Growing your email list is something you should always focus on.
Why? It’s really quite simple. The more people you send email to, the more likely you are to generate revenue.
Suppose you have 1000 people on your email list and every time you email them you generate $500 in sales. If you email a further 100 people you’ll likely generate an extra $50. Email 500 more people and it’ll mean an extra $250… and so on.
BUT there is something super important to remember here. You can’t just add any random person to your list and expect to get better results.
You need to add people who are genuinely interested in what you have to say and have given you permission to email them.
Yes you want to be emailing more people and have a bigger email list, but you also want that list filled with high quality contacts who are likely to buy from you at some point.
So what’s the best way to increase your list with quality contacts?
Offer people something of value and ask them to provide an email address in order to access it.
According to this survey from MarketingSherpa, value in the form of content like whitepapers and webinars work best. To do this, you need an easy way for people to provide their email and request your content.
That’s where a well designed web form comes in.
Web forms can be used for many things and they come in all shapes and sizes. But when it comes to using them to grow your list by offering content, there are 4 main things to keep in mind.
Let’s call them the 4 Ps of web forms.
1. Prominence – make it easy for people to find your offer or form on your website. If people are going to submit your form, they obviously need to find it first.
2. Promise – clearly describe the benefits to the new subscriber and tell them what’s in it for them, what they can expect to receive from you and how often.
3. Proof – include a customer testimonial or show the number of subscribers and social media followers that you have (if the numbers are impressive enough). This provides evidence that your content is not only legitimate but is also valued by other people. And it’s a very powerful way to persuade people to submit your web form.
4. Privacy – include a privacy statement or link to a privacy policy page to help overcome any barriers people might have towards submitting your form.
Here’s a great example from our friends at Bluewire Media who have used the 4 Ps of web forms to grow their email list with over 10,000 downloads of their Web Strategy Planning Template.
Over to you. What tactics are you using to grow your email list with web forms? Let me know using the comments section below.
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Posted by: Matthew Johnson EDM Specialist |
