How to Grow Your
Email Marketing List
Our top 6 strategies for growing your email marketing list and keeping your subscribers engaged. No buying or sharing lists, just long-term growth.
What You'll Learn
- 01 Create multiple opportunities for email sign-up
- 02 Optimize your opt-in pages
- 03 Send a stellar welcome email
- 04 Develop valuable email content
- 05 Provide an email preference center
- 06 Focus on email deliverability
Welcome
Building an engaged subscriber list is one of the most important aspects of email marketing. Taking the time to grow your email list the right way, and not renting, buying, or sharing lists, will reap you long-term benefits. Below, we’ll share 6 strategies that will help you build and maintain an engaged email marketing list.







Create Multiple Opportunities for Email Sign-Up
When building your list, did you:





Any of the above are quick ways to tarnish your brand and sender reputation. They’re a big “no-no” in the email acquisition world because, while they can seem like quick wins, they can actually cause longterm damage to your email program. Instead, you should focus on the tips to the left. We’ll walk through them, below.
Thank You Page
Every time a visitor completes a form on your site, they should receive a “thank you” message. This is an excellent opportunity to include a call to action that encourages the user to sign up for your email list. Make sure to include information about the list and the value gained from joining it.
Blog
Your blog may be one of the most visited areas of your site, so it’s another great place to include a call to action. Whether it’s on the sidebar or in the top navigation, make sure the opportunity to sign up for your email list is visible.
Website
Include sign-up calls to action on your homepage and subpages, where appropriate. You can include them in your top navigation, in the footer, and on the sidebars to keep it visible to visitors at all times. Also, you can test using tasteful pop-ups to put your call to action front and center.
Landing Page
Include an opt-in field (i.e. checkbox) within your landing page forms to opt users into your list. This gives visibility to your email offerings and provides a value add to customers who have already engaged with your product. It’s important not to pre-check the box (see pre-selected opt-in below)–instead allow potential subscribers to choose whether or not to opt in.

Lead Nurturing Emails
If you’re using lead nurturing to stay in contact and convert potential users over time, encourage those recipients to sign up for a relevant newsletter or provide a link to another offering they’ll find useful.
Collect In Person
Bring an iPad to events and ask people to sign up for your email lists in person and at the register (if you’re a retailer). Just be sure to have them enter and submit their own information to show consent.
Pro-Tip
Building a quality, engaged email marketing list takes time. Notice that none of the options above include shortcuts.
Read more ›
Quality subscribers (those who opted in to your emails and those who open, click, forward, and reply to your emails) are way more valuable to you than a BIG list of uninterested subscribers. Those uninterested subscribers can do real, long-term damage to your email marketing program. They’re the ones who are more likely to unsubscribe or mark your emails as spam.
If you take the time to build your email list the right way, you’ll encounter fewer obstacles with your deliverability and you’ll cultivate a strong group of brand advocates who will champion your email program. So when your boss tells you to send an “email blast” to as many people as possible, remind them that the numbers you want to concentrate on are your email engagement numbers, not your list size.

Optimize Your Opt-in Pages
Do You Know the 6 Types of Email List Opt-in?
For more email marketing strategy tips, check out The Expert’s Guide to Email Marketing.
Send a Stellar Welcome Email
The adage, “You never get a second chance to make a first impression” is especially true when it comes to email. The welcome email sets the tone for every email delivered to your subscribers’ inboxes thereafter. So be sure to start off on the right foot by keeping your email well branded, friendly, and helpful.
Show how much you know about sending welcome emails with the true/false quiz below!
Welcome Email True/False Quiz
Don’t worry about addressing your subscriber by name, there’s time for that later.
True FalseDuring your sign-up process, you’ve probably asked for your user's first name—use it! Or at the very least, test using it to see how your subscribers react. Creating a personal connection with your subscribers is always a best practice, and addressing them correctly is one great way to do that.
Show your appreciation by saying “thank you.”
True FalseManners matter in email too! Your subscribers showed confidence in you by opting into your email program, so show your gratitude by thanking them for choosing you. It’s a simple phrase that can make a big impact on how your customers view your brand.
Include introductory info like FAQs and onboarding videos.
True FalseSpark user engagement with your welcome email. If you have a service or product that needs a little explaining or requires a next step to get started, use your welcome email to give them a few tips on how to get there. Here at SendGrid, we direct new users to integration information, a getting started checklist, and other resources to help make getting started and enjoying the product as easy as possible. It’s important to find ways to incorporate quick and easy “getting started” steps to encourage engagement and help foster higher retention rates from the get go.
Don’t be pushy and wait to deliver your welcome email.
True FalseDon’t hesitate to acknowledge receipt of your new user’s request to subscribe. Users expect immediate confirmation when they sign up for something and when they don’t get it, they could think something is wrong. Be sure your first impression is a good one and let them know you not only received their request, but that they’ll start receiving value from that decision right away.
Provide incentives.
True FalseYou want to get customers using your service or engaging with your brand right away, so encourage them to get started with a special offer. If you’re a retailer, you may want to offer a coupon within your welcome message to entice your new subscribers into becoming paying customers. You can put a time limit on the offer to help ensure a faster sale, but the main point is to get subscribers to click through and start browsing your site for something they want. It’s a great way to get subscribers familiar with your brand and to encourage a sale.
Don’t ask for more information.
True FalseUse your welcome email to ask your new subscribers to set their email preferences if they didn’t do so at the point of sign up. You want to properly set expectations around the frequency and content of your emails, so there’s no better way to get that information than by asking for it up front!

Welcome Email Example
So you’ve taken the quiz, but do you want to see a stellar welcome email example? Here we’ve provided an example our SendGrid Team sends to new subscribers.
View It
Still struggling with your welcome emails? For more on welcome emails, view our presentation: Email Marketing 101.
Develop Valuable Content
Write Addictive Subject Lines
Have you ever seen a subject line you just had to open? That’s exactly what you need to create. The subject line’s one and only goal is to encourage an open. Be sure to closely align your subject line content to the content/offers in your email, but don’t get too wordy.
Best Practice Tip
A study run by SendGrid’s Big Data Team showed that emails with subject lines with 3 words had the most engagement—test and see if this is true for your audience.
Get To The Point
Keep your content short and straightforward. Introductions to longer articles are fine, but emails should be just a few short paragraphs with a main call to action. And if you’re adding images, try to stay between a text to image ratio of 60:40 or 70:30 and remember to use alt tags for all images in case they don’t properly render for your recipient.
Dress Your Email to Impress
How your email looks is just as important as what it says. Some may argue it’s even more important. A well-designed email will ultimately be more appealing to your subscribers, so make sure your email is responsive to accommodate all devices and don’t forget to have a text version in addition to HTML. If you’re looking for somewhere to start, take advantage of 5 free, responsive email templates that we’ve created here.
Before you press send, make sure that what you’re saying is something your subscriber wants to hear.
Personalize Your Messaging
Before you press send, make sure that what you’re saying is something your subscriber wants to hear. Segment your email list by location, demographics, and past purchase behavior to give your subscriber the most personalized experience possible.
Cultivate Brand Ambassadors
Your content should focus on how you can fulfill your customer’s needs, so make sure every email you send provides value. Most importantly, refrain from telling them how great you are, but instead make your email messages all about them. If your brand helps them accomplish something or be something better, they’ll turn into ambassadors for you without you even asking.
05 Preference Center
Provide an Email Preference Center
An email preference center is a tool that helps you establish a healthy communication cadence with your subscribers. It provides an easy way for your subscribers to manage their email by giving them a centralized portal to control what they receive and how often they receive your messages.

Preference Center
Preference centers have a positive impact on both your deliverability and on your email list management. They help to reduce unsubscribe, complaint, and spam reports and they also help with your segmentation strategies.
Reducing Email Unsubscribes
There are many reasons why a customer may decide to unsubscribe from your email list and attrition is normal. However, an email preference center helps provide alternatives for those who may be unsubscribing for reasons that are within your control. When people want to remove themselves from your list, there are 3 things they can do:



You want your customers to select “manage your preferences” instead of hitting the spam button. By asking your customers how frequently they want to hear from you and about what content, you’re putting control back in their hands.
Best Practice Tip
Watch out for email fatigue. Sending too much email to your users can drive high unsubscribe and/or complaint rates. Offer a preference center so users can choose what updates they’d like to receive and how often they would like to receive them.
Helping With Segmentation
Email preference centers remove some of the guesswork from your email marketing campaigns. By asking subscribers about their interests and preferences, you can deliver customized campaigns that are sure to encourage better engagement.
If you’re able, consider asking your subscribers to set their email preferences from the get go—either in your welcome email or in one of your other initial interactions with them. There’s no better way to build an initial trust with your subscribers than by asking them how they’d prefer to be communicated with.
06 Email Deliverability
Focus on Email Deliverability
Once you opt-in a subscriber and promise to send them valuable content, you have to make sure that your messages actually arrive in their inbox! Email deliverability is never a guarantee, but if you focus on best practices, you’ll have a much better shot at making sure your subscribers aren’t left waiting to hear from you.
Focus on Email Deliverability
Getting your messages to your customers’ inboxes should be your main goal for any email marketing campaign. According to ReturnPath’s 2016 Deliverability Benchmark Report, 21% of email routinely goes undelivered, so you can’t afford for email acquisition practices to negatively affect your deliverability. To help you achieve your goal, there are a few best practices you should follow to keep a clean subscriber list.
Identify your high-value customers through engagement
and activity, and tailor your communications accordingly.
Best Practice Tip
There is no better way to ensure consistent deliverability success than by regularly cleaning your list of hard bounces, unknown users, and other inactive addresses. SendGrid’s real-time Event Webhook is a great start, providing instant information like opens, bounces, and unsubscribe requests for individual subscriber records.
The Bottom Line
The key to building an engaged email marketing list lies in optimizing your opt-in pages, creating multiple opportunities for sign-up, and providing content that will empower your users. Once you acquire a new customer, make sure that you deliver on your promise by providing the tools and information that will keep them engaged with your brand for years to come.
Summary
For more expert advice on how to retain and engage your subscribers after they’ve joined your list, read The Expert’s Guide to Email Marketing that includes in-depth advice from email marketers at Pandora, Bounce Exchange, DonorsChoose, Ibotta, and SendGrid.
Get Started With SendGrid
SendGrid helps you focus on your business without the cost and complexity of owning and maintaining an email infrastructure. We help with all technical details (from domain authentication to DKIM) and offer world-class deliverability expertise to help your emails reach the inbox. And with a full-featured marketing email service that offers a flexible workflow, effortless list segmentation, and actionable analytics, all of your email needs are met in one reliable platform.