Your email list is a crucial asset that helps you build a long-term relationship with your existing and potential customers. An up-to-date mailing list paired with a highly effective email marketing campaign can put your business on track to unprecedented growth.

However, depending on your existing database or a handful of email collecting strategies may cause your email list to stagnate. Or worse, it may cause this resource to dry out, considering that email marketing databases decay by nearly 22.5% per annum.

As a result, businesses must actively find ways to grow their email list across various channels. And given that social media is another form of inbound marketing that can gel well with your email collection efforts, bridging the two could be an excellent solution.

The question is: how to use social media for your email list building? Here are a few tried and tested strategies. 

How to Grow Your Email List with Social Media

 1. Include CTA Links in Your Bios

Include CTA Links in Your Bios

 You will find one recurring theme throughout this post which is to add call-to-action buttons wherever possible and applicable.

These CTAs essentially direct your audiences towards the opt-in form, thereby translating social media followers into loyal subscribers. 

And to kick off this trend, you can start by including the email harnessing link directly in your social media bio. Some platforms allow a dedicated CTA button for this purpose. This CTA would take the visitor to the landing page, where you can collect user data, starting with their email addresses.  

This slight tweak can have far-reaching effects, especially when you invest the time and effort to increase your social media presence. It also patches together the separate marketing channels to lay the groundwork for an omnichannel experience.

READ: 10 Expert Tips for a Fast-Growing Email List

2. Design lead-generating ads

Design lead-generating ads

You may be publishing ads over social media for various reasons ranging from creating brand awareness to boosting sales. And since you’re already putting in the effort to reach out to your target audience, how about pivoting this opportunity to grow your email list?

But before you do that, make sure to have a clear audience targeting or who you would want to see your ads. Identify their age, gender, location, interests, and online behaviours. 

This way, you can design personalised ads with branded images and custom copy tailored to generate leads and bag more sign-ups.

3. Create video content

Create video content

Video content has been gradually gaining traction across all social media platforms. And given that videos can generate 1200% more shares than image and text-based content, it should be your go-to technique for spreading the word over social media.  

Fortunately, there is no dearth of options when it comes to the myriad ways in which you can create videos. It could be an introduction to your business, a product demonstration, or a video tutorial – the possibilities are endless. 

Pick a type, a theme, and a subject, then create a shareable video that can capture the attention of your target audience. Don’t forget to add a CTA at the beginning, middle, or end of the video and within the captions before sharing it. 

4. Promote gated content

Promote gated content

Using gated content as lead magnets is a smart plan for trading valuable information for user details. Gated content is any form of content that remains inaccessible until the user signs up to view it. This strategy is highly effective if you have published studies, surveys, and whitepapers on your website.  

You can extract a few snippets from the findings and use them to create a social media post. Share the gated link of the content and market it across every possible channel. The objective is to sell the gated content in a manner that it would be too good to pass up on, nudging users to feature in your email list. 

5. Tap into niche groups

Tap into niche groups

If you want to promote your brand amongst like-minded individuals to earn their trust and capture their email addresses, consider joining their community and making valuable contributions.

Say, for example, you join a LinkedIn group for a particular segment and address user pain points or queries. Similarly, you can host Twitter chats to discuss topics on subjects that concern your line of business. This active participation from your end could establish you as an industry leader and a domain expert, which will get your brand in the spotlight. 

You can then encourage others to sign up for your email list to gain access to exclusive content or to become a part of an elite group. 

Maximise the power of social media

Out of sight, out of mind – this could be you if you fail to capitalise on every opportunity to generate more leads and nurture customer relationships. Facilitate this growth with one of the widely-used online platforms today – social media.

Above, we have discussed some strategies that allow businesses to utilise social media as one such channel to expand their email list. Use these tips and tricks to build an email list that is bustling with activity.Â