It’s no question, a newsletter list is valuable! Even more valuable than Instagram followers in my opinion. While social media is huge, it’s not always reliable. We’re all familiar with glitches and have likely experienced the dreaded Facebook and Instagram outages. But have you ever thought to yourself, what if your social media accounts got locked out, shut down or hacked? It’s a possibility for sure. After all, we’ve seen it happen first hand with Vine and Google +.
So why is a newsletter so good? Well, you own this list. You don’t own your social media accounts. That might surprise you! But what’s harder to grow? A social media following or a newsletter list? In my opinion, a newsletter list!
I’m sharing some of my top strategies, proven to work with you!
- Collaborate with another, similar brand
Reach out to a brand/company/influencer with a similar but non-competitive audience as yours. Work together to come up with a plan that you can both benefit from. For example, while working for a subscription box company, I reached out to a company in the same niche to develop a micro-page that we could giveaway a high-valued item away on. While entering, we asked if you would like to join our newsletter list and to join their newsletter list. With both brands promoting the contest, we were able to reach a large audience and grow our newsletter lists quite a bit. - Offer a discount
People aren’t dumb! They know that their email address is valuable. If you can offer a discount on services or their first order, you’ll get more sign-ups. Think of your favourite apparel company. They likely have a pop up that offers you a discount for signing up to their newsletter list! - Develop a freebie or gift
Again, offer some value! By providing a style guide, an e-book, or access to exclusive content that your audience wants/needs; you will generate more interest in joining your newsletter. You can integrate a trigger so that as soon as someone enters their email, they get an automatic email with your freebie! - Retention, retention, retention!
Ever get newsletter overload and unsubscribe? It’s so common! Don’t send out newsletters unless you have good information and value included. You shouldn’t just send a newsletter to send one. Make sure your subscribers are getting something out of it – information, savings, exclusive content, new information, etc. - Bring it offline
If you do events or have a brick + mortar location, integrate newsletter sign ups offline! While working for music festivals, we always had the opportunity for people who engaged with our activation at community events to win something by signing up to our newsletter! Tickets, merch, swag, whatever. People love free stuff and they are likely to offer up an email when they see who is behind the brand and have a chance to ask questions and engage! Similarly, a health care practitioner may have the option to register for their newsletter right on a new client form!
Do you have a newsletter list? Is it growing as quickly as you would like? Hopefully, some of these strategies spark some creativity and excitement for you to create a plan to grow your newsletter list!
