"Compared to other channels, email marketing has one of the highest ROI's around, with an average of $36 made for every $1 spent."

"It's also one of the best ways to connect with your audience—you’re 40 times more likely to acquire new customers through email than Facebook or Twitter."

"The whole point of list-building is to capture as many of the right email signups as possible. Your email marketing campaigns will be more effective that way."

"Step 1. Offer a valuable incentive"

"The best way to get signups for your email list is to create a lead gen asset, or 'lead magnet.'"

"Whatever you decide to offer your prospects, make sure it's high-quality, valuable, and relevant to their interests."

"If you offer a wide variety of products, styles, use-cases, or if your product is customizable, consider building an interactive quiz funnel to boost email signups."

"the DTC tea company, Cup and Leaf, boosted email signups on their blog by 528% using a simple quiz funnel."

"Too many companies create something mediocre to begin with, then think it makes sense to gate it behind an email capture page. This is a mistake."

"As a rule of thumb, the more valuable the asset, the more contact info you can get away with asking for."

"For example, Digital Marketer has a popular swipe file with over 100 proven email subject lines."

"Insight: The more valuable and intent-specific the item you're giving away, the better the sweepstake usually performs."

"By curating the most valuable tools, news, or resources in your industry, you save subscribers time and position yourself as a credible authority—someone in the know."

"Insight: Contrary to common marketing advice, most newsletters don't need to be sent weekly. High cadences force newsletter writers to rush and publish lower quality information. Instead, consider only sending when you truly have value to add."

"Step 2. Choose a lead source"

"Now, you need to choose a lead source—a flow of traffic you can send to your lead magnet."

"Unless you're already driving considerable traffic, we recommend pointing each of your social profiles to one primary opt-in form."

"In terms of email capture, having a single funnel lets Marketing Brew focus on conversion rate optimization and lead flow, rather than spreading themselves too thin with multiple lead gen offers and signup flows."

"On the other hand, if you have multiple lead gen offers, consider setting up a Linkin.bio (Instagram) or Linktree (all social media platforms) to make it easier for prospects to find what they're interested in."

"Guest podcasting is when you make a guest appearance on someone else's podcast. Depending on the audience size of the podcast, this can drive a significant amount of traffic to your website."

"Run a joint webinar: If you're a SaaS company, you might partner with a marketing agency or complementary tool and co-host a webinar that educates the shared audience on the problem(s) your tool is meant to help solve."

"Every year, Natural Stacks partners with adjacent brands in the DTC consumables space to create a limited supply of heavily-discounted product bundles (stacks)."

"Like guest posting, this approach doesn't scale very well. But if you're starting from scratch, it's worth considering."

"To get started, join online communities in your industry and become an active participant. Over time, you’ll build new relationships that you can then use for content distribution and list growth."

"Sign up or apply to join the ones where your target audience might be—then repurpose your content for sharing in them."

"Google ads are better suited for generating direct purchases."

"Pinterest ads are worth considering if your audience is primarily women and your product is highly visual."

"TikTok ads are worth considering if you have deep creative resources and/or sell broadly-appealing products."

"Uber took to the streets and handed out referral codes to recruit users."

"Perfect your header"

"Studies show that 55% of visitors spend only 15 seconds or less on your website, which means you need to capture their attention right from the get-go."

"Add social proof"

"Change your call to action (CTA)"

"Tweak your CTA copy to sound like a friendly invitation, not a cold instruction."

"If you want to take popups a step further, try this: use dynamic popups to meet visitors at their current stage in the buyer's journey. Most marketing messaging tools offer the ability to target individuals with customized popups."

"First-time traffic: For first-time visitors who haven’t subscribed yet, provide a discount, a giveaway, or exclusive content gated by an email capture."

"While they're often thought of as intrusive, popups convert 3% of site visitors, on average."

"Open your website's analytics and see the average time spent on a specific page you'd like to use a popup on."

"Set your popup to appear after 60% of the average time spent on your specific page. So if the average time spent on a page is 50 seconds, set your popup to appear 30 seconds after visitors land on that page."

"This type of opt-in form appears a few moments after someone visits your website for the first time. Typically, a welcome mat will appear after a few seconds and take up the entire page, offering some sort of lead magnet that encourages website visitors to subscribe."

"This type of opt-in form pops up on the screen when the web browser indicates that the person is going to leave the website (i.e., when their mouse scrolls to the URL section of their web browser)."

"This form can include a lead magnet offer, or it can be a simple and basic ""subscribe now"" CTA."

"Lead generation tools can help grow your email list faster."

"An ESP is one of the most basic lead generation tools for your email marketing efforts."

"First, decide on an offer: Give people a reason to sign up for your email list. Your opt-in offer should be something remarkable and extremely valuable."

"Next, pick your traffic source(s): When you convert new subscribers from your ideal market, pay attention to where they came from."

"Last, set up email capture forms and popups: The header, copy, and CTA you use will determine how many people sign up."