5 Email Growth Hacks You Should Use Now

This is a writing sample from Scripted writer Stephen Jeske

If your email list isn't growing at the rate it should, try the following hacks to get some traction. Think Like A Journalist The latest research indicates you have just eight seconds to draw people in, deliver your message and get them to take action. Given the situation, your email content needs a structure to help readers scan the content and focus on the most important elements. The inverted pyramid model is designed to achieve these objectives through a structure that presents essential elements at the beginning of the content, followed by supporting details and finally the call to action. This particular model works well whether you have an email with just one message and one call to action, or a newsletter with multiple messages and calls to action. In the latter case, information is broken into sections with each section following the inverted pyramid model. But you're going to need four things to make this work. First you need a good elevator pitch, or what some call a value proposition. That pitch needs to be clear, offer a compelling benefit and differentiate yourself from the competition. Next you'll need some impressive imagery. The human brain processes visual imagery at speeds infinitely faster than text, making it a critical component of this model. Don't use an image because you feel obligated. Use it to support your key message. Third, write succinctly. Edit ruthlessly to remove unnecessary verbiage. Remember, you have at best eight seconds to hold your reader's attention. Make your copy easy to read and focus on benefits, not features. Finally, include a prominent call to action. It's critical your readers know exactly what is the next step. Boost Conversions Up To 300% With This Landing Page Trick Guest posting on authority sites can generate substantial amounts of traffic to your site if you're consistent in posting. Providing a good call-to-action is the first step in getting them to click through to your site. But then what? Where do you send them to on your site? Neil Patel often creates a landing page to welcome visitors, when he guest posts on other blogs. It creates a better user experience with a greater degree of continuity between the content read on the blog, the link that was clicked, and the arriving page. Always Be Collecting Emails There are three points in time during which you can capture a visitors email address; when they first arrive at your site, while they are interacting with your content, and when they leave. The more opportunity a visitor has to provide their email address, the more likely they will do so. But in each case, you must offer something of value in exchange. Otherwise, your opt-in rate will be embarrassingly low. The most common method of getting email signups on arrival is through the use of popups. Yes, they're annoying, but they work. Variations such as the "top bar", "scroll box" and "slide-in" have been created to overcome the annoyance factor and reduce "popup fatigue". Pop-ups and their variations tend to have low conversion rates, but you can improve this substantially through use of a lead magnet tied to content on the page. For example, you could provide a PDF checklist of the material covered in your post or a video walkthrough. In each case, the offer is tied to a piece of relevant content. This connection is what makes it work so well. Instructional videos, in particular, can work incredibly well as lead magnets. Wistia, in particular, works well for this; making visitors enter their email before they can watch, and adding them to your email list automatically. As a last resort, you can always try capturing email addresses when a visitor is about to leave your site. These plugins and scripts trigger a popup when they detect a visitor is moving quickly toward the "X" on top to close the tab. Think Transactional For 42% Higher Click Rate 100 million emails can't be wrong can they? That's the number of emails the folks at Vero analyzed to figure out that transactional emails get 42% more clicks than newsletter emails. Why does this work? It all comes down to timing. When customers understand why they are getting your emails, they're more likely to open and read what you send. Their behaviour should trigger the email, not the other way around. Start looking at your sales funnel to find places where you can send transactional emails. Onboarding is one example. At the same time start thinking about the type of content you can include to move your subscriber ahead towards your ultimate goal. Some examples of types of emails you can use include; the welcome, getting started, referral offers, reminders and renewals. Get 60% Conversion Rate Collecting Emails On Twitter OK. You've worked real hard to get all those email signup forms working on your blog. You've got popups, slide-ins, exits and content upgrade forms. But don't stop there! Start collecting emails off-page as well. Specifically, I'm talking about Twitter. Set up a Lead Generation Card in Twitter, so you can embed it in any of your Tweets. Then anyone on Twitter that sees the tweet can subscribe to your email list in a single click. No moving off the page to another site. No double-opt-in extra steps required. Zero friction. It doesn't get any better than that. By the way, most people just attach the card to a Tweet and send it out. You'll get more mileage if you also use it when engaging people in your replies. Now it's your turn. Take these ideas and try them out, iterating until you're crushing it on email.

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Stephen Jeske
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Inbound Certified marketer who follows the startup and VC space closely and edits a weekly newsletter called Growth Hacking Digest. I’ve written for Content Marketing Institute , Dzone , Data Science Central , Wired Innovation Insights among others.
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