Email marketing is a fundamental part of online marketing. It can be used to develop deeper relationships, drive traffic, and you can even monetize your list further down the line.
Whatever your goal, your ability to acquire subscribers will likely determine your success. If you follow these 4 tips, you will be able to increase the number of subscribers you receive, and decrease the number of unsubscribes.
Overcome Common Fears & Objections
If you want to increase subscribers, and become more influential in general for that matter, you need to learn how to overcome the common fears and objections that people have.
When it comes to signing up to a list, there are 4 common questions that people are subconsciously asking. On your capture pages, make sure that you address these.
Lets take a look at each of the common questions that we are subconsciously asking. You will notice that Lilach does well to address every one here on sociable, so we will look at how she overcomes them too.
- Is my email going to be safe? - On the main subscribe tab of Sociable, (Not the opt in box to the right of this post) there is a bit of text that says “Your Privacy is SAFE”. More importantly though, Lilach’s reputation and the amount of value she offers on this blog helps reassure people that she can be trusted with their emails.
- What’s different about you? - As opposed to a number of blogs out there, nothing is over promoted or oversold here at Sociable. She also distinguishes herself from the crowd by offering a free eBook.
- Whilst most blogs are offering free eBooks nowadays, I have never seen one about creating and distributing an Infographic before. (Make sure you sign up to take a look at that, it’s crammed full of value.)
- Do you just want to sell me stuff? -I think it’s pretty clear that Lilach doesn’t come across as somebody that wants to cram products or affiliate links in your face.
- Am I going to expect to receive countless emails from you? - Lilach makes it clear that you can expect to receive emails from her twice a week.
Be Precise With What You Are Offering
There is nothing more annoying than having to opt in to an email list before you find out what you are going to get. In fact, if you aren’t being clear with what they can expect, people won’t subscribe. It’s as simple as that.
Be completely clear with what they can expect in your emails, and reassure them that they are going to get incredible value in doing so.
Remember this is essentially a trade. They are trading access to their email inbox for the value you are offering them. If they don’t even know the value they are going to receive, it isn’t a trade any more, it’s a donation.
And if you are developing your business or blog on the idea of receiving donations in order to succeed, you won’t get very far.
Focus On The Benefits Not The Features
Here’s the thing. Nobody cares about the features of a product or service half as much as they care about how it is going to benefit them. The concept works the same in email marketing.
Instead of focusing on the features of your free Ebook by naming it “10 Techniques For Driving Traffic To Your Blog”, name it “10 Techniques For Driving Traffic To Your Blog That Will Explode Your Business & Increase Sales”
Now I know that Sociable doesn’t do this. But this is because the newsletter is centered around the updates you will receive on a weekly basic. The free Ebook is something that is thrown in on the side.
You will notice that Lilach’s opt in boxes focus on the benefits through phrases such as “take advantage of social media to boost your business” and “give yourself an unfair advantage”. Readers are also compelled to sign up because she makes it clear that the best stuff goes out in her newsletter.
Set Expectations & Keep To Them
Whenever somebody signs up to your list, they have clear expectations for what they are going to receive, based on what you said to get them to sign up in the first place.
The fastest way to get people to unsubscribe is to defy the expectations you set at the beginning. Whilst it would be acceptable to occasionally only send one email out in a week if you told them you would send two. It doesn’t work the other way around. If you were to send them an email every day, with five of them being promotional, your subscribers will unsubscribe.
So there we are. Start implementing these tips into your email marketing strategy and you will be surprised at how fast you develop your list.
Make sure you sign up to Lilach’s newsletter, to get her updates, which are packed full of value. Leave me a comment below if you have liked this post, or if you have any questions.
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9 Responses to 4 Essential Email Marketing Tips For Increasing Subscribers
Great tips. These suggestions are really worth everyone’s attention. To be honest, I’ve overlooked some of them. I’m going to eliminate my mistakes right after typing this comment =)
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Good thinking Evan. Take action immediately, it’s the best way to get to where you want to be. Procrastination is the number one success killer.
Twitter: danblinman
Good article, Daniel.
“If you were to send them an email every day, with five of them being promotional, your subscribers will unsubscribe”.
That’s true, some people will unsubscribe, but it can be worse than that!
If the person stays subscribed but filters out the senders email as spam, they’ll still cost the sender money as a subscriber, assuming the sender uses an autoresponder service. That’s why marketers who spam their lists don’t lose list size, they lose list responsiveness and start moaning that people “ignore” their emails.
Neil.
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Hi Neil.
Yeah good point. The easiest way to overcome it is to just have an autoresponder filled with at least two weeks worth of value. Then, you build trust, develop a relationship, and you will find it easier to promote things to them, if you choose to.
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Twitter: danblinman
*takes a gracious bow* I’m glad you like all the things I’ve implemented here on Socialable from the infographics ebooks to the wording on the opt-in boxes and subscription pages. Lilach took a little persuading about the Infographics book, simply because no one else in social media was sharing one. Infographics are a great branding tool that generates links and awareness. The right infographic will generate a lot more traffic than a great blog post.
It’s the small things that build trust and I’m a big advocate of trust building on your blog, and I help all my clients achieve trust in their online marketing. There are many blogging coaches out there, and they focus on the big picture so much that they forget the things like trust, that cannot be seen.
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Hi Sarah.
Didn’t even realise that was all down to you. Yeah I love the Ebook on Infographics, it’s a subject that seemed to go mostly untouched. Yet the potential to generate buzz, links and social signals through them is significant.
I agree that building trust should be the at the foundation of all your efforts. The more trust you have, the more influential you become. Once you are influential, in blogging and in all walks of life for that matter, everything else just falls into place.
Daniel
Twitter: danblinman
Really nice article. Email connect the world and there is always some minus instead of plus. Like your post.
I think you make some good points, ensuring the message is focused and comes across with a look and feel of trust you will see good results. Thanks
I agree with you,we have to focus on the benefits of our product not on features.We have to put in mind that people don’t really think about our company-they think about themselves.Sure,people want to know what they get. But more importantly, they want to know what it does for them.
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