Issue #171 All About Email

🎉 Email List Growth - It's Good to be back!

Author

Simon Harper
January 06, 2025

Hi, friend. 👋

Welcome to Issue #171 of All About Email!

Last time, it was a special edition and one of my favourite issues of the year, as I revealed your:

  • Top 10 newsletters of the previous 6 months.

  • Your newsletter of the year.

  • All About Email’s “Rewind” end of year review. 🎉

This week, we return to our mini-series “Taming the Email Beast”, which I announced in Issue #165. In Part Five, we look at Email List Growth.

Let’s go! 👇

A Quick Recap

If you are just joining us, friend, or you need a reminder after my break for the holidays, this is where we are at in our mini-series:

And what we still have to cover:

  • Email Flow Basics

  • Building Consistency in your email marketing

  • Measuring Performance

  • Dear Apple

  • Accessibility

  • Tools & Resources

😉 We will break things up a bit during our mini-series to keep things fresh.

A vibrant animated-style landscape featuring a friendly robot collecting email icons in a basket, a curious fox organizing mail envelopes, and a cheerful young wizard casting a spell to grow a tree with email icons as fruits. The scene is set in a colorful park with a magical screen displaying a growing email list, blending whimsy and technology in a playful atmosphere.

Now, on to this week’s topic: Email List Growth

A Detailed Look at Email List Growth

🚨 This issue of All About Email is not an in-depth guide to list growth, friend.

I spent 6 months and 16 newsletters doing this last year.

✅ If you missed that series or need a reminder, all the newsletters are in Mail Mondays Issue #116 (the old name for this newsletter).

In that detailed series, email list growth is divided into 52 tips across two main categories:

  1. Paid Acquisition

  2. Organic growth

We will not be looking at Paid Acquisition tactics in our latest mini-series.

You can find more information about these tactics in my in-depth series, but briefly:

A promotional image for Stories Parfums featuring a bottle of Stories No. 01 Eau de Parfum placed on a stone surface surrounded by a slice of grapefruit, a fig, lime, and a white flower. The text above reads 'STORIES PARFUMS,' and below it says 'Sign up to join the Stories community' with a prominent 'Sign Up' button at the bottom.

An example of a sponsored Instagram post to drive email sign-ups.

🤑 Paid Acquisition could be further sub-divided into four sub-categories:

  • Paid Lead Ads

  • Utilising content

  • Retargeting

  • Buying mailing lists (Don’t do this!)

Take Your Time

🚀 Don’t expect your newsletter growth rate to rocket immediately.

That won’t happen for most of us, especially if you focus on organic growth, not Paid Acquisition.

💡 Before you start growing your newsletter, ask yourself the “Why” of your newsletter.

  • What is the value of your newsletter?

  • What is the purpose of your newsletter?

  • What are your business goals?

🚨 If you can answer those questions, friend, it will make growing your newsletter easier.

🧠 Want to explore your “Why” in more detail? Then check out Issue #95 of Mail Mondays (the old name for this newsletter).

robert eggers patience GIF

Giphy (creepy, but I couldn’t resist. 🤣)

  • Some tactics will work better than others, and others will not.

  • Some tactics will take longer to implement than others.

  • Like anything in email, you need to try and test.

Organic Growth Tactics

With that in mind, friend, let’s look at some tactics you can use to grow your newsletter. 👇

  1. Create a newsletter landing page or multiple pages if you have multiple newsletters.

  2. Add a sign-up to your website header or navigation.

  3. Add a sign-up box to your website footer.

  4. Include a newsletter icon in your list of social icons on your website.

  5. Use pop-ups, fly-in, and exit-intent (I’m not a massive fan of pop-ups, but they can work if used correctly).

  6. Banners at the top of your website.

  7. Use a lead magnet (for example, a free eBook, PDF or mini-course).

  8. Optimise specific sign-up pages for search (one of my favourite tactics).

  9. Add a sign-up to your “Link in Bio” (on social media platforms).

  10. Use social media to convert readers to your newsletter.

  11. Convert readers using events.

  12. Ask readers to forward your newsletter to a friend (link in your email)

  13. Drive sign-ups in real life (e.g. QR codes)

  14. Leverage the power of Recommendations networks (e.g. Beehiiv, ConvertKit, Substack and SparkLoop).

  15. Try in-newsletter cross-promotion.

  16. Invite readers to sign up at the point of purchase (if you use eCommerce).

  17. Add a sign-up to your email signature (an easy one that so many people forget).

  18. Create consistently fantastic content (this is perhaps the hardest thing to do for most of us).

  19. Leverage earned media (newspaper articles, online articles, webinars, podcasts, etc.).

  20. Lastly, word of mouth!

Now That’s a Lot!

🫠 friend, that is a lot to take in, and that’s only a glance at some organic tactics you can start doing right now to grow your newsletter.

I encourage you to read my detailed guide on list growth and work at your own pace as I discuss the above tactics in more detail.

✅ Remember, if you have any questions or comments about the above, reply to this email, and I will respond as soon as possible.

That’s it for This Week 👋

⏭️ Next week, we continue our mini-series with Part Six, “Email Flow Basics“.

See you next week! 😀

Sponsorship Opportunities

🚨 If you’re interested in sponsoring the “All About Email” newsletter, you can find all the details in this Google Doc. I currently have “Classified” slots and a Main Sponsor slot available.

Email Marketing News & Tips

This week's excellent and insightful email news & tips:

  • Changing Roles - My shift to product marketing. (Naomi West)

  • Big Prizes - What Made You Hit ‘buy Now’ In 2024? 28 Experts Reveal The Emails That Got Them To Act! (Vicky Smith)

  • Email Foundations - Email Privacy Compliance. (The House of Email)

  • Goal Time - Setting Goals for Your Newsletter in 2025. (Dan Oshinsky)

  • BIMI Warning - Stop using Entrust for your BIMI Certificates. (Word to the Wise)

  • WOW! - YouTuber won DMCA fight with fake Nintendo lawyer by detecting spoofed email. (Ars Technica)

  • 9 Things - A year in review, and it’s impressive! (Emily Ryan)

If you have a question about this email or email marketing, reply, and I will answer you as soon as possible.

I hope you have a great week! 👋

Simon Harper's handwritten signaturee