Are you looking for proven ways to grow your list of email subscribers?

Often bloggers who are starting out simply install a sidebar optin form on their website and wait for users to subscribe. This results in slow subscriber conversion rates.

For faster growth, you need to clearly communicate the value and offer your users multiple opportunities to join your email newsletter before they leave your site.

In this article, we will share our tested and proven ways to grow your email list fast that are easy to implement and drive huge results.

Getting Started

Before you start list building, let’s talk about a few tools you’ll need to add new subscribers to your email newsletter.

First, you need to make sure that you are using a professional email marketing service.

Using the best email marketing company ensures that your emails don’t end up in the spam folder. It also provides you with the right set of tools to build and grow your email list.

We recommend Constant Contact. It is one of the largest and most popular email marketing service providers in the world.

For complete step by step instructions, see our guide on how to start an email newsletter the right way.

Next, you will need OptinMonster. It is the best lead generation software in the world. It helps you convert abandoning website visitors into email subscribers.

Now that you have the best tools, let’s take a look at some of the most effective list building strategies.

Here are the topics we’ll cover in this guide:

1. Use Multiple Signup Forms
2. Use an Exit-Intent Popup
3. Offer Content Upgrades
4. Add Fully or Partially Gated Content in WordPress
5. Run Giveaways and Contests
6. Create Multiple Lead Magnet Pages
7. Use Discounts and Deals
8. Use Contact Form to Grow Your Email List
9. Add Sign Up Call to Action on Your Facebook Page
10. Use Twitter Lead Generation Cards
11. Use YouTube Call to Action Cards
12. Use After Post and In-Line Optin Forms
13. Add Polite Slide-in Scroll Forms
14. Use Prominent Headers With Call to Action
15. Use Social Proof to Encourage More Sign Ups
16. Use Gamified Campaigns
17. A/B Test Your Optin Forms

1. Use Multiple Signup Forms

We mentioned earlier that many beginners start with a simple newsletter signup form in their sidebar.

But if you want to get more email subscribers, then you need multiple signup forms. This gives your users more opportunities to join your email list.

We recommend combining your sidebar signup form with a sticky floating bar or a lightbox popup. These highly effective campaign types make your signup forms more noticeable.

Using OptinMonster’s Display Rules, you can set time and action based triggers, so your users don’t see all the optins at once.

For example, you can set a display rule to only show the floating footer bar optin once the user has scrolled past the sidebar optin, and show a lightbox popup only when they’re about to leave your WordPress website.

2. Use an Exit-Intent Popup

Exit-Intent® is an advanced technology built by OptinMonster that tracks your user’s mouse behavior and shows them a targeted email signup form at the precise moment they are about to leave your website.

Think of it as ‘Onsite Retargeting’.

You can use this technology in combination with full-screen welcome gates, lightbox popups, or other optin types to convert abandoning visitors into new email subscriptions.

We use an exit-intent popup on WPBeginner, and it helped increase our subscribers by 600%.

Michael Stelzner from Social Media Examiner used it to add over 250,000 new email subscribers.

3. Offer Content Upgrades

A content upgrade is a marketing technique where you offer users a chance to get exclusive bonus content by signing up to your email list.

For example:

• If you run a podcast, then you can offer show notes + transcription as a content upgrade.
• If you have a long form blog post, then you can offer a PDF downloadable version as a content upgrade
• You can turn your blog posts into a checklist or cheat sheet and offer it as a content upgrade

Here are 30 other content upgrade ideas that you can use.

Human psychology plays an important role in the effectiveness of content upgrades. The psychology principle known as ‘Zeigarnik Effect’ states that people are most likely to complete a task if they initiate it themselves.

This means that when the user takes initiative to click on the content upgrade, they are more likely to complete the task by subscribing to your list.

To learn more, see our step by step guide on how to add content upgrades in WordPress to grow your email list.

4. Add Fully or Partially Gated Content in WordPress

Gated content is the content on your website that can’t be accessed until the visitor enters their email address. You can use plugins to hide some of your content or hide the entire blog post until the user enters their email address.

In the old days, this used to have a negative impact on your SEO rankings. However, with modern JavaScript based technology, this does not impact your SEO rankings.

Here’s a step by step tutorial on how to add content locking in WordPress.

5. Run Giveaways and Contests

An easy way to quickly get a lot of new followers and subscribers is by running a viral giveaway or contest. You don’t need an expensive prize to launch a successful giveaway.

Users can join your contest by providing their email address, social sharing, or following you on social media. This creates a snowball effect and helps you reach many new users.

We recommend using RafflePress, which is the best WordPress giveaway plugin on the market. It comes with a drag and drop giveaway builder with tons of social actions to make your campaign a success.

For details, see our guide on how to run a successful giveaway/contest in WordPress.

6. Create Multiple Lead Magnet Pages

A lead magnet (also known as an optin bribe) is an incentive you offer to potential buyers in exchange for their contact information, such as their name, email, and phone number.

Your blog posts with locked content, content upgrades, and premium content all fall into the lead magnet category.

Lead magnets must offer additional value to your target audience, such as checklists, case studies, and high quality infographics. You could also offer a free ebook, webinar, resources newsletter, or workbook.

See these 69 highly effective lead magnet ideas for inspiration.

7. Use Discounts and Deals

Sometimes a discount or exclusive coupon is what encourages a potential customer to finally make a decision. Why not use this opportunity to nudge them into joining your email list?

If you are using WooCommerce, then you can simply go to the Marketing » Coupons page to create a coupon.

After that, you can use OptinMonster’s ‘Success’ view to reveal the discount code after users enter their email address.

8. Use Contact Form to Grow Your Email List

Contact forms offer another great opportunity to ask for a user’s email address. Users already need to enter their email address on the form, and you can add a tiny checkbox to allow them to subscribe without having to enter it again.

We recommend using WPForms, which is the best WordPress form builder on the market. It allows you to connect your forms with top email marketing services and helps you easily build forms with a simple drag and drop tool.

To learn how to optimize your contact list for email subscriptions, see our article on how to use the contact form to grow your email list in WordPress.

9. Add Sign Up Call to Action on Your Facebook Page

Facebook has introduced call to action (CTA) buttons for business pages. These buttons are prominently displayed on top of your cover image and are visible without scrolling.

Here is how to add a signup button as a call to action on your Facebook page and speed up the process of list building.

You need to visit your Facebook page, and you will notice a blue button labeled ‘Add a button’.

This will bring up a popup with multiple choices.

You need to click ‘Sign Up’, and then provide a link to your website where users will be taken when they click signup.

Don’t forget to click ‘Save’ to add the CTA button to your page.

10. Use Twitter Lead Generation Cards

Twitter Ads offer another social platform you can use to boost your lead generation efforts.

In fact, Twitter even allows you to run lead generation directly from Twitter. This way users can sign up for your email list without leaving Twitter.

You can also drive traffic to your website and use the email signup forms as a conversion. You can create special offers for Twitter users and tweet the links to your followers.

11. Use YouTube Call to Action Cards

YouTube is one of the largest social media platforms and the second most popular search engine in the world. If you are using YouTube videos as part of your marketing strategy, then you can utilize your YouTube channel for email list building.

YouTube action cards allow you to add interactive information cards to your videos. You can use them to add calls to action and link them to lead magnets on your website.

Here is how to add YouTube action cards to your videos.

YouTube gives you plenty of opportunities to promote your email list. For more ideas see this tutorial on how to build your email list using YouTube videos.

Bonus: Check out WPBeginner’s YouTube channel to see how we use call to action cards.

12. Use After Post and In-Line Optin Forms

After post optin forms appear when a user has already scrolled down an entire article. This means that they are already interested in your content and are much more likely to sign up.

You can also use in-line optin forms within your blog posts. Users are most engaged with your long-form content when they’ve reached the middle.

Reminding them to sign up at that point, works like a charm.

13. Add Polite Slide-in Scroll Box Forms

We mentioned earlier that users simply ignore most static signup forms. The goal is to divert the user’s attention to your offer and signup form.

Slide-in scroll box forms do that beautifully.

They stay out of the way so that users can look at the content, and then slide in from the bottom right corner of the web page when users scroll down. This slide in animation will grab your readers’ attention and encourage them to sign up.

14. Use Prominent Headers With Call to Action

The header area of your website is most prominently visible to visitors when they first arrive on your homepage. This makes it the most effective spot to place your call to action.

You will need a WordPress theme that comes with a large or full screen header.

You can also use a page builder plugin like SeedProd to create custom pages from a template, and even create custom WordPress themes without any code.

15. Use Social Proof to Encourage More Sign Ups

Social Proof is a psychological effect used to describe a social behavior where people feel more comfortable following other people. Marketers use social proof as a tactic for easing the minds of worried customers and increasing conversion rates.

There are many ways you can use social proof to get more subscribers. You can use testimonials on your landing pages, add reviews, and show the number of registered users.

You can also use bubble notifications like TrustPulse to increase newsletter signups and eCommerce conversions.

Learn more in our guide on how to use FOMO on your WordPress site to increase conversions.

16. Use Gamified Campaigns

Experts agree that gamification helps boost user engagement. Did you know that you can use gamified campaigns to boost newsletter conversions as well?

We use a ‘Spin a Wheel’ gamified campaign on our MonsterInsights blog to grow our email list as well as boost eCommerce conversions.

To learn how to create a similar email marketing campaign, simply follow the coupon wheel guide on the OptinMonster website.

17. A/B Test Your Optin Forms

Many beginners continue to rely on guesswork to understand what works on their website. You need to understand how your audience reacts to different calls to action, optin placements, colors, design, and copy.

With A/B testing, you can find out which optins work better on your website. You can use these A/B testing tips to continuously test and improve your email optins.

We hope this article helped you find the best ways to grow your email list. You may also want to see our list of the best SEO tools and plugins as well as proven tips on how to increase your website traffic.

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