Eight Offerings to Grow Your Mailing List

In Part 1 of the mailing list series we covered what a mailing list is and why it's important. In Part 2 we covered how to set up your mailing list so that it is accessible to your potential customers, what you should be sending them and how often you should be emailing them. 

If you haven't read these it will be worth your time going back to read both.

In this post, we'll look at ways you can grow your mailing list over time. After all, what good is a mailing list if you're not getting people to sign up to it?

Before we go the into what we recommend for growing a mailing list, you must first ask the all important question: 

WHY WOULD SOMEONE WANT TO SIGN UP TO MY MAILING LIST?

To answer this question you need to put yourself in the minds of your potential customers. What are they looking for? What problem/s are they facing that your business can help them solve? Remember that a mailing list is your chance to keep the conversation going with people who have shown interest in something you offer but may not be ready to commit at this stage. 

To entice website visitors to join your mailing list, you must provide something of value. While you may get the odd person sign up to your mailing list without offering something in return, the majority of website visitors will not give you their email address unless they know they will benefit. 
 

SO WHAT CAN WE OFFER SOMEONE TO GET THEM ON OUR MAILING LIST?

There are two important rules here, 1) The offering must be something the subscriber to your mailing list can use right away, for FREE, and 2) It must be relevant to what your business sells.

Now that we've established the rules, here is a list of some of the methods we teach our clients to get interested people onto their mailing lists:

E-BOOK: These can be time-consuming, but if done right, an e-book can be incredibly useful for your potential customers. 
Example - A fruit and vegetable delivery service gives away an e-book for 50 fresh juice recipes.

CASE STUDY: Particularly useful for tradespeople and any business that can show a before & after of their work. 
Example - a builder might want to provide a case study showing how a recent renovation was carried out and delivered before the estimate completion date and under budget. 

HOW-TO GUIDE/TUTORIAL: Great way to show off your knowledge and give your potential customers a taste of what you offer. This can also be in the form of a video or podcast.
Example - A personal trainer providing a workout routine to build core strength.

QUIZ: A favourite of ours. A quiz can be used to test the users' level of knowledge of your product/service/industry. It can be used to help them determine whether your business can help them or to determine which product/service is right for them. 
Example - A bookkeeper offers a quiz testing knowledge of basic accounting.

GLOSSARY: This is useful for technical businesses that need to educate their customers on the industry lingo to help them understand what they would be purchasing.
Example - A camera store providing a glossary of all camera related terms so that first-time purchasers can be familiar with the various features of a camera and which features they would need if purchasing a new camera.

MARKET ANALYSIS: Perfect for industries with a market that is constantly changing.
Example - A real estate agent offering a breakdown of unit sales in the local area with commentary on where they believe the market will be in 'x' amount of time.

COMPETITION: A classic technique for building interest and brand awareness. A competition could be to win your product/service or a membership for a specific amount of time.
Example - A golf course giving away 1 year free membership to a random subscriber.

FREE TOOLS/RESOURCES: Another simple but effective offering. A free tool or resource should help your subscribers solve a problem or answer a question.
Example - Splash & Co Creative has previously given away a website check-list that people can use to determine if their website is designed in a way that attracts more customers.   

Not all of these will be relevant to your business and this is by no means an exhaustive list. There are virtually unlimited ways you can provide value to your potential customers. Use this list as a guide to create your own methods using the knowledge you have of your customers to determine what value you can deliver. Just remember to keep it free and relevant. You can even have multiple different offerings to join your mailing list. This way if someone doesn't see value in one, they might see it in another.

If you have any suggestions of your own, feel free to let us know and we can share them with others in a future post.