It’s no secret that email marketing is one of the most powerful tools for growing your business. The problem, however, is that it can be hard to grow your list when you are just starting out or you don’t have a huge budget for paid traffic.
It’s very easy to get caught up with followers, likes and shares on with all these social platforms but the harsh reality is, you don’t own those audiences. You can be shut down at any moment.
There are plenty of ways to grow your email list on a small budget, but how do you do it without spending a fortune?
Well to start with, leveraging those social platforms I mentioned above to actually grow an email list is going to be one of the best moves you make. That way if you ever get shut down, you’ve already built an amazing audience of email subscribers that you actually own!
If this sounds like something you want to tackle in 2022, keep reading because in this article we’re going to expose 10 proven ways that can help you get more email subscribers without breaking the bank.
We’ll also discuss the best tools and strategies to put these tips into action, boosting your chances of success.
Table of Contents
1. Create a Blog
No doubt you’ve seen this one everywhere, but that’s because running a blog site is one of the best ways to generate free traffic and build an email list. The one downside is that a blog will take a bit of work to get started and won’t start getting traffic straight away.
Long term though, a blog website is one of the closest things to passive income that you’ll ever get and it’s an amazing way to build a very lucrative email list.
Top Tips To Build Your Email List With a Blog
- Content really is king when it comes to blogging. Regular high quality content is required for a successful blog. The good news is this can be outsourced if you have the funds to do so.
- Be strategic with your calls-to-action and make sure you have decent lead magnets or offers to encourage readers to opt-in to your list from your blog.
- Re-purpose (don’t copy + paste though) blog content onto other platforms so you can increase your reach.
- Test different variations of pop-ups and other opt-in forms on your site as you start to get traffic.
2. Publish on YouTube
If you want a faster way to build your email list than blogging, publishing videos on YouTube might be the answer for you. You don’t even have to show your face, just like YouTuber Jon Davis explains in this video.
You’ll need a few bits of software if you want to achieve a “faceless” YT channel, but it’s certainly worth it if you’re really that introverted. Otherwise, here’s how you can position yourself to make the most out of your Youtube email list building efforts.
Top Tips To Build Your Email List With YouTube
- Pick a popular niche and put out consistent, quality content for your viewers.
- Have a strong call-to-action in your videos to encourage viewers to join your list. This might include a lead magnet freebie that will give them more information on the topic you are presenting in your video.
- Use the native YouTube features such as “cards” which allow you to link directly to your website from your video.
- Optimize your channel artwork with a call-to-action, just like our friend Jon has here.
You can see that in Jon’s YouTube channel art/banner, he offers people a free training about how he makes money. This is an enticing yet simple call-to-action that most likely works well.
3. Shake Your Thing on TikTok
“But I can’t dance, and I’m certainly NOT doing it on TikTok!” Well the good news is, there’s actually no dancing required. You’ll be surprised to know that a huge range of demographics now frequent TikTok and it’s fast becoming the most viewed video platform in the world!
According to Wallaroo Media, there are over 80million TikTok users in the USA alone and 26% of those are between the ages 25-44.
TikTok is similar to YouTube in how you might build your email list, but you can gain massive traction even faster than on YouTube due to the ability to go “viral” at any given time.
Top Tips To Build Your Email List With TikTok
- The trick with TikTok is to upload regularly, at least daily. The videos only have to be quick though.
- Use trending features and relevant hashtags so the algorithm loves you.
- Much like YouTube, include a CTA in every video. TikTok lets you put a link in your bio so make sure that leads to your optin page.
4. Get Podcasting
You can either start your own or be a guest on someone else’s, but Podcasting is a great way to expand your reach and build your email list. You can even film your podcasts as videos and post them to your YouTube channel and other social platforms. This is a great method of multiplying your content, Gary Vee style.
Top Tips To Build Your Email List With a Podcast
- Like many other social channels, running a Podcast (or being a guest on one) is all about quality content. If you want listeners to take action then the experience you deliver must be a good one.
- You can have links in your profile on various Podcast platforms, or at very least in the episode blurb if you’re making guest appearances. Always include a strong CTA.
- Sell on the episode/s, but make it relevant. Theres no harm in dropping a quick “check out the link to learn more about this topic” during an episode, but make it tasteful and don’t blatantly “sell” otherwise you might put listeners off.
5. Network on LinkedIn
Normally geared towards professionals, LinkedIn can be a great resource to network and connect with potential customers. Don’t be put off if you’re not a “professional” though. There are around 740million registered users on LinkedIn so there are plenty of prospects on there to join your email list!
Top Tips To Build Your Email List With LinkedIn
- Connect with relevant people and perhaps even send some intro DM’s, but don’t hit them with your opt-in page link right away. Just connect and then let your profile do the work.
- Post regular quality content on your profile. LinkedIn allows you to write “articles” in addition to simply posting, so make sure you add some substantial content to the platform. You can also re-purpose some of your blog content, if you have one.
- Optimize your profile and make sure its “complete”. You don’t want people guessing what it is that you do. You should also include a nice CTA in your profile banner image too, much like all platforms.
Social lead gen expert Sam Rexford has quite a well optimized LinkedIn profile. Its clear what he does and he has some very clear calls-to-action. It doesn’t have to be complicated to make LinkedIn work for you.
6. Launch a Facebook Group
Building a Facebook group takes a bit of work to attract people, but it is a great way to build your tribe of loyal followers and grow your email list in 2022. Whilst the engagement of Facebook groups has suffered a little recently, they are still a great way to build a community.
Top Tips To Build Your Email List With Facebook Groups
- When people request to join your group, you can ask them to provide their email in exchange for some sort of freebie. Whether or not you make this mandatory is up to you, but most will happily provide their email if you are offering something juicy enough.
- Create a high quality “pinned-post” in your group and be sure to include a CTA.
- Post regularly and encourage engagement. Groups need activity in order to grow so don’t get lazy otherwise your group will suffer.
- Create a nice looking banner image with a strong call-to-action.
7. Create an Online Course
Online learning is growing every year so if you can teach something to others, you should do it. You might decide to launch a paid course, or you may decide to offer a free course simply to try and build your list. Both methods work but if you want to promote your paid course then you may want to look at learning how to do that either with ads or organically across a number of platforms.
Super helpful but really obvious hot tip – all of the list building methods in this article can obviously help you sell your course!
Top Tips To Build Your Email List With an Online Course
- Make sure the information you’re teaching is, wait for it, high quality! If your students have a great experience then they will recommend it to others.
- Try course marketplaces like Udemy if you want organic exposure. Gumroad is also a great, low-cost option too but might not get as much exposure as Udemy.
- Promote the value and the outcomes that your students are likely to achieve when they take your course. This will increase your opt-in rate.
8. Do a Giveaway & Encourage Sharing
If this isn’t your first attempt at starting an email list then there’s a good chance you’ve got some old contacts gathering dust. Doing a giveaway to your old list is one great way to win-back old subscribers. If you’re building from scratch, you can use different software to offer a prize to your subscribers in exchange for sharing your emails with their friends.
Top Tips To Build Your Email List With Giveaways
- At the risk of stating the obvious, make the giveaway something worthwhile that your subscribers will like.
- Pick a suitable software to help ensure your giveaway works smoothly. Rafflepress is quite a popular WordPress based giveaway software.
- Promote your giveaway across any other platforms you’re on. The more people that know about it, the better.
You can see on this example giveaway page from Rafflepress you can give users a heap of ways to enter. If done right, a giveaway can significantly skyrocket your email subscriber umber in a short period of time.
9. Run Free Webinar Training
Now you may eventually decide to charge for these, but if you run a regular training webinar for your audience then you’ll attract a lot of new subscribers if you’re providing valuable content. You’ll need to promote this in order to get the subscribers, but using a webinar as a lead magnet can often work quite well.
Top Tips To Build Your Email List With Webinars
- Much like an online course, you should be promoting your webinar wherever you are active.
- Make sure you record and re-purpose your webinars on platforms like YouTube. This is valuable content that can be bundled at a later date and used as another form of list building.
- Don’t forget to follow-up with webinar registrants and then promote your giveaway from tip #8 so you can get even more exposure!
10. Guest Blogging
If you can string some words together and write a decent article on a particular topic, you can use those skills to promote yourself for free on high authority blog sites. As a guest on someone else’s blog, you generally get the opportunity to provide a backlink to your own blog and you get to write a small blurb about yourself, as the author.
You may not get paid for your guest blog article but it’s a great way to get exposure.
Top Tips To Build Your Email List With Guest Blogging
- Choose some high-authority blog sites in your niche and reach out with a well-thought-out proposal. This might take some practice, but the more you do it the better you will get.
- Make sure you are able to actually write quality content that is suitable for the blog you want to guest post on.
- Try connect with blog owners on other platforms too, in addition to reaching out via email. The more they get to know you, the better your chances are.
The Final Word on Growing Your Email List in 2022
If you’ve made it this far, I don’t have to convince you how important building your email list is in 2022 and beyond.
We discussed 10 awesome ways to grow your email list and quite honestly we could write another 50 ways but the truth is, you should try master only one or two platforms first.
Trying to take on too many social platforms at once is a great way to burn out and achieve nothing at all, so just narrow your focus and master one before moving on to the next.
Thanks again for reading and best of luck with growing your email list in 2022. It’ll be the best thing you ever do!
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