How to Build Your Email Subscriber List Absolutely Free

Don’t even think about going into debt by buying email addresses, as OptInMonster’s Jacinda Santora advises. There are ways you can build an email list without spending a dime.

Buying an email list is like hiring a staff of pesky door-to-door salespeople to make virtual cold calls. You’ll only annoy your target customers – and might even put yourself on the spam “naughty list.”

Take these steps instead:

1. Use Social Media Profiles and Posts to Increase Email Newsletter Subscribers

Always provide a link to an informative landing page with a “subscribe” button on it both on your profile description, pinned tweets, and posts, Santora says. When you publish a new blog post, take a few seconds to post a link to it on your social media pages.

At the bottom of each blog post, place a link to sign up for your newsletter. Then provide subscribers with exclusive content that helps them deal with the kinds of challenges that keep them up at night. The word will get around – when your subscribers get valuable content, they’ll share it with their friends and colleagues.

2. Offer Gated Content to Email Subscribers

Instead of turning on the news or sports when you get home at night, take a few moments out of your leisure time to work on a helpful ebook, video, webinar, or other valuable content.

When you finish, create a blog post that introduces the new content. At the end of the blog post, include a link to subscribe to your email newsletters.

So long as the content reaches the right segment of your target market and provides information they can use, you’ll likely build your email list with subscribers that are interested in what you sell. Use free programs like Google Analytics and Facebook Analytics to help you target the right audience.

3. Build Your Email List with New Product Notifications

To build an email list with people that actually need what you sell, use new product notifications to track them down, Santora says. Use your social media and blog to publish content that introduces your latest products and services.

Whether it’s a “how to use our new widget” demo video or a detailed description of the device and its benefits, this content is a great way to build enthusiasm about your brand among your target customer base.

At the end of your post, create a “notify me when available” button and link so that you can capture these valuable email addresses for future communication.

4. Don’t Forget Your Homepage

Did you realize that your home page gets the most views of all the pages on your website? But many companies forget to put a newsletter subscription link on this page, says Sumo’s Dean Yeong.

Instead of using your homepage as a brag sheet, make it about what you do for your customers. Then, when you include a link to subscribe, it will seem more organic.

Even more importantly, you’ll be building an email list from people who are truly interested in how your products and services can help them, rather than out of sheer curiosity.

5. Use Free Trial Periods to Attract Subscribers

How many of you have taken Netflix for its free trial period, vowing to cut it off before the month ended? Then you got hooked on binge-watching. By the time you came out of your obsession, Netflix had not only your loyalty but also your email address.

Then, when you did finally cut it off, they followed up with email newsletters targeted right at you. Sci-fi lovers received email stories about the production process for the latest Star Trek movie, while the Hallmark rom-com crowd received a list of the streaming service’s upcoming holiday weepers.

Bingo! They have you back, happily plunking down $10 a month to feed your binge. That’s the power of free – and you can put it to use to attract and retain customers.

6. Request Email Addresses During Checkout

If you do e-commerce, you can increase the frequency of repeat business when you keep your customers informed about new products and new uses for the products they’ve already bought. You can do that by providing a stream of actionable content in your newsletter.

Since these customers have already shown an interest in your products and services, you’re missing an opportunity to upsell and maintain customer loyalty if you don’t keep up communication with them.

7. Offer Customers a Discount When They Provide Their Email Address

People love discounts. When you provide them with something they can use to save money, they more than likely buy your product. There’s a lot more than anecdotal evidence to back that observation up.

As Peter Roesler reports in Inc, statistics show that two-thirds of all consumers purchased something they weren’t even planning to buy, simply because they received a discount on the purchase.

Even more – 80 percent – of them are more likely to make their first-time purchase with a new brand when there’s a discount incentive to do so.

There’s an even bigger long-term benefit to this strategy.

If you require customers to provide their email address to get the discount, you have a new group of newsletter subscribers. These subscribers can discover new uses for your products, new products that complement the ones they bought with their discount, and ways to use those products to save time and money.

Your Email Newsletter Is a Growing Asset When You Partner with inboxAds

Not only can you build up your newsletter subscribers list to create long-term streams of income, but you can also monetize your newsletter from day one.

You’ve chosen your subscriber lists carefully – segmenting them by interests so that they receive information that interests them.

Now, take that one step further with putting advertising that appeals to their interests within your newsletter. They’ll appreciate the links to products and services they’ll probably need, and you’ll receive money when your customers click through and buy one of the advertisers’ products.

inboxAds uses sophisticated AI technology – programmatic advertising – to place ads from brands that don’t compete with your products and services but rather complement them. Our ads are inconspicuous – native ads that look like links to related articles.

The best thing about inboxAds? It’s absolutely free for publishers to use – for your entire lifetime. That alone is a reason to give it a test drive.

You can get started monetizing your newsletter today! Simply download our WordPress plugin or get in touch with our helpful team today!