7 Ways Get More Email Subscribers And Grow A Targeted Email List

How to build a targeted email lists of potential buyers to grow your blog traffic and income? If blog traffic that you get from email marketing converts well. It just does perform better when you have targeted email marketing lists.

By Pierre Eustache Chardavoine Content Creator @ AskEustache Last Updated: July 20, 2023 (This page contains affiliate links from which I'll receive commissions!)

No doubt.

If blog traffic that you get from email marketing converts well. It performs better when you have a targeted email marketing list.

In fact, getting targeted subscribers is one of the keys that makes an email list makes you money instead of taking money from you.

Fortunately, you have certain control over who gets into your mailing list.

Also…

…Remember that email marketing is known as permission marketing.

Your email subscribers expect you to send them emails.

It’s like them saying: I want you to send me emails as you scheduled… as long as it’s not annoying and adds value.

In today’s post, we’ll look at the best ways to get more subscribers.

Unlike other marketing channels, email is personal. It does not get lost when a subscriber is offline. It goes directly to the inbox.

The Fact is, an active internet user (your potential customer), checks her email box five times a day on average.

It makes the process of connecting with and converting visitors into customers ridiculously simple.

Best of all, it can be all automated.

Get Targeted Email Subscribers Who Engage with Your Content

The focus is on how to build a targeted email list to grow your blog audience.

Indeed, you don’t need subscribers for the sake of getting subscribers.

You need email subscribers who buy from you and/or consume and share your content.

In theory, you can do this in just two simple steps:

grow your email list around interests;
engage your subscribers with helpful content.

In this post, let’s see how to really take action to make it works. Learn effective strategies to get more subscribers to your mailing list.

How to Actually Get More Subscribers? Steps to Build A Targeted Email List

To build an email list, the main tool is an email service provider. It will help you collect email addresses, send automated/manual emails, and so on.

Probably, you already started your email list. I went into 7 steps to start an email list in another post. I’ll briefly cover the basics here and go directly to ways to get more email subscribers.

Use A Reliable Email Service Provider.

From the start, you need an email service provider you can count on. Even with the most precisely targeted subscribers, your emails won’t get seen and opened if they don’t reach your subscribers’ inboxes.

Here’s my #1 Recommendation.

Convertkit: The first thing I like about Convertkit and that it makes automation looks easy.

Click here to sign up and get your first month of Convertkit free.

On top of that, you get:

Easy integration with popular services like Facebook fan page to collect subscribers, Shopify, WordPress, etc….
You get advanced autoresponder series.
You can automate list segmentation when subscribers interact with your emails. You can segment them using the form they signed up for. It makes building a targeted list easy.

Create your account with Convertkit today (Exclusive link to get 30-day free).

Now that you joined an email service, it’s time to start collecting emails.

Step 1: Qualify your subscribers with your opt-in forms

You won’t get many subscribers by asking for emails without giving something in exchange.

And you won’t get engagement if your subscribers are not interested in your email content.

So, the best way to build an email list of engaged subscribers is to attract people you can serve.

Therefore, you need to take time to define your target audience.

The Most Important Question to Ask to Define Your Target Audience

In email marketing, you get higher conversion on your opt-in forms when you ask fewer information. For privacy concerns as well, I ask only for a name and an email address.

At the end, I found that the most important question to ask to define your ideal subscriber is this:

what problems your content or products will solve?

The answer to that questions will help build a list of emails of people genuinely interested in your content.

If you have an existing blog or product, the question is easier to answer.

Now, attracts your target audience with an offer

Present an offer that’ll appeal to your target audience but not to people you won’t serve on your list.

The best offers when you want to make money with an email list fix a problem for your audience.

It’s easier and faster to make a freebie that targets a specific problem to fix. More importantly, It’s easier to deliver on the promise.

Pro-tip: Offer a free email course to your subscribers instead of a free PDF. They’ll learn to open, read, and engage with your emails. It’s also an opportunity to build trust with those emails proven to have the highest open rates.

Enable double opt-in confirmation

To get more engaging subscribers, it is also important to prevent fake sign-ups on your forms.

One step is to enable double opt-in on your forms. When someone fill your subscription forms, an email is sent to confirm that subscription.

That way, emails added manually or automatically, without the user’s consent, won’t make it through your list.

Remember, uninterested subscribers can affect the deliverability of your emails. Interested subscribers won’t get your emails if non-genuine subscribers don’t open and engage with your emails. It gets worse if they mark your emails as spam.

Step 2 - Get Eyeballs to Your Forms to Grow Your Email List.

To effectively grow your email list, you need your target audience to actually sees you offer to opt-in.

Most email marketing services will give you a form to collect emails. Create your opt-in form and promote them in effective places.

The best performing places to put them are:

On your homepage/blog page featured at the top: Your homepage is your most visited page. Add an opt-in form to capture more emails from people who want to know more about your blog. If you share your latest posts on a static page, add a featured opt-in form there as well.
Right after your blog post: Get someone who enjoyed your post to join your list for more goodies. Once they finish reading your posts, ask them to stay in touch. You get people who really consumed your content and liked it.
On a landing page: A landing page is designed to convert. One page designed for a specific action. You can create them to boost your email list. Design it yourself, use ready themes, or use tools like Optin Monster, and ThriveLeads to create landing pages.
Two-step signup link or inline opt-in form: I like using two-step signup CTA and inline form because they are used by people who actually read your posts. And it helps again most automated signups. ThriveLeads has that option.
pop-up box: Show a pop-up when your visitors enter your website, navigate or want to leave. Love it or hate it, it works like crazy.

Normally, people who knows you and really care about what you’ve shared join your mailing list once you ask them.

But there are also people who stumble upon on your blog for the first time. And they will never visit your blog again… unless you ask them their email to contact them later.

To grow your list with those people, you need to give away free stuffs.

It can be:

an email course;
a content upgrade;
a post in PDF;
a video course.

Now, you just need to increase your blog traffic to get people to see your opt-in forms and join your email list.

Congrats! You already did half of the job. But one crucial step remains.

You have to engage with your subscribers. The following steps will help you keep existing subscribers while looking for more.

Step 3 - Engage your email subscribers

One key to the effectiveness of email marketing is trust. And trust comes from engagement.

You must engage with your subscribers once they join your list. At least, for two reasons:

There are people who sign up just to download your free offer and unsubscribe. It’s your only opportunity to make them stick around. Let them know how valuable your email content is.
People who never heard from you for a while forget if they accepted to receive your email and perceive it as spam.

Not to mention, your welcome email, which is the first mail contact with your subscribers, is super important.

Make sure you make it friendly and useful. include most of these elements onto your welcome email:

A friendly greeting
Why is it worth being on the list? Ex: each week, we send a tip to grow your audience.
the gift you promised if any or a surprise gift.
a request to contact you if needed.
a call to action. (Teach them to act).

Many internet marketers found it useful to schedule an auto-responder series instead. It can help a lot.

First, it’s marketing automation that can make you money.

You can use it to sell a course, a book or anything else to your new subscribers who missed your launch. And it will do well every time a targeted customer join.

Then, you can use to send well-performing posts you published. Chances are the readers never knew they existed.

The more free things you give away such as new blog posts on regular basis, free courses, free documents, the more trust you’ll earn in return.

The more trust you’ll gain, the more money you can make from your mailing list. Don’t you buy from people you know who can really help you?

Step 4: Segment your email list

Even with a targeted email marketing list, you’ll find people who are not interested in certain emails that you send. They are still valuable subscribers with genuine interests in other emails.

So, you don’t want to annoy them and push them away.

The solution is to segment your email list.

An example of use case where segmentation is important is when sending sales emails. You’d not like to send an email promoting a product to an existing customer, do you?

Targeted emails sent to only a segment of your list can greatly impact your email performance.

Pro Tip: Early on, you can segment your subscribers by engagement. If anytime you sender reputation get affected, you can send valuable emails only to that group to build that reputation again.

The best ways I recommend to segment subscribers is around their interests. It can be automated based on pages they visit on your site, emails they open, email sequences they completed, etc…

You can also segment subscribers by geo or purchases.

Step 5: Promote where your target audience is already gathering.

To get more email subscribers, go beyond your blog when you’re promoting your opt-in forms.

Promote your opt-in forms on other platforms that you use such as YouTube, Facebook, Quora, Pinterest, twitter. Your audience is probably already there looking for solutions to their problems.

In your profile on these platforms, link to a page with an opt-in form.

Step 6: Show your email subscribers that you always care about them

Trust is something that you can lose.

So, don’t neglect your email list. Show that you care. Keep it active.

Once, I was busy.

I had no auto-responder series, not even a welcome email. And I did not write a single post for more than four months in a row on my blogs.

It affected my email list.

I could not delete inactive subscribers. They all seemed to be inactive. They forgot who I am when I wrote. etc…

Your email list is your most important community… more than any social media following.

If your blog goes offline on your behalf, you can easily get your blog back to life with your email list. Your loyal community.

They are the very first persons who want to buy from you or to buy an affiliate product you recommend.

So, make sure you keep this community active.

Pro Tip: Add at least 7 messages in your email autoresponder series to go after your free offer. Sent once a week, it’s 7 weeks of content until you add new posts.

And, don’t hesitate to remove inactive people from your list. You want to build a targeted email marketing list. It has to be segmented to contain only engaging subscribers you want to take a specific action.