Steal These Ideas to Grow Your Email List
And apply these six lessons for better chances of going viral.
Welcome to the second edition of The Essence! Where I bring the best writing-related tips, tools, and strategies I come across into one place, to help you excel in the industry.
Pardon me if the introduction sounds too generic: I’m working on it.
For this edition, I’m bringing you valuable lessons that you can use to grow your email list from the top writer on Medium Sinem Gunel. And six lessons that writer Eve Arnold learned from her article that got +132,000 views in a week!
7 to-Do’s with Your Email List
Sinem managed to grow her email list, which she started along with Philip in March of 2020, to over 10,000 subscribers in less than ten months. In her own words:
“We started at zero, didn’t spend a penny on paid ads, and didn’t have any experience in email marketing.”
That should be a lesson to those who make excuses when it comes to starting a newsletter. I was one of them. I contemplated the idea for far too long and was very hesitant. Until I learned one hard fact about making money online: Your email list is way too important to ignore. Or in the better words of Sinem Gunel, “If you’re trying to make money online, your email list and especially your relationship with your subscribers is your biggest asset.”
Email is the most intimate way you can communicate with your readers. According to the 2015 National Client Email Report, email has an average ROI of $38 for each $1 spent.
Let’s see what we can learn from Sinem's experience with building such an impressive list of subscribers:
1. Let readers respond to your emails.
Engagement is key, and learning more about your subscribers is crucial. Getting many responses also improves your deliverability rate. When someone responds to your email, your next ones are more likely to land on his or her inbox. Not the spam, which will help you get a more realistic view of open and click-through rates.
But how? Ask questions, invoke their curiosity, and so on.
2. Get rid of unwanted subscribers.
Those who think that your emails are annoying shouldn’t be on your list. You should delete subscribers who haven’t opened any of your emails in months.
3. Rely on more than one source of traffic.
You know how the saying goes, you really shouldn’t put all your eggs in one basket. Sinem uses Medium, Quora, Pinterest, and a Facebook group to promote their newsletter. If you’re curious about my strategy for this newsletter, I’m only now promoting it on Medium. Sinem agrees with me on that too, she wrote:
“Focus on one channel, make sure it works, get the proof that people are interested, and then look for other platforms.”
The key to choosing the best platform at first is to understand your targeted audience. Who are they, what do they do, what are the platforms they spend the most time on? Once you find the best platform to utilize for promotion, learn how to dominate in it. I’ve been writing on Medium and studying it for months, so I know much about it. You have to make it work before expanding to other platforms.
4. Show your readers that you care.
In the email marketing world, engagement is king. Work on that from the get-go. Don’t wait too long to send valuable emails, offer specials, or tell personal stuff.
5. Create excellent lead magnets.
Whether it’s a checklist, a resource, or a complete guide, it must be really good. Keep in mind that your lead magnets should perfectly match your content and what you sell.
Pro tip: Along with an excellent freebie, try a content upgrade to lure subscribers. Brian Dean went in-depth about it in his blog Backlinko.
6. Send frequent emails (at least once a week).
Daily is a little too much. Twice or thrice a week is good, and in my bias opinion, weekly is best.
7. Remind readers that you’re not a robot.
Joke around if you’re funny. I repeat, only if you’re funny. Or you can Google some jokes. Don’t ever do that. You can include personal details, write if talking to a friend, and so on. In short: Personalize. Joe Sugarman wrote in his book The Advertising Secrets of the Written Word:
“Every communication should be a personal one, from the writer to the recipient, regardless of the medium used.”
There’s a lot to learn in email marketing. I would suggest you start with HubSpot academy content & email marketing courses.
6 Lessons on Going Viral
Going viral is a milestone almost every writer has. Eve Arnold achieved that in January and published an article to show us the behind-the-scenes of going viral.
Lesson 1: Develop grit
The first lesson she included was grit. You need to develop it. Don’t be so attached to your expectations. Don’t expect your piece to go viral, because as William Shakespeare's quote goes, “Expectation is the root of all heartache.”
Trust me, it is. World-renowned American academic Angela Duckworth defined grit as:
“Grit is passion and persistence applied toward long-term achievement, with no particular concern for rewards or recognition along the way.”
If you don’t have it, work hard to develop it. It will take you a long way.
Lesson 2: Show up consistently with quality content
Virality is actually a game of probability. Eve mentioned that in this case, the probability is the number of articles you publish.
Lesson 3: Iterate, iterate, iterate
Eve argued that there’s no secrets whatsoever, only a process, and I firmly agree with her. The process, from what she learned from author and entrepreneur Eric Reis, is as follow: Build—Measure—Learn
Write and publish, review your work to see where you can improve, and learn how to improve.
Lesson 4: Aim for novelty
Eve explained that she wrote her article with a new approach to an old idea. That’s what writing is. Except for extremely rare scenarios, every idea has already been written by someone else. So you're not special. I'm joking, you're not. You can, however, find a new approach to tell it. That's novelty.
Lesson 5: The magic is in the headline
It’s a no-brainer. We just tend to forget the importance of a good headline. I like to remind myself with advertising pioneer David Ogilvy’s quote:
“On average, 5x as many people tend to read the headline rather than read the body copy. When you have written your headline, you have spent eighty cents out of your dollar.”
Spend them with wisdom.
Lesson 6: Return to the first lesson
Virality is not the goal. It is only a milestone along the way. Keep your focus on the first lesson, which is developing grit.
Grit is what will get you to hit virality—not once or twice—but over and over again.
Until next time,
Mohammed