11 Impactful Hacks to Grow your Email List Organically (FAST!)

Nadine Daff
Jun 4, 2018
6 min read

Updated: Apr 18, 2024

Email list building - a crucial element you need to pay attention to in your business.

Why?

Because unlike social media, you OWN your email list and directly communicating with your audience is key in establishing a profound relationship that is sure to get you income flow.

There are major benefits of email marketing!

Think about it this way...

You spend so much time growing your following on social media, but one day you got hacked. How are you to communicate with your market?

Would you be able to build all that from scratch again?

Or better yet what if that social media channel changes its algorithm again and you struggle to beat around the bush?

But with business email lists, it's sound!

In fact...

Over 75% of revenue is generated by email triggered campaigns and automated email campaigns account for 21%

You'll be able to create an effective email marketing strategy and talk to an intended audience who actually showed genuine interest in your business.

So how do you create or build your email list? Let's dive in!

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THE ONLINE WAY:

1) Create Compelling Opt Ins:

The generic "Sign up to Our Newsletter" will not do the trick. Actually, people are turned off by that.

There's nothing people hate more than being bombarded with promotional emails, I'd know - the instant I receive a marketing email I hit unsubscribe faster than a poor phone's battery life.

But by creating compelling opt ins that offers them massive value, they'll be eager to sign up for your list.

So what kind of opt in can you produce? Here are some ideas:

A free downloadable guide
A discount or coupon
A checklist
A giveaway
A case study
A step by step tutorial
A free training
A free chapter

One way or another, you CAN create FREE content that your audience will be super compelled to.

You just need to make sure that it's addressed with your overall goal and business purpose.

Here are what my opt ins look like:

Some are targeted for artrepreneurs or small business owners like this:

Others are targeted for brides and other henna artists, like this:

This allows me to talk directly to my audience and even segment them so when I actually do have an email campaign, I know which campaign should be sent to who.

2) Add a Pop Up to your Website:

I know, I know... you think pop ups are too salesy or pushy. But believe it or not, they are extremely impactful!

Why?

Because they hit all grounds of grabbing your attention since: they're visual, they have a very clear call to action and they extend exclusive offers.

Pop ups triggered an 86% subscriber increase to entrepreneur.com and a further 162% increase in sales.

Love it or hate it, this method truly works!

That's why if you're a new visitor on my site, following a 3 - 4 second trigger, you'll see this:

Or sometimes I'll be much more specific for one downloadable guide like this:

3) Add it in your Email Signature

A sure way to grow your email list is by including it in your email signature.

I mean as business owners we tend to spend a lot of time corresponding by emails.

So why not include it in there without being pushy about it?

Here's a what I do in my own email signature:

The visual component makes it compelling and it acts like a professional stamp that will drive conversions to your email list.

4) Write Guest Blogs

Guest blogging is an underrated feature, but I highly recommend you do it.

When you guest blog, you're drawing more eyes to your content and website massively increasing the chances of people opting in for your email list.

An important element here though is to make sure wherever you're guest blogging, it matches your goals and values and has the same target market as yours.

Use your guest blog bio to convert readers into subscribers so you'll have a chance to directly talk to them when you're ready.

5) Add it in your Website Homepage

When you add your opt in in the website homepage, there's no way a user will miss it when they land on your page.

Adding your opt in in your website's homepage guarantees its visibility.

It decreases the chances of it being ignored and more inviting for people to exchange their email addresses for the content or promise that you're offering.

Backlinko does this a major justice by being sleek, simple and welcoming...

THE OFFLINE WAY:

6) Networking Events

When you attend networking events or conferences, you actually have a major advantage of being all the more impressionable rather than being behind a computer screen.

So here's what you can do...

Add your opt in link in your business card, that way whoever you met and handed it to has something to fall back on.

You can even take it a step further and email those you networked with, with a direct link to your opt in pages.

7) Add a Paper Subscription Form

Yes, we live in a digital world, but by having a simple pen and paper backed with a clipboard encourages people to manually write down their information.

Best of it is, they were deliberate in knowing that they were signing up for your email list, so there's no beating around the bush.

A simple table form will suffice.. just like this one that I use in fairs or festivals:

ON SOCIAL MEDIA:

8) Add it to your Facebook Banner

You can easily grow your email list by having your opt in link in your facebook banner.

Facebook banners work because they're the landing page of your facebook page, they're visual and therefore are attention grabbing.

But you need to make it clear that there's a call to action so it's not just perceived as any other banner.

We can use Hubspot as an example of this...

9) Upload a Pin on Pinterest

Pinterest is majorly under utilized. People think it's a social media page when actually you should be treating it like a SEARCH ENGINE.

Don't miss out on the opportunity of uploading your opt in as a pin by creating a visual template that directs people to your landing page.

If you haven't the slightest clue about graphic design or how to create a pinterest template, use Canva - they have a vast library of templates for you to choose from. It's free too!

I created a pinterest board that is sprinkled with a few of my opt in pages, amongst other pins as well. Here's an example:

Make sure to add keywords in your description so Pinterest knows to push that content out to people who searched that specific keyword.

10) Add it in your Bio Link on Instagram

You are free to choose which link you want to include in your Instagram bio so why not use this opportunity to add your opt in link there?

This will make it easier for your followers to see where they can subscribe to your email list.

You can even push that link further by promoting it in your instastory or by complimenting it in one of your instagram posts and including it in the caption of the photo.

If you feel like you want to include more than one link, you can use Link Tree which enables you to add multiple links in your bio, like this:

11) Call it out in your YouTube Video

Video is actually expected to take over the social media platform very soon!

People are much more receptive to video than any other form of content, so use this to your advantage.

You can add a call to action at the end of your video encouraging people to check out your freebie and you can include that link in your video description.

So here's what I do: