1. Relevant Content
Research and write content that your market is interested in. In this way, not only will you keep your subscribers happy, you will also boost the amount of people who will recommend your newsletter to their friends.
Research can be done by sending out an email asking your readers what they want to read. You can also sign up for other ezines in your market and see what they are writing about.
2. Using Feedburner
www.Feedburner.com allows readers to subscribe to your blog updates by email. So even if you have not started your own newsletter yet, you can still update your readers of new content on your blog via email.
3. Ad Swaps
Ad swaps are exchanges of advertisements. By incorporating someone’s advertisement into your mailing, they agree to do the same for you. Swap ads with people in the same industry or related non-competing industries. Use this technique every 2-3 weeks and you should see your subscriptions climb rapidly over time.
4. Subscription Boxes
Subscription boxes can be added anywhere on a website. Integrate more subscription boxes so that more people can see the boxes and subscribe to your list. I recommend the following autoresponder accounts:
- If you don’t want to put a form (subscription box) on your site, but a simple button and get demographic data directly from the users Facebook account (to optimize your campaigns) and dramatically increase delivery rate, the your choice should be this brand new EMAIL POWER TOOL. If you rush you may still get the prelaunch price. Sign up for a free webinar here…
- GetResponse for Multilanguage sites: www.getresponse.com
- Aweber for English-only sites: www.aweber.com
NOTE: I’m customer of GetResponse and recently added the EMAIL POWER TOOL to my arsenal. In the future I will be exclusively using the EMAIL POWER TOOL, not only because of its social data, but also because it is a cost saver on the mid long term.
5. Newsletter and ezines
You can rely on RSS feeds to build your email list. However, a more effective way of building your list is to start a newsletter or ezine on appropriate topics that are popular, address a genuine need, or solve a problem. This makes it easier to attract new subscribers for your email list.
6. Safelists networks
Joining safelists networks will gain you access to a large group of individuals who may be interested in joining your list.
7. Bonus Or Gift
Offer a bonus or gift to individuals who sign up for your newsletter or ezine. Freebies always attract people. A good bonus could be back issues of your newsletter.
8. Opt-in Form
Add an opt-in form on your blog. If your content garners readers who come back to your website on a regular basis, they may decide to opt-in to your newsletter. You
9. Viral Marketing
Free viral Ebooks get passed around readers very quickly hence it is a great way to get new subscribers. To learn more about creating viral rebrandable ebooks, you can check out this site: http://www.viralpdfgenerator.com/
10. Newsletter or email frequency and consistency
If you want to be trusted and credible, you need to ensure that you are consistent with your newletter or email frequency. Delivery can be set weekly, monthly or less frequently.
11. Facebook fanpage
Create a facebook fanpage and set up a profile with relevant information about your business. Add links to your list and freebies and also consider simple discounts, giveaways or coupons for your selected products when users “like” your facebook fanpage. Discover how you can increase Facebook fan page likes easily by going here: http://doubleyourlikes.com/
12. Pop Up Windows
Pop up windows are still effective to get subscribers, especially in niche markets. Exit popups works well because when someone leaves a page on your website they get a popup window asking them to subscribe to your newsletter. Use this software to create popups: http://www.popupdomination.com/live/
13. Cross Promotion
Get to know owners of other blogs or websites in your niche so that you can partner with them to do some cross promoting of products. You can promote their products in your mailings in exchange for promotion of your newsletter in theirs. There are also paid options where you pay a small fee to an external mailing list to send a mail shot advertising your own list. Leverage an established list to promote your own.
14. Banner advertising
Banner advertising can help you in list building. Submit your banner to some banner networks and purchase a rotating banner slot on various sites. Use this software to easily create banners: http://www.easybannercreator.com/
15. Use Name Squeeze Pages
A name squeeze page is a simple subscribe form that then leads them to either a free report or a sales letter.
16. Create videos
Create video content to promote your site. For instance, creating a series of instructional videos and offering them as content for newsletter subscribers is a good way to pull in more sign ups to your list. Here’s one of the best video marketing softwares: http://www.thetrafficplayer.com/live/
17. Buy Leads With Co-Registration
This is about buying subscribers from a 3rd party service. Co-registration works this way: After completing a subscription form or upon leaving a website, visitors are invited to subscribe to one or more e-zines. If yours is listed among these and the site gets a substantial amount of traffic, you’ll begin to receive a number of subscriptions.
18. Host teleseminars/webinars
Teleseminars and webinars are conference calls you can conduct to discuss your area of expertise. For list building, during the call and at the end of the call, make explicit mentions for people to join your mailing list (and explain how it is even free to start with).
19. Write Free Articles
Create a free e course and plug it into an autoresponder. After which, write an article and let the readers know there is this great E-course for free they can sign up for. Then, provide the autoresponder link and explain how to sign up.
20. Limit Promotional Content in Your Emails
Once people opt in to your list, it is crucial for you to strike a good balance between genuine information that is valuable for your readers and information that promotes products or services. This is because it determines whether they will stay in your list or not. If you are always promoting your products and not providing any other value in your newsletter, people will be pretty turned off and possibly unsubscribe to your list.
21. Joint ventures
Create a working partnership with another business owner and arrange for some sort of exchange related to list building.
22. Social Media
Identify which social media channels are best for targeting your desired audience and take steps to acquire new subscribers by engaging with prospective clients on those sites. Learn more about social media here: http://www.thesocialnetworkingacademy.com/
23. Use A Sales Letter To Get Subscribers
Create a sales letter but at the end of it, instead of an order button, have a subscribe here button for people to sign up for your newsletter. Master copywriting with this course: http://www.copywritingsupremacy.com/
24. Crafting An Effective Call to Action
Professionally design your sign-up form and place it above the fold of your website to achieve optimal results. You can also add a link to join your list towards the end of your articles or your author bio. This is known to improve conversions drastically.
25. Generate opt-ins through affiliate marketing
Create a product that include links for readers to sign-up for your list. Get your affiliates to sell this product and offer them a nice commission. This becomes a win-win situation because while they make money, you’ll get subscribers. Some internet marketers offer up to 100% commissions to affiliates so as to build a substantial list.
26. Using Mp3s To Get More Subscribers
Conduct audio interviews with experts in your field and record it on mp3. Once you have these interviews, write to the publishers you’ve been in contact with and tell them that you have this great set of mp3′s just completed and you want to offer them for free to their lists.
On your website include the download link to these mp3′s and also put a subscribe form near them for your newsletter.
27. WordPress plugins
Take advantage of plug-ins such as ‘popup domination’ to improve conversions in your list building efforts.
28. Pay for referrals
You can purchase leads formally; or by seeking out webmasters who are willing to divert traffic to your site for a fee.
29. Your Newsletter Back Issues
Allow people to read your back issues without having to signup for your newsletter, this will show them what type of content you do write and will make them want to join. Do remember to add you’re your newsletter subscribers get each issue 2 weeks before non subscribers, so as to encourage them to sign up to your list.
30. Landing Page
Optimise your landing page so that it will have a good chance of ranking well on search engines. Another traffic source is to promote your landing page on social media networks. As your landing gets more exposure, more people will visit your website and sign up to join your newsletter.
31. Make your landing page more personal
Consider including a picture of yourself at the top right corner of your website. This has proven to increase conversions from 1-2% which also means that you will be able to receive twice as many subscribers in a given week.
32. Don’t use free Autoresponder services
These services are unreliable and can go down at anytime. What’s more they are not professional looking and emails sent out through them may most likely be recognized as spam by email bots. . I recommend the following autoresponder accounts that have a proven track record for high deliverable rates:
- If you don’t want to put a form (subscription box) on your site, but a simple button and get demographic data directly from the users Facebook account to optimize your campaigns and dramatically increase delivery rate, the your choice should be this brand new EMAIL POWER TOOL. If you rush you may still get the prelaunch price. Sign up for a free webinar here…
- GetResponse for Multilanguage sites: www.getresponse.com
- Aweber for English-only sites: www.aweber.com
NOTE: I’m customer of GetResponse and recently added the EMAIL POWER TOOL to my arsenal. In the future I will be exclusively using the EMAIL POWER TOOL, not only because of its social data, but also because it is a cost saver on the mid long term.
33. Split test landing pages
Send identical traffic streams to different landing pages so that you can test which landing page generates a higher conversion rate; and can adopt that exclusively for your list building efforts.
34. Free Forum Posting
Posting useful and valuable information on a forum thread related to your niche is a great way to not only get more subscribers for your newsletter but recognized as an expert in your field. Do take note of forum rules and abide by them religiously lest you get banned from participating.
35. Measure and Refine Your Results
Using Google Analytics, set-up goals to track subscription rates. Other tools also include Google’s website optimizer where you can run simple split tests to see what methods deliver the best results.
36. Create a squeeze page
Build a squeeze page that specifically captures email addresses for your list.
37. Trade Ads With Other Publishers
Contact and arrange with other publishers to place an ad in their newsletters and they do the same for you in return.
38. Launch Your own Product
By launching your own product, you can promote and build a substantial list of subscribers. You can also choose to create email tutorials or launch free webinar training to help grow your list quickly. Another method is to launch a free membership website and offer resources such as guides podcasts or videos.
39. PPC
Create a text ad in your Google Adwords account, select relevant keywords for it, and then pay only when someone clicks on your ad. Your ad will link directly to your website or squeeze page where a strong call-to-action will direct visitors to subscribe to your list.
40. Contest
Get a group of publishers and run a contest together. Inform subscribers in your list that to enter this contest, they must subscribe to the other publishers lists and vice versa. Here’s a simple contest software you could use: www.contestburner.com (you can get a free beta access to their contest software for Facebook pages here
41. Article Recommendation
Get together with 4 or 5 publishers and have them agree on running an article that you wrote. The article you write is about the best newsletters in your market, and these recommendations will of course be the newsletters of publishers you partner with. The article is to be objective like a news report.
42. Write a post or article to Promote Your List
Write a post or article published to your website to announce the launch of your mailing list and highlight your newsletter benefits for subscribers. Take steps to promote it on search engines and social media to drive traffic to your site.
43. Free ebooks
Provide subscribers with a free ebook after signing-up, they’ll be much more likely to join.
44. Thank You For Subscribing Page
Partner with a group of publishers and tell them you want to send new subscribers of your ezine to a page that recommends signing up for their ezine and that they do the same.
45. Free reports
This is similar to giving away free ebooks in exchange for subscription. A free report often targets a specific theme or is a write-up on a “how-to” topic.
46. Buy Ezine Solo Ads
Ezine solo ads are ads that are sent out by themselves, unlike classified and other ads that go out in the ezine itself. A compelling solo ad works wonders for your list building. Here’s a directory of ezines: http://www.directoryofezines.com
47. Add content to your site
Add content to your site with a subscription form either in the margins, in the middle of the content, or in a pop-over. The more articles you have, the more value you add to readers, the more traffic you will generate, and the more opportunities you will have to generate subscriptions.
48. Information Privacy
Include a note below your opt-in form that explains that you will never sell subscriber information—and you will never spam people who join your list. This should help to increase your conversion rates.
49. Press Releases
Write press releases announcing the launch of your subscription free giveway with both readers and search engines in mind and then submit it to press release websites. This helps get more exposure to your website and directs traffic which increases sign ups to your list. Here’s a superb press release course: http://www.pressreleasefire.com/.
A very good press release distribution service that I am using and that has divers distribution offerings, ranging for FREE to $299, is www.1888pressrelease.com. I also use www.prweb.com for my corporate customers, but it has no free option and is quite expensive, but the results are excellent.
50. Teaser Posts
Offer teaser content on your website on an interesting topic. Teaser posts help to increase the rate of sign ups because users are redirected to sign up to your list first in order to access the full content.