Posted by In 2022, the number of global email users is predicted to reach 4.3 billion users, which is a close hit next to half the world’s population. So to answer the question, “Should brands turn away from the opportunity of emphasizing the focus on email marketing?” It’s a clear NO.
Next, we need an effective strategy. As in, how to reach a wider audience to sign-up and boost your email list without using additional tools?
Once brands have used free list-building tools, created unique email content pieces, offered discounts & free downloadables, asked current subscribers to share/forward the brand’s emails with a CTA button, and have exhausted almost all creative techniques & list-building strategies, it’s finally time to invest in your social media platform to reinforce some new loyal customers and grow a wider audience.
Considering that social media is a top-used inbound marketing strategy for most B2B & B2C companies, marketers can rely on leveraging various social media channels to collect more email addresses. Ahead are five actionable strategies to use social media for email list-building.
Let’s take a look at how to act on this new challenge.
5 actionable strategies to use social media for email list building in
1. Use social media posts to promote downloadables
Early during its adoption in 2005, reports confirmed that only 5% of US adults were active on social network sites. Today, more than 82% of the US population is active on social media platforms. This shows how active the brand’s audience is, engaging over the social landscape, including LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, & Facebook.
In order to add value to your brand, companies should focus on the right set of audiences. The ones that dominate a particular platform. More than the free products offered to your existing/new followers, it’s the product’s positioning that adds intrigue. It allures them to check it out on the brand’s social media page.
These could include infographics, ebooks, case studies, templates, videos, quizzes, discount offers, etc.
These are different forms of educational and valuable pieces to attract readers. While the key is not to have an aggressive approach, posting regularly (at least once a day) on various platforms helps.
It will ensure doubling your email lists in no time. Brands should decipher between the type of content they wish to promote and the chosen platform. Keeping in mind to cater to audiences with similar interests.
To assure maximum visibility and increase the number of sign-ups, brands can practice pre-scheduling their entire week’s posts in advance. This will further automate & schedule the number of posts sent out on multiple platforms at a fixed time so that brands can plan without putting in the extra effort.
2. Include a call-to-action in social media bios/profiles
According to recent data, more than 4.55 billion users are present on social media channels, and the number of new users is expected to increase each day by more than a million. It’s a fairly straightforward recipe to market the brand’s newsletter as a CTA button on social media bios or profiles.
The CTA button performs as the true landing place. It’s where the brand’s audiences and potential subscribers can opt-in to be part of their email list. It’s simple, effective, and convinces people on how to act. This is in case they wish to be part of the company’s subscriber database.
CTAs are as loud and clear as messaging goes. Prompting social media followers in the right direction to click for some valuable content, register for a short course, enter a giveaway, etc. This, in exchange for subscribing to the brand’s email list. With a slight nudge, these valuable soft leads can later likely become part of the brand’s loyal customer base once they complete their sales journey.
3. Host giveaways/contests on the platform
It’s the innate human quality to be driven by competition in exchange for an external reward — it increases motivation, provides validation, and yes, above all, helps brands convert their audiences into email subscribers.
Take this case study, for instance, which proved that out of 100 landing pages, the one with a contest boosted conversions by 700%. The purpose of hosting giveaways is to gather the existing/new audience’s data which requires brands to focus on their email list platforms, use different social media channels to promote that platform and incentivize entrants to share the giveaway further to make it a viral campaign, etc.
Such practices will boost your contest further and attract more quality subscribers, who’re the potential niche market for your business. To further target your ideal audience, marketers can tailor their giveaway based on the specific interests of their audience and who’ll be interested in the brand’s business, rather than getting spammed by disengaged entrants.
4. Generate email leads via paid FB ads
Facebook ads in the US have surged by 15.5%, with revenue reaching 58.1$ billion this year.
Marketers can use this marketing strategy to define their audience and target users based on location, online behavior, specific interests, demographics, etc.
This will allow your search for email list subscribers to be more relevant and optimize your ROI and build connections with an audience that shows interest in your business.
Businesses should create a well-designed and easy-to-locate landing page that redirects new visitors and guides them on how to enlist to your company’s email list.
5. Promote premium content that can be accessed by sharing your email address
We tend to overlook how to properly use inbound and outbound methodologies to promote our content more often. Attracting the right customers and converting them into sales is crucial for any business. Premium content gives the opportunity to showcase the ethos and values that the brand stands for.
There are many social media platforms where brands can strategically place their content to get maximum leads. What’s more important is to push the form of content (webinars, case studies, tutorials, survey reports, training courses, etc.) with the link to your lead capture form to reach the right audience.
While the website homepage is a primary choice for brands to capture leads, they shouldn’t miss out on the next best thing — supplementing daily social media posts with CTA buttons and Pop-ins to draw attention to exclusive content pieces.
A lead story can also generate consumer interest, while partially integrating lead content in your blogs can work as a teaser which will allow readers to engage more with the piece. Apart from this, brands can also use third-party tools to reach out to their intended target audience and get them excited about the content on their social media posts.
Wrapping Up
We have enlisted all the high-quality social media strategies to help attract valuable connections and grow your email subscribers. That said, we hope it contributes to your business growth and adds flavor to your brand’s existing email list-building practices.
After building your brand’s desired list, the next step is to manage and maintain it. This can be achieved by allowing a fresh experience for new email subscribers and offering personalized preferences to the audience.
And, also re-engaging with old subscribers or filtering the list over time, etc.
In order to drive better results, companies need to focus on email marketing automation to trigger the scale, level of personalization, monitoring/managing CRM data, to generate higher click rates, using third-party software such as Mailchimp or other Mailchimp alternatives. Such practices will help both B2C & B2B brands get the maximum smart results from their email marketing efforts and guarantee overall digital success.