How to: Grow your mailing list and boost newsletter sign ups

Having a newsletter is invaluable to your business, it's a great way to communicate directly with your customers and give them all the latest news, products and offers. But first, we need sign up's! It's one thing having a great newsletter but if you have no audience to send it out to it won't give you the results you're looking for.

There's lots of ways to entice your audience to sign up to your mailing list, 90% of the time your customers will need a little push to sign up in the form on an incentive.

The first method we'll talk about is giving a discount, this is great for product-based businesses. Everyone loves a discount code or a freebie, we've all been there and signed up to way too many newsletters to get that 15% off our first purchase or to get a free mascara with our next makeup purchase. So, the great thing about this method is, it's tried and tested, and it works. The chances are you’ve repurchased from that business since, and it’s likely due to a newsletter trigger.

To do this, you simply set up an automatic email to send out to anyone that joins your mailing list so there is literally no admin to this, it’s all done for you! Newsletter platforms such as Mailerlite and Mailchimp offer these options with super simple set up methods.

The second method is adding value to your customer via a free resource; so you don’t have to give a discount! This option is great if you are a services-based business or if you are a new business, and offering a discount isn’t something you want to do in the early stages.

To add value to your customer, think about things which are low cost and low effort for you, but may be of high value to your customers and something which may lead them to enquire about other paid services you offer. For example, if you’re a social media agency, you could offer a free downloadable guide on your top 10 tips of using social media for business. If you’re a bespoke kitchens company, it could be access to a free printable kitchen planner.

Get really creative with what you could offer your customers to not only potentially seal the deal on future business but also get their permission to send them your newsletter too. You want your free resource or discount to show that you value your customers, that you want to be as helpful as possible to them and also show your knowledge and understanding of your industry and what your customers want.

Once you’ve grown your audience for your newsletter, you should start seeing the results in the form of more clients, more sales and/or more enquiries!