6 Ways to Grow Your Email List Through LinkedIn

Intro

Everyone is familiar with LinkedIn as a recruiting tool for business owners and HR professionals to target talented individuals. But what if we told you there’s so much more you can do with this reputable platform? For instance, did you know you can use it to grow your email list and generate qualified leads? No matter if you own a B2B or B2C business, LinkedIn is one of the most foolproof ways to attract and nurture leads. This blog post will detail the reasons behind LinkedIn’s effectiveness and the best tactics to grow your email list with this powerful channel.

Why is LinkedIn important for list growth?

LinkedIn has more than 722 million members, with 40% of them using the popular platform daily. This is probably the first reason to consider LinkedIn as a medium to expand your reach.

LinkedIn is the most business-targeted social media platform. Talented professionals visit it every day to discover valuable resources. So, this is the perfect place to establish your brand as a credible source in your niche by sharing engaging LinkedIn content. Far from that, you can gain access to real-time updates and industry insights while learning from other companies and experts in your industry.

LinkedIn allows you to connect and interact with your target audience, educating them on your value proposition. This way, you build better customer relationships, which, in turn, is what you need to convince peers to subscribe to your email list. But now it’s time to take a closer look at how you can achieve email list growth through your LinkedIn account.

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1. Optimize your landing page

The whole purpose of creating a landing page is to capture users’ email addresses and populate your email list. No matter the effort you put into producing great content, your landing page is where you’ll seal the deal. So, if you neglect its design and copy, all your hard work could go down the drain. And if it seems like a lot of trouble, that’s hardly the case. You don’t even need a separate tool to design a beautiful landing page and customize it based on your needs.

Reliable email marketing platforms like Mailchimp, Moosend, or Brevo come with a landing page builder that helps you create the perfect page. But you’ll also need a wide variety of ready-made templates for every occasion to pick the one that suits your objectives.

If we take Mailchimp as an example, its users say the platform’s landing page templates feel rather restrictive and offer limited options. Therefore, Moosend or Brevo are better alternatives to Mailchimp since they combine user-friendly landing page creators with an extended library of templates with several customization options.

Now that you know which tools to use, you have to dive into the tips and tricks to make it perfect, too. Optimizing your landing page is key to persuading prospects to fill in their email addresses. Here are some factors to consider to make the most out of your landing page:

• Optimize your website’s loading time. Landing pages that take forever to load lead to users abandoning your site.
• Choose a unique, clear, actionable, and eye-catching CTA so that users know exactly what their next action will be.
• Avoid adding multiple CTAs because they tend to frustrate visitors instead of driving conversions.
• Create straightforward and simple sign up forms with the bare minimum number of fields. Complicated forms with too many fields dissuade users from completing them.
• Make sure you use an email verification tool on your form. This way, you don’t risk fake or mistyped addresses getting added to your list and you’ll save time from sanitizing your email list in the future.

2. Make a great first impression with your profile

Many brands make the mistake of neglecting their LinkedIn profile. This choice is a paradox seeing that’s the first thing a prospect will notice to decide if your company is worth following. Each time you send a connection request to a prospective customer, chances are they’ll go through your profile. As you can tell, if you want to take LinkedIn lead generation to the next level, an average profile won’t cut it.

If you want your profile to stand out, all you have to do is make some tweaks and give it a more professional look. First, ensure you have an attention-grabbing profile picture and background image. These elements should reveal the essence of your business. The same applies to your headline where you should explain to potential leads what they’ll get upon signing up. Reflecting your brand’s values and story on your LinkedIn profile enables users to know as much as possible from the first impression.

Use your posts to highlight important achievements and milestones, as well as showcase how you can help your audience solve daily challenges. Also, make sure you post regularly since consistency creates trust and paints you as a credible brand. Another important aspect of your LinkedIn profile is creating copy that is optimized for SEO. So, take the time to perform keyword research and incorporate the keywords that are relevant to your audience and industry. This will pave the way for your profile to rank higher in SERPs and expand your reach. Consider leveraging the features and benefits of a LinkedIn Premium plan to unlock additional tools and capabilities for an even more effective profile optimization strategy.

3. Share useful content

Investing in creating and sharing useful content for your LinkedIn audience is a key step for any business looking to grow its email list through LinkedIn. The recipe for success remains the same as with any content type: you need well-researched posts that establish your brand as an authoritative voice in the industry. But unlike blog posts, LinkedIn blog entries are a bit more challenging in terms of capturing the reader’s attention.

The first thing to keep in mind is that, more often than not, LinkedIn users are busy professionals facing challenges like deadlines and pressure. So, the way to engage them isn’t through long-form posts where you only brag about your accomplishments. Instead, choose to post educational and relevant content that shows them you know how to address their problems. Make it straightforward and catchy, and don’t forget to add the appropriate tags to gain visibility and connect with users, including the ones not following you.

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An interesting approach is to tease part of your newsletter in a post and add your opt-in link to lure them in. You could also share links to your best-performing blog posts so that your connections can get the most out of your expertise and valuable tips. And, as with every social media platform, remember that visual content is king seeing that it’s easier and faster to comprehend. That’s why you should power up your LinkedIn game with a visual marketing strategy, from sharing engaging videos to creating informative infographics.

4. Don’t neglect your call to action

No marketing effort makes any sense if you neglect your call-to-action. Including the right CTAs is another bulletproof way to grow your email list through LinkedIn. The entire point of creating valuable content on LinkedIn is guiding users toward a specific action. So, regardless of the value of your posts or other content types, you have to ensure that your leads know what to do next. This is where your CTAs come in.

For your CTAs to work, you should keep them simple, straightforward, and precise. With such a CTA, users understand what their next action should be. Another important factor is that your CTA is indicative of the value they’ll get upon clicking on it. Whether it’s an educational video or a limited-time deal, they should know beforehand it translates to valuable knowledge, reduction of expenses, or less time-consuming processes.

Stick to actionable wording to urge them to take action and consider adding your CTA multiple times throughout your content. That way, even visitors who just skim through your content won’t miss it. We should also note that many successful brands include the CTA in their newsletter in their LinkedIn profile to inform users what to expect when they sign up for it. \

5. Always ask for consent

Rather than being a useful tip, this one is more of an absolute necessity for any brand that wishes to grow its email list through LinkedIn. A common mistake brands make on LinkedIn is adding users to their email lists without asking for permission to do so. But you should always keep in mind that just because you sent someone a connection message and they accepted your request, this doesn’t mean they consented to receive email marketing material from you.

Directly exporting contacts from your LinkedIn account to your mailing list is bad practice. There’s nothing that frustrates and irritates users more than receiving emails from brands when they haven’t subscribed to their newsletters. On top of that, such a move makes a poor first impression and your business comes across as untrustworthy.

So, always ask for every user’s consent explicitly before adding them to your email list. Trust us when we say that if you fail to do so, you’ll end up with uninterested recipients who move your email campaigns to the spam or trash folder, thus harming your email deliverability.

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6. Avoid spamming your connections

As already mentioned, consistency is crucial in LinkedIn lead generation. However, gaining people’s trust to build and grow your email list through LinkedIn is a multi-step process that requires patience and persistence. Approaching prospective leads may get challenging, but this doesn’t mean it’s ok to bombard your LinkedIn connections with sales messages. After all, you don’t want them to think you’re a spammer, right? Such practices could damage your brand reputation, or, even worse, get the platform to suspend your account.

To dodge that bullet, focus on sharing relevant and valuable content with your prospects. The first step to achieve that is to invest in message and email personalization. Take advantage of every data at your disposal about your leads and use this type of insight to show them why your unique value proposition serves their needs and solves their pain points.

You can leverage demographic data like their age or job position to target them with personalized content that meets their preferences and interests. This approach helps you generate trust and build strong relationships without risking being seen as a spammer.

Final Words

Growing your email list is an intimidating process that takes up effort and time. Fortunately, LinkedIn provides you with numerous opportunities to generate and nurture leads and get them to sign up for your newsletter. With LinkedIn, you gain access to valuable industry insights while having the opportunity to connect with talented decision-makers and develop trusting relationships with them.

The first step is to optimize your landing page and have a professionally-designed profile. Both elements should explain to users why they must sign up for your email marketing material. Also, it’s imperative that you stay away from spamming them with tons of sales-y messages. Instead, create helpful content that addresses your prospects’ unique needs. Always put some extra thought into your CTAs since it’s what will get your connections to act on your message.

And whatever you do, never add people to your mailing list just because they accepted your connection request. To successfully grow an email list through LinkedIn you need to target leads that want to hear your business news. Then, all you have to do is nurture them along the way and create long-lasting relationships that will bring you ahead of your competition.