They said email would become obsolete with the rise of faster means of global communication. Yet, look at where email is right now. The number of emails sent and received by businesses and is expected to continue to grow even beyond 319 billion by 2021. Companies around the world are investing heavily in their email marketing strategies and growing their email lists, all for the chance to increase customer engagement, boost brand loyalty and trust, drive traffic, and of course, capitalize on repeat business in the process. For a recruiter, Email marketing can be a very effective tactic to reach potential candidates. When it comes to professions in high demand you will need all the help you can get.

By combining email marketing with promotions and stellar content, and by integrating personalization into the strategy, forward-looking brands take their companies to new heights of success rather quickly – but only if they manage to get people to sign up to the newsletter in the first place.

As you might have guessed from the title, social media management and marketing is one of the best ways to achieve this goal. Let’s take a look at some of the most effective ways to build your email list through social media.

Host giveaways and promotional campaigns

There’s no denying that people love free stuff. In fact, #giveaway and  #discount are some of the most popular hashtags on social media. Offer something for free, advertise it extensively, and chances are that you will get a lot of people interested in your brand and products in a very short amount of time. So naturally, one of the greatest ways to get people to sign up to your email list is to host an occasional giveaway across all of your SM channels. This tactic is more about acquiring quality email addresses (meaning getting quality leads), instead of getting thousands of new subscribers.

Now, there are numerous ways you can host a social media giveaway, and even though growing your email list is your no.1 goal, you should outline other key goals as well. The simplest way to get people to share their email address with you is to have them sign up for your newsletter to be able to participate. Make sure your promo products are valuable enough to spark interest in the community, though!

Take a look at this small coffee shop and their way of using incentives to promote their newsletter and build their email list on social media:

By offering discount codes to their subscribers, they’re encouraging their followers to not only join their mailing list but also continue to purchase their products. Note that discount codes are also great because of their universal value and flexibility. That way, your subscribers will get a great deal while also being able to choose the product on their own.

Use CTAs on your profiles

Calls to action should be an integral part of your overarching digital marketing strategy, and they should be an integral part of your email and social media strategies as well. According to a study, using CTA words such as share, please, like and now in your Facebook posts can almost double their effectiveness. 

In the case of incentivizing social media followers and audiences to subscribe to your mailing list, you want to place CTAs strategically on your social media profiles, as well as social media content. What this does is it drives traffic to your landing pages and free downloads. Take a look at the way this digital marketing agency uses Twitter to encourage their followers to visit their website and download a free eBook:

Of course, the only way to access the free material is to join your mailing list, so make sure that the CTA as well as the material are compelling and offer true value to the consumer – this will also help you build customer loyalty. When you create a free download that solves a unique problem your customers are facing, and when you promote it on social media through regular posts and CTAs, you’re effectively raising your chances of obtaining quality email addresses. After all, the people who download these items are showing a genuine interest in your brand.

Listen in on the chatter on social media

In the ever-evolving social media world, knowledge equals power. If you are to refine your content and your entire approach to social media engagement and communication in an attempt to inspire more email opt-ins, you need to act on deep industry insights and actionable data. This is why comprehensive social mention monitoring is so important nowadays, as it gives growth-oriented businesses the insights they need to tailor their messages and posts to the current trends and climate on social media. Most importantly, monitoring what is said on social media allows you to tune in on the online chatter, and discover what moves and motivates your target audience. In fact, in Australia, the brand image of a company is so important that there are companies in all major cities specialized in this field, such as this brand agency in Melbourne.

It’s these types of insights that will give you an edge over the competition, and most importantly, help you optimize your content, CTAs, and advertisements to promote your newsletter in the most effective way possible. Listen to the conversations about your brand and industry on social media, collect the data, and create actionable reports to boost your email marketing strategy as a whole.

Use Facebook and Insta stories to promote your newsletter

Facebook and Instagram Stories represent a social media goldmine for businesses that know how to leverage their unique features to reach their marketing goals and win repeat business. As a matter of fact, half of the businesses on Instagram create at least one Instagram story a day. What’s more, one-third of the most viewed Instagram stories are created by business accounts. In the case of email marketing, Stories represent the perfect platform to advertise your newsletter and get people to hop over to your site, and subscribe. You just need to get creative to make it work.

Successful SM Stories boast captivating visuals, branded elements, and of course, compelling content to incentivize social media audiences to follow a link to a certain page. To gain their full attention, though, be sure to tease certain products or services. Give them a glimpse of what’s to come in your Story, and then emphasize how joining your newsletter will give them instant access to its features, or keep them up to date with the latest news regarding the product.

Boost sign-up rates with live SM events

Live social media events, much like Stories, have the power and potential to raise brand awareness and help business leaders achieve numerous social media goals. For example, Facebook Live generates 35% more engagement than regular videos. And much like Stories, live events can help you boost sign-up rates. But you need to make it worth the customers’ time. You’re not doing live events to sip coffee and have a chat, you’re doing them to pass on knowledge and relevant insights, showcase products, or tease the audience about the future of the brand.

The main portion of your live event should be geared towards delivering value to the audience and gaining their trust. At the end of the event, you will offer in-depth summaries of the topics you’ve covered, neatly wrapped up in free downloadable content. Incentivize people to grab their free summaries by heading over to your site and joining your email list.

Wrapping up

Email marketing and social media are two complementary digital marketing tools that need to build each other up over time, and with the help and guidance of an experienced marketing expert. With these tips in mind, go ahead and use your social media presence to inspire global audiences to join your mailing list and take your brand forward.