you have a free eBook you want people to download, you can add a link to the landing page to your e-mail signature to direct them where they can download the eBook. 

To illustrate, if you are a real estate agent and you created a landing page where people can download your free eBook on how to prepare their house when they already want to sell it, your e-mail signature could include a single line like, “Getting ready to sell your house? Get my free eBook on how to get the most money for it!”

Lastly on this tactic, if you have employees, consider having them add something similar to their e-mail signatures. The more people who have it as part of their signature, the more e-mail sign-ups you can generate. 

Tactic Number 13: A/B Test Everything 

This is the last tactic I have for you when building your e-mail list: A/B test everything. When we say A/B testing, it simply means testing two things against each other to see which performs better. Once you have identified which one works better, you double down on the winner! 

For example, if you opt to use pop-ups on your website, create two different types with two different wordings or descriptions. Test them against each other to see which generates the most e-mail sign-ups. Once you determine which one is better, use that one. 

With A/B testing, your goal is simply to find what works best and then focus much more heavily on those techniques. 

What Next? 

If you have created your e-mail list already, you will need a dedicated Email Marketing Software to store all your contacts and enable you to send out e-mails and more. You do not want to use Gmail, Outlook, or any other standard e-mail client. You will want to use an e-mail provider that is specifically designed for e-mail marketing. We’ve already mentioned Flodesk which is our jam.

Some other solid e-mail marketing options you can choose from:

• Flodesk
• ConvertKit 
• ActiveCampaign 
• ConstantContact 
• CampaignMonitor 
• Mailchimp 

My Last Tip For You

Combine the list building tactics I mentioned above for maximum success! Do not be content to settle for one or two. If you do that, your list will certainly grow, but it will grow at a much slower rate. 

To wrap it up, the 13 techniques to rapidly grow your e-mail list are:

1. Create valuable content 
2. Create pop-ups 
3. Utilize landing pages 
4. Give away a lead magnet 
5. Do a give away
6. Use Facebook Lead Ads 
7. Implement content upgrades 
8. Create free tools 
9. Create quizzes 
10. Promote your list on social media 
11. Add social sharing buttons to your e-mails 
12. Add a link to your e-mail signature 
13. A/B test everything 

W0mail marketing and list building requires hard work but it will be worth it. Remember, the average ROI for e-mail marketing is a whopping 3,200 percent! 

So, get to work on building your e-mail list. Combine as many of these tactics so you can watch your e-mail list grow rapidly!