6 Tips for Building a Massive Email Subscriber List Using Your Website

There’s one thing every single blogger, business owner, and entrepreneur should be doing…and that’s building an email subscriber list. By capturing email addresses, you suddenly have a list of potential customers that you can leverage in a number of different ways – both now and in the future.

If you’re like most, you’ve tried to capture some emails in the past, but have failed to really grow your list over time. Well, it’s time to turn things around. All you need is a website and some creativity, and you can utilize the following tips to help you gain thousands of new subscribers this year.

1. Use Pop-Up Subscription Forms

One of the more popular and effective methods for earning subscribers (and encouraging repeat website traffic) is using pop-up subscription forms over web pages.

“If you want to see your visitors return, you must give them reasons to do so,” Green Residential tells its clients. “A great way to get return visitors is to use pop-up subscription forms that urge guests to subscribe to your blog or a newsletter. Through these publications, you can offer useful information and tips that will show readers the value you can offer.”

The value of pop-up subscription forms versus standard subscription boxes is that they force website visitors to take some sort of action. They can say yes or no, but an action must be taken. Many times, this leads to a successful opt-in.

2. Offer Premium Content

While most of the content on your website is free for the taking, it can help to publish some premium content that can only be accessed by providing an email address. Companies often attach these stipulations to things like ebooks, white papers, case studies, and webinars. This strategy can help you accumulate a steady stream of new subscribers over a long period of time.

3. Cut the Fluff

One of the biggest mistakes websites make when trying to earn email subscribers is asking for too much information. Don’t get greedy! Do you really need a visitor’s location, phone number, gender, and mailing address? Stick to their name and email for best results.

4. Offer Options During Checkout

For ecommerce websites, one of the best opportunities to increase email signups comes during checkout. Since the customer is already giving you their email address, all you need to do is create an option that says something like, “Would you like to sign up for our monthly newsletter?” Put a little checkbox next to the question and you’ll be surprised by how many take you up on the offer.

5. Choose the Right Button Color

When it comes to opt-in forms, did you know that color actually has a huge influence on whether or not an individual converts? Different colors influence people in unique ways and you need to be aware of how this relates to conversions.

There are a handful of studies on the internet that show the importance of color, but one of the more powerful ones involved a simple change from red to green. The marketer behind the study tested a “submit” button with a red border that automatically changed to green when a user hovered their mouse over it. As a result of the changing color – a visual cue to proceed – the opt-in rate soared by 40 percent. This goes to show how important even the smallest detail can be.

6. Keep Your List Clean

While focusing on growing your email list, don’t forget the quality of your leads is paramount. Use an email validation service every few months to ensure your database stays fresh. Also, consider adding an email verification API to your signup forms. The API checks email addresses in real time, rejects the bad ones, and helps you keep your list clean for longer.

Focus on Steady Growth

You probably don’t have enough traffic to grow your subscriber list by thousands overnight, but you can certainly do so in the coming weeks and months. All it takes is a commitment to try new things and implement the right strategies.