You spend hours writing engaging blog posts and promoting them on Facebook and Instagram. But no matter how much time you put in, you can barely get the subscriber count on your email list to budge. You don’t get why your email list isn’t growing. After all, with all of the “how I gained 10,000 subscribers posts” out there, it seems like growing an email list is effortless for just about everyone else. So what’s the problem? Why is it so hard for you to grow your email list?
You may be missing one of two key ingredients.
Want to skyrocket traffic to your website so you can grow your email list and make more sales?
Download my free cheat sheet on creating the perfect Pinterest account profile.
Two key ingredients you need to grow your email list
If you read blog posts on how to grow your email list, you’ll find that a lot of experts identify one specific strategy: adding content upgrades to your blog. Content upgrades are free, related resources that you offer on a blog post in exchange for a visitor’s email address. Add content upgrades to your blog, the experts say, and your email list will grow like wildfire.
But there’s a problem with this advice. Why? Because it assumes that your email list isn’t growing because you don’t have a way of converting blog visitors into email subscribers. This isn’t always the case.
To grow an email list using a blog (or website), you need two key ingredients: (1) a way to drive traffic to your blog and (2) a way to convert this traffic into email subscribers.
Adding content upgrades to your blog is important because it serves as the second ingredient in this process. But as you can see, if you don’t have a steady stream of traffic on your blog, you won’t have anyone to convert. That’s why adding content upgrades to your blog alone isn’t a guaranteed way to grow your email list.
So how do you take care of the first ingredient and ensure you have enough traffic on your blog? You can and should optimize your blog posts for search engines. However, it takes several months to build up enough SEO juice to the point where you’ll see results. What’s a more immediate way to drive traffic to your blog? Pinterest.
Here’s how you can leverage the power of Pinterest to grow your email list.
Using Pinterest to grow your email list
Step 1: Write value-packed blog posts
The first step in using Pinterest to grow your email list is to create blog posts that are packed with value. It’ll ultimately be your content upgrade that incentivizes people to hand over their email address. But this doesn’t mean that you can place awesome content upgrades on lacklustre posts. After all, your blog posts are a preview to what people will get in your upgrades. If your blog posts are surface-level fluff that’s peppered with typos, people may think it isn’t worth it to sign up for your upgrades. And you know what that means: you won’t get as many subscribers.
Show people who land on your blog that you’ve got valuable info and resources to share. Write stellar blog posts with magnetic headlines that wow your visitors and keep them wanting more.
Related:
- 9 essential characteristics of great blog posts + template and example
- 11 things to do before you publish your next blog post + free checklist
- 9 blog title generator tools to help you craft the perfect headline + 72 title templates
Want to skyrocket traffic to your website so you can grow your email list and make more sales?
Download my free cheat sheet on creating the perfect Pinterest account profile.
Step 2: Add even more value with content upgrades
Once you’ve succeeded in getting people hooked on your content, you want to convert them into subscribers. That’s why the second step of using Pinterest to grow your email list is to add content upgrades to your blog posts.
Content upgrades help your blog visitors take the next step in implementing the information in your blog post. So if you’ve done a good job of providing value in your blog post, your visitors will be motivated to get your content upgrade. Capitalize on this motivation by offering your content upgrade in exchange for an email address.
When adding content upgrades to a blog post, add a call-to-action in the middle and at the end of your blog post to maximize your conversion rate.
Related:
- 6 content upgrade tips that will skyrocket your email list + free fillable checklist cheat sheet
- How to make a content upgrade to get more email subscribers + free tool list
- How to correctly set up content upgrades on your blog + free tool list
Step 3: Create pins to promote your posts and upgrades
If you’ve completed Step 2, your blog is now ready to convert visitors into email subscribers. But before you can convert visitors into subscribers, you need to actually find some visitors. This is where Pinterest comes in to help you grow your email list.
Once you’ve created a blog post, it’s time to get some traffic on it by promoting it on Pinterest. To do this, create multiple pins for each post on your blog. Here are examples of the pins I created for my blog post on how to write a welcome email series:
As you can see, one pin promotes the blog post and also mentions the associated content upgrade. The other pin only promotes the content upgrade. I design both types of pins for each blog post I publish to engage different types of visitors.
You can also add an image or graphic of your content upgrade to your pin to show people what they’ll get if they sign up for your content upgrade. Here’s an example of this strategy from Melyssa Griffin:
Related:
Step 4: Promote a lead magnet in your profile
Most of your email subscribers from Pinterest will come from pins that direct traffic to blog posts with content upgrades. However, you can also grow your email list with Pinterest by placing a link to a lead magnet directly in your Pinterest profile. Here’s an example from my Pinterest profile:
As of now, it isn’t possible to add a clickable link to your Pinterest profile. So people will have to copy and paste the link into their browser. However, this strategy is still a good way to boost your subscriber count beyond what you’ll get from your pins alone. That’s why many experienced business owners and bloggers on Pinterest use it.
Leverage Pinterest to grow your email list
If you want to grow your email list, you need two things: a way to drive traffic to your blog or website and a way to convert that traffic into subscribers. Although SEO is a great long-term strategy for generating traffic, using Pinterest is a complementary method that often delivers results faster. When you use Pinterest to promote value-packed blog posts, content upgrades, and lead magnets, you can exponentially boost traffic to your blog or website and, ultimately, the size of your email list.
Want to skyrocket traffic to your website so you can grow your email list and make more sales?
Download my free cheat sheet on creating the perfect Pinterest account profile.
