New lead generation methods become popular every year – with advances in technology and user habits, companies are able to identify new opportunities for finding and engaging their target audience online.
However, no matter what innovative lead-gen ideas are trending this year, you can bet that email marketing will be able to outperform almost all of them consistently.
The personal communication and sequential messaging possibilities that email marketing provides can’t be matched by no other approach, so if you want your business to succeed, you better learn how to use it to its full potential.
But this can be tricky – with data protection and user privacy laws becoming more stringent every year, not to mention the crowded online marketplaces, getting your emails read or even opened can become complicated.
However, there are still ways to get more email subscribers that can help you to never run out of new leads to educate and nurture with the help of your email marketing campaign.
Here are just a few ways that you can start using as soon as today to achieve quick and meaningful results.
Create an Online Webinar
Webinars have been growing increasingly popular in recent years – they’re no longer exclusive to large companies or info product sellers but are a growingly popular medium for businesses of all sizes.
Now I know that putting together a webinar may seem like a daunting task – it can be hard to even figure out where to start, let alone make it happen.
However, with numerous tools that are available for free or at an affordable price, today almost anyone can put together a professional-looking webinar that’s in line with your brand and gets your message across effectively.
And with webinars, your potential to do both is endless – live communication through the web allows you to connect with potential customers from all over the world and present your message while also getting invaluable insights from the feedback and questions that you receive.
You can promote your webinar on social media or your blog, and grow your list of subscribers by asking to subscribe to your newsletter in exchange for access to the webinar.
But growing your subscriber list isn’t the only benefit of putting together a webinar. In fact, 73% of B2B marketers and sales leaders say that a webinar is the most effective way to generate high-quality leads.
Use Content Locking
If you have a blog, chances are that you’re already providing valuable information that’s relevant and interesting to your target audience.
The problem with this approach is that you have no control over who receives and reads your content – even if you always deliver on expectations, there’s no guarantee your readers will come back.
That’s where content locking can be so valuable.
Basically, it’s the process of converting your blog readers into email subscribers so that you can deliver messages to them more consistently.
But how can you achieve that?
Well, if you’re publishing solid content, the process is relatively simple. Instead of allowing your readers to leave your site after reading an article, you should offer them an incentive to continue learning about a similar subject.
For instance, at the bottom of your blog post, you could have an opt-in form with a relevant e-book or report that expands on the subject or helps them to solve a related problem.
This way, you can gain a subscriber that has shown interest in your subject and is likely to be interested in your products or services as well.
Encourage to Share Your Newsletter
One of the biggest drawbacks of email marketing is that there is no way for the subscribers to communicate – unlike social media or content marketing, the email appears in a private inbox, with no way to interact with others.
That can be limiting because even if your message and content are valuable and engaging, people aren’t naturally inclined to share it with others because they view email as a more personal form of communication.
However, there are things you can do to change that.
You should look at each email you send out as an opportunity to not only communicate with that particular subscriber but also a way to grow your list. If you can get people to forward your emails, that can help you build your email subscribers list organically, which is an important part of a healthy list.
But how can you get people to share your emails with others?
Well, one of the first things you should do is implement an email branding strategy. You should make sure that it’s clear who the email is from, and that each email contains at least some way to find you online if the reader wasn’t already familiar with you.
You should also focus on providing as much value as possible – to have any shot of your emails being forwarded, you need to deliver information that’s so engaging that they will have a natural desire to share it.
Also, if you want to increase your chances of the email getting forwarded, ask! Include a call-to-action that encourages sharing, and you’d be surprised how many people will be happy to do it. Just don’t forget to make your CTAs clearly visible.
If you want, you can even include social media sharing buttons, although you have to decide if you want your emails displayed publicly. Most email marketing service providers have made it very easy to add social media integration into your emails, so this step doesn’t take a lot of time to implement.
Employ Facebook Ads
The most straightforward and fastest way to quickly grow your subscriber list is to use Facebook Ads.
However, as you probably know, they will cost you for every new subscriber that you receive, so you better make sure that you can make the strategy profitable.
Still, the great thing about Facebook Ads is that you have a lot of flexibility regarding the people that you want to reach, so if you know your audience and what they respond to, you can grow your list rapidly and relatively cheaply.
In fact, a well-targeted Facebook post that’s promoted with FB Ads can help you to influence consumers and attract the very best subscribers and leads to your list.
The important thing to remember is that Facebook has become quite restrictive in what types of ads you can run. The language can’t be too sales-y or promotional, so you need to do a very good job of figuring out your audience and also make it as easy as possible for the prospects to perform the action that you want them to, which in this case is subscribing to your list.
Look for Guest Posting Opportunities
If you don’t want to splash for a Facebook Ads budget but still want the potential of attracting thousands of hyper-targeted prospects to your list, then guest posting might be the perfect strategy for you to employ.
It’s completely free (unless you run sponsored posts) and can allow you to appear on some of the most prominent blogs in your industry or even worldwide. Some small companies saw their entire business take off after appearing on sites like Forbes, Buzzfeed or the Huffington Post, so the potential that guest posting has for your business is limitless.
But how can you get started with guest posting?
Well, the first thing you need to do is figure out the blogs and websites that you want to appear on that are read by the people that you want to reach. Knowing this will dictate what type of content you will create and what you need to talk about.
Once you know who you want to target, you can start contacting blog owners and pitching your ideas until someone takes an interest.
If you do get published, don’t forget to spend adequate time on developing an engaging author bio or byline, as that will be your only way to talk about yourself and entice people to click through to your site where they can become subscribers.
Author’s Bio:
Dave Schneider is the founder of LessChurn, churn reduction app. In 2012 he quit his job to travel the world, and has visited over 65 countries.