{"id":3750,"date":"2019-04-12T12:30:10","date_gmt":"2019-04-12T19:30:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.modernostrategies.com\/?p=3750"},"modified":"2022-02-21T18:28:01","modified_gmt":"2022-02-22T02:28:01","slug":"grow-your-email-marketing-audience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.modernostrategies.com\/blog\/grow-your-email-marketing-audience\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Grow Your Email Marketing Audience"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"512\" src=\"https:\/\/www.modernostrategies.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/grow-your-email-marketing-list.png\" alt=\"How to grow your email marketing list\" class=\"wp-image-3763\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.modernostrategies.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/grow-your-email-marketing-list.png 1024w, https:\/\/www.modernostrategies.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/grow-your-email-marketing-list-150x75.png 150w, https:\/\/www.modernostrategies.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/grow-your-email-marketing-list-720x360.png 720w, https:\/\/www.modernostrategies.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/grow-your-email-marketing-list-768x384.png 768w, https:\/\/www.modernostrategies.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/grow-your-email-marketing-list-570x285.png 570w, https:\/\/www.modernostrategies.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/grow-your-email-marketing-list-200x100.png 200w, https:\/\/www.modernostrategies.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/grow-your-email-marketing-list-280x140.png 280w, https:\/\/www.modernostrategies.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/grow-your-email-marketing-list-360x180.png 360w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Use email capture\nforms to transform your website from a digital brochure into a lead generation\ntool.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Gated Content<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Gated content is often the &#8220;easiest&#8221; way to capture email addresses. Gated content is any type of content that is locked behind a lead capture form. The most common gated content is white papers or informational ebooks that are downloaded as PDFs, infographics, and other types of media. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The typical process to implement an email capture program using gated content is:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol><li>You create a marketing asset like a white paper\nor eBook that will be deemed useful to your target audience. <\/li><li>Create a landing page with a form and compelling\ncopy. When a website visitor fills out the form they get an email with a link\nto the asset. <\/li><li>The landing page is promoted over multiple\nchannels. Social media, direct mail, and digital advertising can all be\neffective. <\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p>This tactic will be most effective when you deeply understand your target audience and their pains and goals. When you understand your audience you can create content that is useful and will help establish trust in your company. Sales focused content that highlights your capabilities normally won\u2019t work. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The great thing about creating useful content is that you create and the process once and then <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Popup Forms<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Nobody likes those annoying popup \u201cgive us your email\naddress\u201d forms, but they\u2019re used because they work. I recommend testing them.\nOne client I have shows it only one time ever so as not to be annoying. Last\nweek I had an opposite experience. I went to a landing page and was in the\nprocess of typing my email address in a form when a popup asking me to fill in my\nemail address got in the way. Very annoying! There are many ways you can\ntrigger a popup form that an enhance effectiveness while reducing annoyance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li>Show the popup when someone gets to the bottom of\na page and are wondering what to do next.<\/li><li>Show the popup after someone views 4 pages on\nyour website, or views 2 projects.<\/li><li>Show the popup when the visitor appears to be\nleaving your website. <\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Use a slide-in footer or side bar if you can\u2019t stand the\nthought of putting your visitors through the popup experience. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/sumo.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">SumoMe<\/a> and <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/optinmonster.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">OptinMonster<\/a> are two popular plugins for adding popup forms on a built using WordPress. Many email service providers, such as <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/mailchimp.com\/help\/examples-of-compliant-and-non-compliant-lists\/\" target=\"_blank\">MailChimp<\/a>, also provide tools to create popup email capture forms on your website. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Prominence, Promise, and Proof<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Don&#8217;t expect to put up a &#8220;sign up for our newsletter!&#8221; form on your website and get many responses.  You can dramatically improve your subscriber list growth rate by doing these three things: <\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li><strong>Prominence<\/strong>:\u00a0 Make your signup forms very visible on your website. <\/li><li><strong>Promise<\/strong>: Make it clear what people are signing up for. <\/li><li><strong>Proof<\/strong>: If you already have a lot of subscribers show the number as social proof. Otherwise add a subscriber testimonial.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>If you think you can improve on any of these I highly recommend reading Orbit Media&#8217;s <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.orbitmedia.com\/blog\/email-signup-forms\/\" target=\"_blank\">3 Factors in Boosting your Email Signup Form<\/a> blog post.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Test Your Email Signup Process <\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Once you&#8217;ve implemented Orbit Media&#8217;s three suggestions, test. Think of improving your email capture process as a continuous improvement process.  Test the following: <\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol><li>Experiment with popups and slide-ins to find the fine line between being a nuisance and having an effective lead capture process.<\/li><li>Test various social proof and call to action messages. Try mixing up &#8220;join thousands of subscribers&#8221; (once you have them) messages and various customer testimonials. <\/li><li>Require as little information as possible. The more form fields you require, the fewer subscribers you&#8217;ll get. All you really need is an email address, but I always also ask for the first name. Once you have an effective process in place you can experiment with asking for the last name, company, job title, or other useful information and see how it impacts signup rates. <\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Your House List<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>You likely have hundreds or thousands of customer and\nprospect email addresses that you\u2019ve collected over the years. These are found\nin your sales and service reps\u2019 email accounts and accounting systems<strong>. It is very tempting to upload all these\nemail addresses into your email marketing platform and start blasting out\nemails to them.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Don\u2019t do it!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There are many reasons this is a bad idea. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li>Your email service provider may suspend your\naccount if you have a high bounce rate.<\/li><li>Your customer\u2019s email server may flag you as a\nspammer if you send an email to numerous people that are no longer at the\ncompany. &nbsp;<\/li><li>It is likely against your email service\nproviders terms of use. <\/li><li>You may bother some long-time customers. <\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>In the United States, you are more likely to run afoul of your email service provider that you are of the law, as the providers&#8217; policies tend to be more restrictive than what is legally allowed. MailChimp provides good guidelines explaining <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/mailchimp.com\/help\/examples-of-compliant-and-non-compliant-lists\/\" target=\"_blank\">lists that are and aren\u2019t allowed<\/a> by their policies. Other email service providers have similar policies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">About Bounce Rates<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>A <em>bounce<\/em> is an email to an email address that doesn\u2019t get delivered. There are <em>soft bounces<\/em>, which are temporary delivery problems, and <em>hard bounces<\/em>, that occur when an email address doesn\u2019t exist. Bounces are a fact of life in email marketing, but you should be diligent in keeping an eye on your hard bounces. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A good rule of thumb is that 20% of the email addresses you\nhave will go bad each year as people spend on average five years at a company. If\nyou email to your list once each month you\u2019ll likely see a hard bounce rate of\n1.5-2.0%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Emailing your contacts at least once a month will keep your\nbounce rate at acceptable levels. Once you start email marketing consistency is\nimportant, but never go beyond three months between emails. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If your bounce rate gets up into the 5-10% range there\u2019s a good\nchance your email service provider will suspend your account. I\u2019m always nervous\nwhen sending an email to a new list. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Tips for Sending Emails to a New List<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>When sending to a new list or segment of contacts it is\nimportant to keep a very close eye on hard bounce rates, unsubscribes, and spam\ncomplaints. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here\u2019s tips to make things go as smoothly as possible. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol><li><strong>Send small batches<\/strong> of emails to test response to the new audience. <\/li><li>If possible <strong>gradually mix in new email addresses into your existing list<\/strong> and monitor bounce and unsubscribe rates.<\/li><li><strong>Never ever purchase an email list and blast an email to it.<\/strong> It may have spam traps, and the response will be very low. There&#8217;s a good chance you&#8217;ll be blacklisted as a spammer &#8211; because you are.<\/li><li><strong>If you must purchase contact lists don\u2019t add them to your email marketing program<\/strong> right away. Warm them up with direct mail or a sequence of phone calls and emails from a real person. But beware of spam traps, which are fake email addresses companies deploy to identify spam emails. It\u2019s best to make a phone call first to verify it\u2019s a real person.<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Getting Started<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>If you&#8217;re already blogging or regularly adding projects on\nyour website, the easiest way to begin email marketing is to summarize the\nprevious month&#8217;s blog posts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Make it very clear on how the newsletter will benefit the\nreader. You must have a target audience and you must understand the problems\nthey face. It can&#8217;t be about you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Unless you have high growth goals and you&#8217;re well funded, it is better to keep your email marketing simple when starting out. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here&#8217;s a typical progression that companies go through, starting simple and getting more sophisticated over time: <\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol><li>monthly newsletter<\/li><li>onboarding drip campaign<\/li><li>customized content using segmentation data<\/li><li>behavior-based emails using a marketing automation platform <\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Use email capture forms to transform your website from a digital brochure into a lead generation tool. Gated Content Gated content is often the &#8220;easiest&#8221; way to capture email addresses. 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Gated Content Gated content is often the &#8220;easiest&#8221; way to capture email addresses. [&hellip;]","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.modernostrategies.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3750"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.modernostrategies.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.modernostrategies.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.modernostrategies.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.modernostrategies.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3750"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.modernostrategies.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3750\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5207,"href":"https:\/\/www.modernostrategies.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3750\/revisions\/5207"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.modernostrategies.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.modernostrategies.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.modernostrategies.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.modernostrategies.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}