If you’re interested in building an audience and connecting with people who might value your products, services, or information, you’ve come to the right place!
In this post, we will outline a simple strategy that can help you generate and grow a list of email subscribers. We’ll cover important topics like how to find your target audience, the benefits of email marketing, and the steps necessary to develop and grow your email list.
Find Your Target Audience
One of the most important aspects of any marketing plan is finding your target audience. If you don’t know who your target audience is, it can be difficult to reach them with your marketing efforts. To find your target audience, you first need to understand who you are speaking to. What excites them, what worries them, what challenges them, and what benefits them.
To find out more, you can conduct surveys, ask friends, relatives, and colleagues for their opinions, or look at previous customers for suggestions. If you’re looking for inspiration, try reading other blogs or listening to podcasts on the subject matter of your product or service.
Understand The Value Of Email Marketing
One of the benefits of email marketing is that you can target your messages to precisely the right audience. Letting your subscribers know what you’ve got planned for them is one of the key functions of an email marketing campaign. Knowing when and where to send the email can greatly increase the chances of the message being read and acted upon. Using tools like HubSpot, you can schedule automated emails to go out at regular intervals (e.g., once every two weeks). Using tools like MailChimp, you can create a collection of targeted emails and send them out at one time at the touch of a button.
In most cases, you’ll want to aim to have about one third of your total email contacts in your excited audience. Your engaged audience is made up of individuals that have shown an interest in your content and will be more likely to take an action and / or to recommend your product or service to others. Your delighted audience is a group of people who have liked or enjoyed your content and will be more likely to purchase your products or services. Your passive audience is the last group you want to grow rapidly. This is someone who may have seen or heard of your product, service, or blog post, but who is not currently interested in what you’ve got to offer. You don’t need to worry about them since you can’t directly influence them to become interested in your content. If you want to grow your email list, you’ll need to focus on the other two groups (i.e., the engaged and delighted audiences).
Develop A Blog That Attracts Your Target Audience
A brand website is great for attracting visitors, but once they’re on your site, there’s no guarantee that they’ll actually do anything other than visit a few times and then disappear. A blog, on the other hand, can be a great way to keep people interested in what you’ve got to offer. If you’re looking for inspiration, try browsing through other successful blogs that cover a similar niche to yours.
One of the best things about a blog is the flexibility. You can post whenever you want and update as often or as little as you want. You can also use a tool like WordPress to quickly and easily set up your blog. Once you’ve got your blog up and running, you can use your favourite platforms (e.g., Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram) to attract and engage with your target audience. Your blog’s content can also function as a steady stream of engaging and entertaining reading for your readers. Essentially, a blog can be a perfect content tool for driving traffic and increasing your email list.
Use SEO And Digital Marketing To Get The Most Out Of Your Blog
Search engine optimization (SEO) and digital marketing are absolutely essential if you want to drive traffic to your blog. As our name suggests, SEO is the practice of marketing and promoting your products and services using various methods of searching the internet. Essentially, SEO helps to improve the rankings of your web pages or blogs so that more people can see them when they’re searching for content related to your niche. When someone lands on your page or blog, they should be able to quickly and easily find what they’re looking for.
One of the most popular and effective SEO strategies is content creation. By continually publishing new and interesting content on your blog, you’ll be able to gradually improve your page or blog’s rankings in relevant searches. When someone does a Google search for your product or service, the various keywords or phrases that appear in the search results should match the niche you’ve defined for your blog. If possible, you should aim to rank for top spots in your niche’s market, as this will greatly improve your chances of achieving success with SEO.
Another important aspect of SEO is link building. When you build links to and from your site, you’re essentially creating a web of connections that can improve your SEO and drive more visitors to your blog. Some of the most popular and effective link building methods include content marketing, social media marketing, and email marketing. Depending on your niche, you can engage with other bloggers and content creators to gain valuable backlinks to your site. When someone clicks on these links, they’re presented with content related to their interests. Naturally, this will increase the chances of them becoming a lead, a customer, or a subscriber to your email list.
Use Social Media To Build An Audience
If you’ve got an account on one of the major social media platforms (e.g., Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram), you can use this to your advantage by sharing content related to your niche’s industry and offering your audience valuable and engaging information. Since your target audience is already on social media, all you need to do is follow or connect with them there to begin with.
By keeping up with relevant topics and conversations on social media, you’ll be able to find and connect with people who share your interests. If you’ve got an Instagram account, you can also use this to your advantage by adding Instagram stories and live videos to your feed. These types of stories and videos can greatly increase the engagement rate of your audience, making them more likely to take an action and / or to recommend your product or service to others.
Create Short-Forms To Increase Engagement
A short-form is a short-lived marketing tool that has numerous advantages. One of the best things about short-forms is that they can be used to gain quick engagement from your audience. To attract your target audience, create various short-forms that can be used to capture some quick information (e.g., name, email, website, social media handles). Once you’ve got your short-form, you can use various platforms like Google Forms, Typeform, and Harvest to continue to collect information from your followers.
The quick pace of life these days makes it hard to find time to sit down and enjoy a good novel. Thanks to the growth of online communities like Reddit and Twitter, people are able to find entertainment and conversation through short-forms and curated content. By taking advantage of these tools, you can greatly increase the amount of engagement your content receives.
Build a Community On Your Social Networks
In addition to using social media to attract potential customers, you can use your platforms to build a community. When you have a base of engaged followers, you’ll be able to establish yourself as an authoritative voice in your industry and be able to gain further credibility and trust from your audience.
To make the most out of your social media platforms, you’ll want to actively engage with your audience. Reply to comments, share valuable information, and participate in relevant conversations. The more you do, the more you’ll grow.
Use Retargeting To Build A Long-Term Relationship With Your Audience
Since you can’t always guarantee that your new subscribers will automatically start using your product or service, you can use retargeting to enhance the relationship you’ve created with them. With retargeting, you can show previously interested individuals advertisements for your product or service when they’re browsing online. Typically, these ads will appear somewhere near the top of the page or in the sidebar of a website, depending on the platform (e.g., Google, Facebook, or Amazon).
You can use services like Google AdWords to gain popularity in your niche and attract potential customers. Once you’ve got your ad campaign up and running, you can use platforms like Facebook to continue to engage with your audience. Depending on how you’ve set up your ad, you can choose between showing ads to everyone or to individuals who meet your target audience’s criteria. You can also choose to show ads only to people who’ve visited a specific website or blog in the past.