11 Ways to Authentically Grow Your Email List With LinkedIn
Recently, in the writing community, a member celebrated leaving her full-time corporate job — yay! Having been there myself in 2017, I still get a twinge of what that freedom feels like. Also, discomfort and a little fear (the good kind), and importantly — pure potential.
Because she spent her adult working career networking on LinkedIn, she has a strong presence there and a growing network of people she’s naturally already in touch with.
I hear this from many clients who step away from the corporate world to start their own businesses. They’ve been great at networking for a job, and now that they’re stepping out into entrepreneurship on their own, there’s a nuance to connecting authentically.
Her LinkedIn content resonated with people — lots of views, comments, and engagement. She also saw something similar in her regular email newsletters — lots of personal replies and compliments. Always a win in a high-touch, service-based business.
She saw the opportunity and wondered, “How can I encourage more people on LinkedIn to join my email list?”
This is such a great question for so many reasons. And really, the benefits of focusing on growing and nurturing your email list in a world of regular social media outages and algorithm updates apply to whatever social platform you like to hang out on.
By focusing on email list growth, you’ll be able to build closer connections with people — directly to their inboxes. LinkedIn is also great for doing that, but as we know, social algorithms are constantly changing — this is a good thing — it’s encouragement for us to keep changing, too.
Remember, change is almost always a good thing — especially for social media.
If you're looking to keep your audience engaged and grow your list of email subscribers, there are some key things you can do on LinkedIn to encourage people to hit the subscribe button.
Here are 11 of my favorite ways to inspire your LinkedIn connections to take action:
Tease your newsletter in a post.
Drop a few sentences about what’s going out in the newsletter and tell them that they can read more in the next edition coming tomorrow (or in a few days) and include your newsletter opt-in link.Post a question on LinkedIn that you genuinely want to know the answer to.
Let people know you’ll use their responses to write your next blog post or newsletter. Then, when you post the blog or newsletter, be sure to reach out to the individuals who helped inspire your writing with a note of thanks and share a link to your piece.Capture quotes from people who reply to your email newsletter and share them as social proof.
Ask permission, keep them anonymous, or use first names or initials. Using other people’s exact words often resonates with your potential future readers.Put the CTA (call to action) to your newsletter in your LinkedIn profile.
Specifically the About section. Let people know what to expect when they sign up for your emails — weekly advice to help them do what?In your LinkedIn headline, tell potential subscribers what they’ll get when they sign up.
Give them an enticing reason. Tip: an enticing reason is not “join my list.” My call to action currently says, “Get weekly emails with lessons in authentic writing.”Share an image or some copy from your newsletter.
Maybe one that did really well in a post and tells your followers where they can get more great stuff just like what they see.Use a link roundup app.
If you use a link roundup app in your other social accounts, make sure there’s a link to join your newsletter.Make your email signature work for you.
Add a line to both your professional and personal email signatures with an invitation to join your email list with a compelling reason.Start a poll on LinkedIn.
The poll feature currently reminds people who engage with your vote to check back. You can also follow up individually with people.Practice authentic visibility.
Choose a posting schedule you can stick to, including posting your existing content on LinkedIn for people to read. I use Missingltr and love how it automatically shares the content that I worked so hard on all year long. Also, be sure to practice engaging with other people’s content. Make a plan to engage with people right after you do your posting. When you build it into your posting time, you'll be more likely to do it. You’ll see a healthy uptick in engagement and potential connections when you genuinely engage for just 15 minutes a few times a week.Keep growing your connections.
Whenever you have a coffee chat or meet someone in an online group, reach out and connect with them on LinkedIn within a few days. Now, you're not going to be spammy and message them immediately asking, “Hey, want to get my emails?” No — it's only to connect in a timely manner and stay top of mind.
Obviously, you don’t want all your LinkedIn posts shouting, “Get emails from me!” You’ll also layer these strategies on top of your regular content creation strategies for various ways your connections can engage with you.
The benefits of maintaining an ever-growing list of email followers and using LinkedIn as a tool to help you get there help you authentically connect with your audiences beyond the social media world.
Want your LinkedIn profile to stand out?
This guide and profile writing template includes my best advice after writing LinkedIn profiles professionally. Get tips on your name, headline, about section, experience, engagement, and more.
Stand out in a sea of suits and jargon with a compelling LinkedIn profile.
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