7 Top-Performing Strategies to Boost Your Email List

How to Grow an Email List from Scratch

Email marketing is a business revenue driver that enables you to reach customers directly with personalized content.

It encourages sales and loyalty while offering ROIs of between $32 and $45 for every dollar spent, depending on your industry. Additionally, its conversion rate is 2.8% among B2C organic channels and 2.4% among B2B strategies.

Creating a quality email contact list isn't just about collecting as many contacts as possible. You need to attract readers who genuinely want to hear from you.

People's inboxes represent one of their most personal digital spaces. Begin this online relationship right with these steps.

• Choose an email service provider (such as Mailchimp, Constant Contact, Sendinblue, and ConvertKit).
• Craft engaging signup forms and welcome emails.
• Require double opt-in from subscribers.
• Segment recipients early based on demographics, engagement, and interests.

Your segmentation efforts and performance tracking can be worthwhile if your contact list only contains valid addresses and active email users. Tools like VerifiedEmail can verify addresses for you, preventing your messages from going to spam folders.

Check if your email is valid with VerifiedEmail.

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1. How to Grow an Email List Fast with Lead Magnets

A lead magnet is a free but high-value digital asset offered to readers that introduces or leads them to your business.

Video and written content garner the highest conversion rates (47%). Other popular formats include visual content (11.8%), tool or access to a brand asset (11.8%), and monetary value (10.5%).

You can pair lead magnets with blog posts and social media CTAs by matching them with your target audience’s pain points. They can be in the form of eBooks, educational videos, or free trials.

A/B testing lead magnets improves your chances of acquiring new subscribers. You can follow this process:

1. Know what you want to achieve (higher click-through rates or conversion rates).
2. Identify key elements to test: headline styles, visuals, CTAs, and offers.
3. Ensure you have adequate online traffic for a reliable comparison.
4. Analyze the results of your A/B tests and apply the insights to refine your lead magnet.

2. How to Grow an Email List with Pop-up Forms

The selling points of pop-up forms are their timing and targeting. Simple form fields, a clear headline and value proposition, an irresistible incentive, and a clear CTA are crucial. But choosing where and when these forms appear makes all the difference.

Types of Pop-ups

• By placement: Top, sidebar, bottom, within content, and center of the page.
• By user behavior: Upon entry or exit, when readers click an image or link, action on webpages (after scrolling down % of a page or staying x minutes), where users are in the sales funnel (after users have viewed x number of pages).

According to a Sleeknote study, timer-led triggers led to more conversions compared to scroll-based triggers. It also noted that the best time to display pop-ups was six seconds after a webpage opens. Be sure to optimize for mobile, as such pop-ups drew higher conversions than desktop pop-ups.

Other best practices include:

• Limiting input fields to one to two (first name and email address)
• Writing concise copy.
• Making the CTA easy to find by using contrasting colors
• Ensuring pop-ups are easy to close

3. How to Grow Your Email List with Social Media

Social media enables you to connect with prospects in the online spaces where they spend time. Carve a conversion path on each platform with these tactics:

• LinkedIn: Include a signup CTA and form when you offer lead magnets like reports or toolkits in posts.
• X (Twitter): Pin a tweet with a signup link or lead magnet at the top of your profile to encourage email opt-ins.
• Facebook: Add a "Sign Up" button to your page and offer gated content (requiring email signup) on pinned posts.
• Instagram: Include a signup link in your bio and use link stickers, or "Swipe Up" to promote it in Stories.
• YouTube: Include your signup link in video descriptions and promote a lead magnet within the video.
• TikTok: Pin a video promoting a lead magnet and direct viewers to the link in your bio.

Grab the attention of past website visitors and or those who have engaged with previous content through retargeting ads. Feature an exclusive offer or lead magnet in these ads to encourage signups.

4. How to Grow an Email List with a Chatbot

Nearly a fifth of business owners have adopted chatbots for 24/7 lead generation. You can prompt users to enter their email address during live support sessions, say in exchange for a lead magnet. Then, program the bot to segment users based on their questions (such as pricing info or product tutorials).

To avoid manual data uploads, sync your contacts into your ESP or CRM. This way, you can customize and automate onboarding emails immediately.

For better results, review chat sequences and analytics to see where your users dropped the conversation. Refine and test various prompts and CTAs to boost engagement and opt-ins.

5. How to Grow Your Email Subscriber List through Website Tactics

As your main content hub, your website should make it easy for people to subscribe. You can select from several features or places on your page to position your signup form:

📌 Inline blog forms

These small forms appear within the blog's main body, such as after the first few paragraphs, just before the conclusion, or midway through a long article. They’re the second most popular opt-in form type (59.5%), next to pop-ups (76.2%).

📌 Sticky header bars

They appear as a line of text on a "floating bar” that stays on top of the page as readers scroll down.

📌 Footer opt-ins

Unlike sticky header bars that follow users as they move toward the end of a page, footer opt-ins are static forms at the bottom of web pages. You'll typically find them near the contact info, sitemap, or copyright notice.

📌 Exit overlays

They aim to capture last-minute interest by displaying it just before visitors leave a page.

Guide users to a thank-you page after a successful opt-in to earn more email signups. Recommend a bonus resource they can share with a friend. Include a "forward this" link or social share buttons.

6. How to Grow Email Lists through Partnerships and Content Sharing

Collaborating with non-competing businesses may not only give you long-term returns in client acquisition. It can also be a fast and cost-effective way to acquire more subscribers.

Partnerships can take various forms:

• Co-host a webinar on industry insights that requires participants to register via email.
• Write a guest blog on a respected partner's site and provide a link to a gated resource at the end.
• Offer co-branded giveaways (eBooks, toolkits, or free trials) promoted on each other's email campaigns and LinkedIn.
• Use sharing techniques, such as adding a viral referral link to your thank-you page.

When selecting partners, choose businesses with the same audience but don't offer the same service or product. And remember to monitor signup sources to determine which channels attract the most leads.

7. How to Grow Email List with B2B Targeted Tactics

When growing your B2B email list, you often should win over an entire team involved in researching and discussing prospective providers. The key is to identify and engage with the target company's decision-makers to tailor future messages.

Consider the following steps:

1. Offer valuable content that generates measurable results. Start with exclusive content, such as white papers or ROI calculators tailored to your industry's pain points.
2. Promote them through LinkedIn lead gen ads to capture executive-level leads.
3. You can also host virtual summits and niche webinars.
4. Once contacts are in, segment them by company type, organization size, role in decision-making, and buying stage.
5. Then, automate nurture campaigns that share targeted messaging, such as onboarding sequences, testimonials, or case studies.
6. Measure KPIs to help optimize your campaigns. Check your open rate, click-through rate, and lead-to-MQL conversion rate. “Marketing qualified leads” have shown interest in your business and are ready to be passed on to your sales team.

List Management: Keep Your Email List Healthy

A bloated or outdated list can affect email deliverability. Bouncebacks can trigger ESPs to mark your future emails as spam. They may downgrade your sender reputation, making it harder to land in the inbox.

These possibilities can hurt campaign ROI, onboarding, sales, and retention in the long run. The solution is to keep your email list in top shape by doing the following:

• Clean your list regularly: Remove bounces, unsubscribes, and outdated emails.
• Re-engage dormant users: Send targeted emails to spark interest with tips, new features, or offers.
• Segment your list: Match follow-ups to user behavior or funnel position.
• Track engagement metrics: Watch for declines in opens, clicks, or signup activity.
• Use VerifiedEmail: Test deliverability, catch risky emails (invalid addresses or disposable emails), and protect your sender health.

You don't need to apply all the email list growth strategies at once. Start with one method, test what works, and keep your list clean. Stay consistent and helpful to see your list grow with your business.