Learn how to grow your email list to keep a steady flow of traffic and business coming through to your website. With these steps your email list will grow faster and stronger each day giving you more and more people to market to.

Add a “share with a friend” option on any articles you publish, blog posts or anywhere else you leave your message. If you aren’t sure how to do this, there are many plug-in widgets available online that will enable this feature for you easily depending on what application you are using. For example, if you are using Word Press you can check the plug-in section and add a plug-in to support this requirement.

Add a sign up form on your home page and include it in any side menu’s that are consistently shown on every page within your website. If you are offering something of value such as a weekly emailed tip, news and announcements or something informational, people will want to sign up and this is an easy way to let them opt to sign up themselves. As an added bonus you may want to offer an initial sign up incentive when they register their email address such as a special discount or e-product giveaway.

Start your own informational newsletter. People who are interested in the service you are providing are often happy to receive information they can use to research and find out what’s going on with your business and your products. Newsletters can be managed with a subscription based service such as Constant Contact or through your own email sign up database that you create to collect the email addresses on your home page, mentioned in the previous tip.

If you are attending a trade show, place a box in your booth to collect names, emails and addresses as a process to register for something you are giving away during the trade show. For example, if you are attending a pet show, you might offer a pet pampering service as a giveaway and collect names of potential pet owners by allowing them to register for this item.

If you are a business that receives customer or prospective customer phone calls, always ask them “Can I add you to our mailing list?” before ending each phone call. This way even if you didn’t land the sale on that call you will continue to be on their mind and have an additional chance to sell them later on through email.

Join in on the social networking websites such as Facebook and MySpace to take advantage of unlimited contacts. These social networking websites will allow you to develop closer relationships to your customers by “talking” on your social website through such tools as your Facebook wall page. Social networking websites also make it easier to gain new friends, which means adding more and more people to your email list.

Promote a contest on your home page or blog about a special prize or giveaway when they subscribe to your email list from your website. This is great incentive to get more and more people to sign up directly as well as get them to refer their friends to your website as well.

Resources: