email subscribersYou likely spend considerable effort on getting new email subscribers. After all, email newsletters and marketing materials give you unprecedented access to customers by allowing you to get emails directly to people who want to know more about your brand.

To be successful, you need to both increase email opt-ins and retain subscribers. If you’re only working on getting more subscribers without a strategy to keep them as interested readers over the long-term, you are doing the equivalent of trying to carry water in a leaky bucket. No matter how much water you try to pour in, you’re going to keep losing volume.

Here are some tips you can implement to start reaching email subscribers immediately:

  • Think Carefully How Often You Send out Materials by Email: When customers have too many emails in their inbox, they will likely start looking for opt-ins and subscriptions they can eliminate. One of the email lists they will probably unsubscribe from is yours. While you want to keep your brand in focus, consider each message carefully and only send emails when you have something of value to share.
  • Elevate the Quality of Your Content: One of the best ways to retain email subscribers is to send them the content they want to receive. Make your emails and newsletters useful, inspiring, fun or just so engaging that people look forward to it.
  • Know Who Your Customers Are: Some companies try to send their messages to everyone and anyone, hoping something sticks and people read their emails. In reality, you need a smart reader retention strategy, and that means outlining who your ideal customer is. Start by taking a look at who buys from you the most, then consider how to reach that specific audience. The way you write for new moms will be very different than how you write to teenage boys, so determine your audience and write specifically for them.
  • Diversify: Walls of text are intimidating, even for fans. Consider mixing up your media by including video, images, video files and other content with written materials. Use plenty of white space, too, to make your emails easier to scan.
  • Communicate, Don’t Pontificate: Readers are more engaged when communication is a two-way street, so use polls, surveys and metrics to determine what readers want to read. What topics get the best responses from readers? What do readers tell you they wish to see in emails? Check customer feedback in your company outside of emails to determine the questions and challenges your customers have most often, then write email communications to help readers with those topics. Encourage readers to write back to you through email and answer questions and emails.
  • Keep Information Accurate: Ask your customers to update their contact information so you can follow them if they start using a new email address.
  • Make Your Emails Irresistible Even Before They Are Opened: Use an eye-catching subject line and make sure the first few lines of your email are poised to raise curiosity and interest. Most people get many emails a day, so you want to make sure yours is one everyone wants to open.

Now that you know how to grow and retain email subscribers, you can start building a real base of eager readers who look forward to your emails. Of course, to keep readers, you need to have some. If you need help attracting new email opt-ins, try a 30-day free trial with LeadMaster to explore our highly effective lead management tools for yourself.