If you’re a savvy email marketer, you know that your job is not only to create stunning and effective email marketing campaigns, it’s also to build a loyal, high-quality subscriber list of people who want to hear what you have to say. 

There’s no point at which you should rest on your laurels: it should be a continuous process of cleaning up your list and growing it. If your list seems to be stagnating, assessing these key points can help you troubleshoot and solve your issues.

1. You’re Not Tracking Site Activity

Your website is a key source of email opt-ins, so don’t ignore its potential. Track your site’s activity to see where visitors are spending more time, what they’re skipping over, and which signup boxes they’re using the most and the least. 

These insights will help you understand what kinds of content can attract more people to sign up and where you should place your subscription form for maximum impact.

Another important metric to track is your website traffic sources. Are your visitors discovering your site through a specific blog article that shows up in their search? Are they clicking through your social links? Keeping on top of this data will help you create more content that attracts traffic. It will also help you think of more creative ways to increase your website traffic, which will lead to more opportunities to convert that traffic to email subscribers. 

2. You’re Not Using Pop-Ups

There are various different website forms out there. Pop-ups are one of the most popular, but they can be annoying for users if they’re not strategically designed. The truth is pop-up forms work. The most effective kinds are those that offer an incentive to the reader – as long as the incentive is relevant to that site’s visitors’ interests.

For instance, if you have a blog article on “How to Use Social Media to Grow Your Business,” you could add a pop-up to that page that offers free, ready-to-use social media post templates in exchange for an email address. Just make sure to include a disclaimer that explains by inputting an email, the user is also signing up to receive messages from your brand. 

A pop-up that’s created in relation to a particular blog post is a great way to show readers that your brand has tons of helpful resources to send them. 

3. You Don’t Have Dedicated, Strategic Landing Pages

This is a big mistake, but luckily it’s also easily corrected. When you’re aiming to grow your email list, remember that you’re literally selling people a product – your emails. A landing page that ‘sells’ you can be a game-changer.

In addition to improving conversion rates, having multiple landing pages can help you segment your email list by interest, location, or other relevant parameters.

To build an effective landing page, make sure it contains an enticing offer, clear calls to action, and social proof. And if you want to get really creative, Virginia Zacharaki with Moosend recommends gamifying your landing pages. “Landing pages are optimized to convert. Using gamification enhances the experience, as quizzes, scratchcards, or spin-to-win elements boost interactivity and engagement. Offer a tailor-made lead magnet or a special discount as a ‘thank you,’ and the potential customers are sure to enter their email address to claim.”

4. You Don’t Use Ads for Email Sign-Ups

Email marketing campaigns have higher conversion rates than social media marketing alone, so you may want to consider running paid ad campaigns for email sign-ups. Lead generation campaigns produce faster results than organic growth, and if you target your ads tightly, you can generate super high-quality leads.

Remember that when you run ads, they should lead to a dedicated landing page that makes signing up easy and attractive. 

5. You’re Not Using Guest Content

The biggest advantage of featuring guest content is that it enables you to reach out to another person’s entire following. As long as the content you place is high-quality and on a site that your target customer reads, you’ll increase the chance that people will click through to your site and sign up for your emails. And if your subsequent emails sustain their interest, they won’t leave your list.

6. You Don’t Have a Consistent Social Media Presence

If you don’t exist on social media, do you exist at all? From a brand perspective, not really. Your social platforms are a great way to establish your authority, develop your brand personality, and invite email sign-ups.

As a first step, make sure all your platforms have a subscription link. When you publish relevant content, end it with an invitation to read similar content by subscribing to your emails.

Track sign-ups from your social media and gauge which content has attracted more leads. Create similar content for your emails to keep your subscribers interested and engaged.

7. You Don’t Have Enough CTAs in Your Blog

News flash: people DO still read blogs. And the people who read your articles are probably eager to read more. Catch them while they’re engaged by including email signup links throughout your blog and article pages.

Hot tip: Track the leads your blog generates and compare them with other lead magnets on your site to see how well they’re doing. 

8. You Don’t Have Gated Resources

It’s innately human to want what is denied to us, and gated content draws from this principle. Give your audience a little teaser of what’s to come, then deny them the rest until they’ve given you what you need. 

Gated resources don’t have to be paid. They can just be content that’s out of reach until your visitor gives you their email address. For example, release the initial page or two of an eBook and then offer the full text in exchange for an email address. Or create a resource library where you group informative, engaging content and let visitors access it in exchange for a signup. 

Mansi Shah from Clientjoy says their marketing team provides a free resource every week, which does a great job of building their list of email subscribers. After six weeks of using this approach, their email list has gone from 11,000 to 23,000. 

9. You’re Not Using Chatbots

Most companies do not operate 24 hours, however, that doesn’t mean you don’t have potential customers coming to your site at all hours of the day. By harnessing the power of chatbots, you can not only provide website visitors with real-time resources while you’re busy catching some z’s, but you can also use them to grow your email list. 

Much like a landing page or pop-up form, your chatbot or live chat tool can be customized to offer site visitors something in return for an email signup. Just make sure you focus on offering help first and keep the conversations simple. And don’t ask for email addresses upfront. Building trust first is key. 

Your email list is one of your strongest assets – treat it right, and it will serve you well. Ignore it, and you might lose out on an opportunity to engage with an interested audience. These tactics can help you generate high-quality leads and keep your list healthy and growing.