Best email list growth hacks

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Hey, I’m in Varanasi right now. (If you read my last edition, you know what I actually did, well…)

I’ve enjoyed Dev Deepawali. It was fantastic, truly mesmerising.

Well, I’ve done a lot of ‘hard’ stuff in my life, but the most difficult thing is to get emails.

No one wants to give their email because it’s the most important thing for them, but without getting their emails, we can’t survive either.

When it comes to growing an email list, most people think it’s about having a viral post, but that doesn’t happen, trust me.

People write anything and everything without context, and social media makes them viral. But if you write anything and everything, you’ll destroy your positioning and brand.

As you’ve been writing newsletters for a while, you know how tough it is to convince someone to give you their email. So instead of anything else, focus on what works long-term.

I’ve tried a lot of things. Some worked really well. Some failed terribly. But these are the hacks that always gave me results.

Let’s get into them.

People won’t subscribe because you asked for it. They’ll subscribe because you made them think, ‘I don’t want to miss this value.’

What I do is:

I post 2 social media posts. On the day before posting it, like I’ve posted on Wednesday and another post will be today. The first post is a treasure, and the second one is a reminder.

But just posting doesn’t help. In the treasure post, I mention how the newsletter edition will help them. It has to stay connected with the value the newsletter edition offers.

It always works. Go and try this now.

Don’t overcomplicate it. Your landing page should have one headline, a single promise, and a subscribe box. That’s it.

The more friction you remove, the faster people sign up.

I use Beehiiv, and you don’t need anything else, but Beehiiv’s landing page can be a pain, so you can choose any other CMS like Framer and add the code there.

Write a social media post and drive the leads to the landing page, be it Beehiiv or any other page.

I see countless lead magnets on LinkedIn and Twitter nowadays.

Most of them are either driving you to an unsafe loop or they’re too useless to consume.

So you gotta forget those generic PDFs no one reads.

If your newsletter is about business, create a checklist, a swipe file, or a short, actionable guide that solves one highly painful problem. It doesn’t have to be fancy, just useful.

This one’s underrated. Partner with writers in your niche.

Do shoutouts, mention each other’s newsletters, or do a joint edition. Make sure the audience overlaps. Otherwise, it’ll be an issue for you. Because you only need people in your email list who will be interested in what you do.

If you see closely in each edition, I ask you to share it with your friends. For you, it might be boring, but other people are reading this newsletter too. They might not be doing the same what you are doing or did, so I must keep repeating.

If someone loves your work, they’ll happily forward it; they just need a little nudge.

So add a small line at the end of every edition: ‘Enjoyed this? Forward it to a friend who’d like it too.’

I apply these hacks in my newsletter, but I’m very, very focused on the type of people who read my newsletter.

Because I write for a particular audience.

Thanks for reading and gaining the knowledge for free.

Anirban ‘helping you grow your email list’ Das.

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