Every time I get a welcome pop-up on a new website that asks for my email for subscription, I usually ignore it and click on the cross on the top right side to remove the pop-up from my screen.

Why do I do that, you might ask? Well, these requests for subscription are either too boring for my liking and have no incentive to offer or because I don’t fancy getting my inbox jammed with unnecessary and irrelevant emails.

I am sure there are many others like me who do the same and chances are, if you have these unappealing subscription pop-ups on your website, that’s probably the reason why your email database isn’t going up.

Turn your business into an automated machine

Being able to build your email list fast with some unique and attractive ideas is, undoubtedly, of great importance. However, before you proceed, you need to understand that for people to give you their email and to look forward to hearing from you, you need to up your game.

One way of doing this is by automating the procedure using online software that helps you send personalized emails without turning them into repetitive and uninteresting templates. Not only would doing this lead to an automatic customer profile enrichment but in the long term, it will even boost your email list.

However, if you want to tweak things around fast with creativity and ease, here’s what you need to do.

There is hardly anyone who doesn’t get excited at the prospect of winning something without making an effort and that too, for free. And if subscribing and giving my email is all it takes, I, for one, am going to participate! Think about it. If a landing page asks you for your email address, why would you give it, unless it was going to give you something in exchange?

You can use this strategy to your advantage and increase your email list by giving people an incentive in return for their email. The giveaway could be free access to an e-book, a report, a gift hamper, or perhaps a lucky draw where people enter their emails and get a chance to win. A tantalizing offer is all you need for people to comply. For example:

A strong call to action might just get you the desired response

Yes, pop-ups on websites and online pages are annoying and dreary, but that doesn’t mean they always have to be that way. What if you could tweak them in such a way that visitors are left with no other option than to subscribe and plug in their email?

You just need to give a quick boost to your creativity and connect with them on a personal level. Perhaps something like what Ramit Sethi, an American personal finance advisor, and entrepreneur, has done on his confirmation page – a timer and a picture of him with a sad face – may do the trick for you too.

Here’s what it looks like:

Calls-to-action (CTAs) are a great way to send incoming traffic to your landing page, and they also generate interesting lead conversations. Simultaneously, they also help you grow your email list and expand your list of contacts at a great pace.

Live video broadcasts? Why not!

With Facebook receiving more than 8 million daily video impressions in 2016 and studies suggesting that nearly 74% of all internet traffic will be video based content by 2017, video is slowly taking over the world of internet marketing.

And what could be more appealing and fun than a live video broadcast? Not only would you have a lot of views but those viewers can be turned into potential subscribers that instant!

Live streaming, unarguably, comes with a lot of perks and advantages, the most important being the ability to reach out to hundreds and thousands of people at a time. Also, it doesn’t only allow you to reach a huge audience but also creates a sense of engagement between you and your viewers.

The live video option on Facebook, for example, can be increasingly used to your advantage, where you can connect with so many people at the same time. While you are at it, you can create a live contest too, through your live video, and get your audience on your email list by asking them to participate by leaving their email in the comment section.

This is a fast, easy, fun and free of cost way that is going to increase traffic on your email database.

A hard-to-resist-bonus for every referral? Sounds like a great deal!

If you could receive a bonus, discount or a $30-off coupon for referring your friends to a website or a Facebook page for their products, wouldn’t you be doing it all the time? And if that very friend also receives it, wouldn’t you both yearn to spread the word and make referrals about that particular site or page?

This could be a brilliant strategy to hack your email subscriptions if done cleverly and properly.

For example, giftbasketsoverseas.com offers its customers a $20-off coupon for referring a friend to their products. The referred friend also receives 20% off on their first purchase.

Setting such a referral system could be a great game-changer for you and could grow your email list in no time. You could also keep coming with different offers like a 50% off discount card or a buy-one-get-one-free deal so that your customers keep coming back to you for more and also spread the word about you among their friends and family.

If you don’t wish to adopt any of the above-mentioned strategies to build your email list, you can also use blogger outreach programs and software that help promote your company, product or service. They post about you on their site in exchange for product, payment or any service, as a result of which you get mentioned in several places online which is likely to create email traffic for you.

Whichever strategy you decide to use, just make sure to target the right kind of audience at the right time so that you get the kind of response you truly desire.