Find out how you can grow your newsletter subscribers with Facebook and Instagram. Use their smart audience features to identify potential new subscribers based on the data you provide for them.
While it might sound a little tricky, I’ve broken it down into ten steps to walk you through it one step at a time.
Let’s get started…
Step 1
Take your current newsletter subscriber list (emails) and upload it to Facebook. Facebook will then match your newsletter subscribers with actual Facebook and Instagram accounts. This is called a matched audience. Facebook owns Instagram, so they can match on both networks.
Step 2
Once Facebook has “matched” your list of emails to its actual users, you can then create what’s called a “lookalike” audience. This is where Facebook finds all the people that are very similar to the people in your matched list. Basically, Facebook is finding all the people that would want to subscribe to your newsletter but aren’t yet subscribed.
Step 3
Create a compelling advertisement (image or motion graphic) explaining the benefits of joining your newsletter. Feel free to create a few different versions so you can test which one works best.
Step 4
Run this advertisement on Facebook targeting your new lookalike audience with the Facebook goal of LEADS. Ensure that you EXCLUDE your matched audience as you don’t want current subscribers to see the advertisement (since they are already subscribed.) The ad will automatically run on Instagram as well since its part of the Facebook ad network.
Step 5
Link your Facebook Ad account with your newsletter subscription software so new people that sign up via Facebook (and Instagram) are automatically subscribed. This can typically be done with a “ZAP” from Zapier.
Step 6
Now smile and watch the subscribers start automatically pouring in!
BUT WAIT… DON’T STOP THERE!
Step 7
Once you have 100 new subscribers (LEADS,) you can create a NEW matched audience on Facebook. The difference is this audience will be matched only to the people who (a) see the ad and (b) click submit on the form to subscribe. What does this mean? You’ve now created a matched segment of your original lookalike audience, but now it’s only the type of people that see your newsletter advertisement and click sign-up.
Step 8
Using your new matched audience from Step 7, create a NEW lookalike audience of people who are most likely to sign up for your newsletter after seeing an ad.
Step 9
Change the audience in your ads to your new lookalike audience from Step 8. Be sure to exclude both your original subscriber list AND the matched audience from Step 7 (as these people are already subscribers as well).
Now you’ve created the most optimised audience of people that are most likely to sign up for your newsletter but haven’t yet subscribed. Your ads will be shown only to these people and anyone who clicks sign-up will be signed up for your newsletter. Plus, Facebook will continue to update your matched and lookalike audiences to improve them as more leads come in overtime.
Step 10
Ask for a promotion because you’ve just created a newsletter subscriber generating machine.
Scott McIntosh is Digital Marketing Executive at the Digital Treehouse.
This article was originally published on the Niche Media HQ blog. Based in the US, Niche Media HQ provides events, education and training for B2C, hobbyist, B2B, city and regional, and association magazine publishers.
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