How to Use Your Blog to Grow Your Email List
Use Your Blog to Grow Your Email List
I’m not gonna lie…growing an email list can be challenging and takes time.
A robust email list is a powerful asset, providing a direct line of communication with your audience and driving higher conversion rates. The secret lies in leveraging your blog effectively.
In this post, I’ll explore proven strategies to grow your email list using your blog.
Why is an Email List Important?
More Reasons Why Bogging is More Effective Than Social Media Marketing
Why does having an email list matter so much anyway?
Whelp, for starters, email marketing has a return on investment (ROI) of around 3800%, compared to social media’s measly 28% (not to mention the emotional price you pay by spending too much time on social media).
An email list allows you to directly reach your audience, nurture relationships, and drive sales—no need for social media algorithms here!
And because you can create targeted, personalized emails, you will increase engagement and conversion rates.
Unlike social media followers, your email list is something you own and control. Your social media account can—and this actually does happen—get shut down at any time, and you have absolutely no control over this.
When someone subscribes to your email list, it’s because they are actually INTERESTED. They are EXPECTING to hear from you.
It is said that each email subscriber is worth about $10. So when it comes to email marketing vs. social media marketing, there is no comparison.
Crafting Irresistible Lead Generators
Lead generators, lead magnets, freebies, click-bait, opt-ins…they all mean the same thing.
A lead generator is an incentive you give visitors in exchange for their email addresses. The more valuable the offer, the more likely visitors will subscribe.
Make it really, really good! Like, worth actual money. Because when your audience can see how good your free thing is, they will think, “Their paid thing must be awesome!”
Ideas for Lead Generators:
Speaking of lead generators, I have one on this very topic. I’ve created an Ultimate List of Lead Generators to provide some inspiration. I know it can be hard to just “think something up,” so I’ve taken some of the “thinking” out of the equation for you.
*Hint: Have more than one lead generator. Don’t stress about this if you don’t have any right now. Work on creating your first one, but don’t delay in creating a 2nd, and then maybe even a 3rd.
Placement Strategies:
Your sidebar is a great place to highlight any content you want your visitors to pay attention to. You can create your own sidebar using a summary block or purchase the sidebar plugin from SQSP Themes (totally worth it).
Put your opt-in directly in your blog post like I do, that way it can’t be missed.
Use the Squarespace Pop-Up feature.
More on Squarespace Pop-Ups:
Here are some suggestions for using the Squarespace Pop-up Feature
Go to Pages > Website tools > Promotional Pop-Up
Add and customize your content here (you know what to do)
In ‘Display and Timing,’ decide which pages you want your pop-up to appear on. You can select ‘Any first page’ or ‘Only Certain Pages’
Choose the timing and/or scroll length
Choose the frequency—I suggest selecting ‘ The Next Day’
List the Benefits of Your Lead Generator
Your blog should naturally guide visitors toward subscribing by seamlessly integrating calls-to-action (CTAs) to get your awesome free thing.
In my blogs, I integrate “ads” for my lead generators. You’ll notice that I am very clear about the value my audience will receive if they get my free thing, and you should do the same.
Don’t assume your audience knows the benefits—tell them! And make it really easy for them to get it!
Analyzing and Optimizing Your Strategy
It’s essential to track your progress and continuously optimize your strategy. By analyzing your email list growth, you can identify what’s working and what needs improvement.
Use a Good Email Service Provider:
As much as I love Squarespace, I don’t use Squarespace Campaigns.
My personal favorite Email Service Provider (ESP) is ConvertKit, but there are other good ones like MailChimp (although I find it a bit clunky), Flodesk, and MailerLite, among others.
Having a good ESP is essential for keeping track of your subscribers, tagging them according to their specific interests, tailoring your email marketing content, crafting newer, better lead generators, and much more.
Don’t skip this! All of these ESPs have free versions to start, including ConvertKit, so go and sign up now and start using it. Don’t pay for it until the need arises, and in the meantime, you’ll get plenty of practice.
Experiment with different lead generators to see which ones resonate best with your audience.
And it’s okay to improve upon existing lead generators (I’ve done this myself) and update them. When you do this, you now have an opportunity to email past subscribers with a “new and improved version” of whatever it was they subscribed to initially.
Nurture Your Audience
Capturing your audience's email is just the first step; nurturing them is crucial to building a lasting relationship.
By providing consistent, valuable content and personalized communication, you can turn subscribers into loyal followers who trust your brand and are more likely to engage with your offerings.
Nurturing your audience helps maintain their interest, fosters a sense of community, and ultimately drives higher conversion rates and customer retention.
This page contains affiliate links
My Insta
@jenxwebdesign
Like this post?