5 Proven ways to grow your email list using YouTube

By Sean Tinney March 14, 2023

With over 2.6 billion monthly active users and over a billion hours of content watched every day, YouTube is a massive platform that offers endless opportunities to grow your brand and connect with your audience.

As a video content creator, you probably already know a consistent presence on YouTube can help you engage with customers, promote special offers and build brand awareness. But did you know that you can use YouTube to grow your email marketing list?

By encouraging your YouTube subscribers and viewers to sign up for your email list, you’re able to tap into an audience of people who are already interested in your business and what you have to say. 

And this represents a new revenue opportunity. By sending an email notification once you publish a new video you can increase YouTube views, and those increased views can lead to increased revenue from video monetization (See how this YouTuber doubled his video views using an automated email newsletter).

Why capture your YouTube subscriber’s email address?

Email is still one of the best ways to keep in touch with the audience you’ve already earned. Why? Because it allows you to connect with them in a place they check every day: their inbox. Your emails aren’t limited by an algorithm — every person gets every email every time. 

When you have your own email list, you’re able to communicate exclusively with an audience of engaged viewers who enjoy watching your videos. 

Plus with email, you can let viewers know when a new video is released, or share other content they might find valuable, such as a blog post or ebook (here are the step-by-step instructions to automatically send your YouTube videos after they are published). Emails also allow you to build trust with your subscribers.

Getting your subscribers on your email list can also help you increase your revenue through courses, subscriptions, and merch. 

But how exactly can you leverage YouTube to grow your email list? Here are the top 4 tips and strategies to get you started:

Top 5 ways to get email subscribers from your YouTube videos

The best part about growing your email list with YouTube is that you can repurpose the tools and resources you’re already using to create and publish videos. So adding these strategies should take very little effort .

1 – Add a call-to-action (CTA) in your video content

One of the easiest ways to encourage people to join your email list is to – you got it — ask them. The ask is commonly known as a call to action or CTA. This can be as simple as adding a text overlay or verbal instruction in your video asking viewers to subscribe to your email list for updates, exclusive content, or special offers. 

Make sure your CTA is clear and compelling, and consider offering an incentive like a free e-book or discount code to entice people to sign up.

Here’s an example from YouTuber Jared Polin:

Jared adds a sign up image early in a video with an incentive. 

Once a viewer clicks on the sign-up form image, they’re taken to the landing page where they can sign up to receive “The Ultimate Guide to Video Editing” free.

Here’s what that landing page looks like:

Related: See how this YouTuber uses email marketing to increase his video views in AWeber

2 – Use YouTube cards and end screens

YouTube offers two built-in features that can help you grow your email list: cards and end screens. 

Cards are small pop-up windows that appear during a video, while end screens are customized graphics that appear at the end of a video. Both of these tools can be used to encourage viewers to sign up. 

Just add your call out to sign up to receive your latest and greatest video content.

Here’s an example from one of our YouTube videos:

We actually have three different options for our end screen – a popular video, an option to sign up for an AWeber account, and an email sign up call to action.

3 – Embed sign-up forms in your video descriptions

You have valuable real-estate in your video description, use it to provide opportunities for viewers to join your email list, sign up for your services, or to check out your social media accounts. 

One of the options can be to sign up to receive valuable content through email. This works especially well if you’re creating tutorials or how-to videos that offer value to your audience. 

In your video description, include a link to your email sign-up page along with a brief description of the benefits of signing up. You can also use tools like Leadformly or Typeform to embed a sign-up form directly into your video description.

Here’s an example from Aurelius Tjin:

Aurelius uses his real estate really well. He has options to view his social pages and website, a link to join his email list, plus other free resources he provides his viewers.

4 – On your About page

Viewer who visit your About page are obviously interested in learning more about you. This is prime real estate, so include a link to join your mailing list.

Here’s a great example from Mind Blown Magic Illusion. In addition to the link to join their mailing list, they also added a mention in the description section to let subscribers know what they’ll get once they sign up for their email list.

5 – Ask in your video

Asking your viewers to sign up for your email list directly in your videos. 

To make this approach work, you need to lay the foundation for the ask throughout the video by mentioning how your viewers can find more information by signing up for your email list. 

This can be done casually and naturally within the content of your video. Then, at the end of your video, you can encourage viewers to sign up for your email list.  Remember to highlight the benefits of joining your email list. Also make sure the signup process is as simple and straightforward as possible. 

Add an incentive

While your video content should help influence a viewer to sign up to your email list, that might not be enough to get them to subscribe. To increase your chances of getting them to sign up, try offering an incentive such as a free ebook, coupon or exclusive video in exchange for their email address.

For example, if you’re a photography blogger, you might give away a free photo preset or how-to tips on camera gear and settings. 

Or let’s say you’re a fitness coach, you could offer an exclusive workout video only available after they provide their email address.

Whatever you decide to offer, it should be relevant to your target audience and deliver additional value to your subscribers.

Here’s a great example from trainer, Betty Rocker, who offers her subscribers a free 30-day challenge video workout series.

Betty then uses an automated email campaign to trigger a new workout challenge video each day. The best part is she only needed to set this campaign up once. The campaign starts for each new subscriber the moment they sign up.

Collect the email addresses

When it comes to collecting the email addresses, all you need is a landing page with sign up form. Creating this can be really quick and easy in a platform like AWeber.

Here’s a quick video tutorial to show you how to set up your landing page with an email sign up form.

Start growing your list

You’re already getting views on your videos and people are subscribing to your channel, it’s now time to convert those to email subscribers. Remember getting YouTube subscribers signed up to receive your emails is a great way to ensure you own the audience you worked so hard to grow.

So try these strategies today and let us know how it goes.