As important as it is to have a great social media strategy, it’s also super critical to have a nice big list of email subscribers. What better way can you market yourself directly to everyone in your audience than by going right into their inbox?

Not only do YOU own your email list, but more people use email every day (seriously, there are billions of active email accounts).

So don’t wait any longer to take advantage of email. Use these 7 helpful tips to build your email list and launch your business with seriously successful marketing.

1. Increase your visibility online

This tip benefits pretty much all of your marketing strategies, but it’s especially important if you want to build your email list.

Your goal is to get people to subscribe to you via email. That means they need to know you exist in the first place, AND you need to keep reminding them of how awesome you are.

Increasing your visibility online is basically a way of making yourself known throughout your niche. When you do this, you build trust and credibility with your audience, all the while giving them more and more opportunities to subscribe to you.

How do you increase your visibility online? It doesn’t happen by chance. Instead, you need to put in the effort to grow. Look for opportunities to get in front of more people and get your name out there.

Team up with other experts by syndicating your content, contributing to blogs, and showing up as a guest on podcasts or videos that target your niche.

The bigger your presence online, the more chances you get to capture a greater audience, drive traffic to your website, and convince people to subscribe to your email list.

2. Promote your email campaign on social media

Social media and email complement each other like a perfect couple. One captures peoples’ attention and engages them, while the other shows their value and reminds people why they’re worth following.

Leveraging social media to grow your email list can be super effective, especially if you’ve got any sort of long-term ad strategies in place.

What you can do is create a form and then post it right to your social media channels. This gives your followers a quick & easy way to sign up and become part of your list.

Pro tip: If you want to sweeten the deal (for those who need a little more convincing), share your most recent piece of valuable content. This gives them a glimpse of what they’re missing out on, and nudges them even more to put their email on your list.

3. Let subscribers know what they’re getting

You’ve gone through it before. You subscribe to somebody’s email list, sort of unsure what you’re in for. You just know that you like the free ebook or whatever they’re giving away in exchange for your email.

The next thing you know, you’re getting spammed into oblivion and frantically looking for the ‘unsubscribe’ link.

Don’t do that to your loyal audience.

Part of building (and keeping) a healthy email list is letting subscribers know what they’re getting when they sign up. So remind them — regularly — what sort of content you’re sending them AND when you’ll be sending it.

That way you can avoid more unsubscribes and keep providing value to your followers.

4. Don’t forget about YouTube

Great YouTube videos alone aren’t enough to bring in more subscribers. You gotta give your audience options to connect with you outside of the popular video-streaming platform.

So what do you do? Take advantage of the different ways you can drive traffic from your YouTube channel. Add calls-to-action (CTAs) and URLs to your videos, craft a helpful About page that includes important links, and put links to landing pages in the descriptions of your videos.

When people love the videos you create, they’ll want to know more about you and seek out more ways to connect. This will help drive traffic to your website and into your email funnel.

5. Offer up a sweet (free) deal

I said it before — you gotta sweeten the deal. Because of spam, people are a little wary when it comes to giving away their email. The best way to get around that is to offer something (usually for free) in exchange.

It shows that you’re providing value right from the start, which not only warms people up to you, but also builds some trust. After all, you spent your time and money making that helpful ebook, tutorial, or video training series, and you’re only asking for a measly little email address. To your audience, that seems like a deal too good to pass up.

6. Let people sign up from your purchase page

Buying stuff gets people excited (even if it’s only for a short time). If you’re selling stuff online, you should put a subscribe form on your checkout page to capitalize on this excitement.

That way, when someone is pumped because they’re about to buy your awesome product or service (and free themselves of the problem only you can solve), they’ll be more likely to subscribe to your email list and come back for more.

7. Put forms on your most highly-trafficked pages

Seems kind of obvious, but for many people it’s easy to overlook this tip.

Check out your pages’ analytics and find those that have the most traffic. If you don’t have an opt-in form on these pages, you need to put one in. With forms in place on all the right pages, you’ll be able to tap into more traffic and build your email list.

Want more marketing tips?

Part of great marketing is making sure you cover all the strategies. Now that you know a thing or seven about how to build your email list, subscribe to my blog for more about other methods, like how to use Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook to grow your audience.

And remember — don’t give up on marketing!