2014 Edition

How To Build an Email List

And Make It So…

Its Tiny List with Massive Profits

If you are planning to start building your email marketing list, I always recommend Aweber. They are having sleek drag & drop interface, easy to create email signup form builder, A/B Split Testing Feature, lots of beautifully designed email templates, and a lot many other features. And the best part, its very inexpensive for the price you pay! Try Aweber today for a 1$ Trial for a month with this affiliate link. (And also get a BONUS from my end when you do it!)

I know you all have been hearing a lot of about Social Media Marketing buzz lately. And ofcourse, why not! Social Media has a great potential to send you instant traffic with the kind of viral traffic building strategies out there. But, seriously. One thing which keeps all the noobie or wannabe marketers from the real SMART marketers of today’s time is THIS: They realize the MONEY is in the LIST.  More importantly, the MONEY is in the RELATIONSHIP you have with Your LIST. Hence, every SMART marketer knows that whether you receive Social Media Traffic, Or even Search Engine Traffic Or PPC Or whatever traffic. You have TO build your LIST. So, Why is LIST BUILDING important for ANY smart marketer, you may ask? Here’s the thing: Whether you are running an online business or even an offline “brick & mortar” kind of business. You need to adopt ways of staying in constent touch with your prospects, clients and customers who are interested in what you have to offer. And no matter how old email has been on the web. Its one thing everyone has. Everyone online on the web has an email address. And building your own email list, no matter how small or big. Is one the most cheapest, most easy & effective way for doing just that. Now, I know many people asking me this question most often. What’s the best time to start having my email list? I say… NOW is the time. Now, is the time when you should start building your email list. Whether you have that “Shiny” report ready or not. Whether you have NOTHING to offer as of right now. Just start building your email list. Because building your email list has a snow ball effect over the long term. I understand you might be getting some traffic, and chances are that you might not be gaining that many subscribers at the moment as you want. You might even be thinking that it’s your content which is not worthy of gaining subscribers, but please don’t get yourself down because of that as yet… It can be true that your website might be working AGAINST you when it comes to gaining subscribers for your email list. But, there are three main areas on your website which can really help you gain a lot of subscribers, AND even if you lose out on this very specific spots on your website right now, chances are that you will be losing out on a lot of daily subscribers that you deserve to get on your email list. Anyhow…NO MORE. No more losing these precious subscribers. #1 How Do You Turn Your Normal Viewer On Your About Us Page Into A Lead Generating Subscriber I frankly love people who right un-biased, irrational about us pages on their website. Even though I believe most of these publishers LOSE the chance of gaining a valuable subscriber on their website due to one SIMPLE REASON. The reason it, they don’t ASK their readers to subscribe to their email list. I suggest ask your subscribers more then once every once in a while through different mediums you can reach them out from. Jokes apart, spread your your “special offers”, “New Savy Report”, etc throughout your about page. Write persuisive copy which helps you build better conversions when you do JUST that. If you need suggestion on how you should be writing your about us page: 1. Describe the chief authors on your blog/website who write the content, and explain their importance on the website. Tell more about themself. 2. Add Opt-In Form at the end 3. Show Social Proof, may be like how many subscribers you already have, testimonials, etc. 4. Get empathetic, connect with your subscribers and write about your personal story of origin. 5. AGAIN, Opt-In form which gives them one more chance to get reminded to >>> Subscribe! (Checkout, how CopyBlogger uses similar kind of technique VERY SUCCESSFULLY.) Now, I said it. Its as simple as it can get. Imagine, every new user who browse through your website like to go through About us page on your site to know more about your website. You have ready Optin form when they reach their. If they come to this page to see if you are credible, they will find ways to subscribe. Even if they know about you, sure they like to subscribe your email list to stay in touch. Now comes to the SECOND part… #2. How Do You Make Your Audeince Reading Your Content Into Your Subscribers After They Are Already Impressed With Your Website Content Let’s assume that someone comes on your website and starts reading an article on your website. And reads it till the end of it. I guess, its safe to assume that they liked your article and the point that you are trying to convey and that’s why they read the article at the first place, right? However, their is one other fact that we don’t realize so often. They are looking for something to do next once they read the article. Most of the bloggers or website owners show related content or ads in the sidebar or footer of their website. May be they will click related article, continue reading. Or they will click on the ad and visit that page. However, if you got them to read an article on your website, chance will be that you have built some sort of rapport with them. They might like your writing style or knowledge, may be. Whatever the case may be. That means they are in the right mindset to be inclined towards knowing more about the subject. Or atleast ready to give their email to stay in touch regarding more updates from you. Its understandable hence, to include a signup form for them to give their name and email ID to signup for more updates about your articles, right? You will find on my websites that I have signup forms every here or there. The simple reason is I would prefer people noticing them and then exchanging their details so that I can create a long term relationship with them every time they read my article. That’s it. I know that I can promote my other resources on the website but I would always prefer people to give me their email address because that ways I can have them come on my site for long time. (NOTE: There are ways to even make this go even further. Checkout Jonathan Fields blog, who is a very good friend of mine.  As soon as you will navigate to the end of each of the article on his website, you will find a popup which emerges on the site which asks you to subscribe. You can do similar things on WordPress Blog using Hybrid Connect which is a premium paid plugin.) For some people and based on the type of niche that you are in, this might get too aggressive. Anyhow, if you have AWESOME & helpful content on your website that people like to read on your website, I don’t think they will mind providing their email before closing your website to get reminded with more updates. #3. Tweaking your Website’s Sidebar to Help Optimize More Conversions for Newsletter Signups Let me ask you something. What do you have in your sidebar navigation on your website? Are you trying to overload it with some random blog network widgets, badges, links and the basic categories link? Well, if you are doing that my dear then it might be working simply opposite and even against you and your audience. I mean you are losing out on a lot of email subscribers that you already COULD be getting on a daily basis. OK. Let me explain. I like to keep two things most importantly out of all in my sidebar. 1. Newsletter Signup Form 2. Popular Posts on my blog First, gets me more loyal subscribers for long term Second, helps me keep my audience engaged and make them stay on my website for long time. It reduces my bounce rate and helps me create importance in Google’s eyes that my website is  full of engageing content. (HINT: More better Search Engine rankings!) Rest comes later. That’s it. And what I have noticed is that the more LESS options you give your website readers TO DO on your website the more they are inclined towards taking action on that. They don’t feel overwhelmed with gazillion options and keeps the reader more engaged. Even more, when people see my optin form they either decide to take part in it. Or completely ignore it. When they do that. They are instantly shown the option to checkout my “Popular Posts”. That’s important to keep them engaged. And it also helps build up a mindset where people think “After all this website is full of several popular articles, why not subscribe?” That’s how I believe you can control the usability of your website. Don’t clutter it with lots of unnecessary widgets, badges, links, categories, etc. Well, not only will this distract your readers from the main goal that you have for them >> Subscribe but it also looks clumsy, desperate and a little bit tacky. HINT: Check the famous top blogs, do they have all these badges? Minimalistic is better. Now, I have list top 3 questions which you can ask yourself to take your own road…of making sidebar work you. This really helped me out decide for myself. No. 1. Do you have a Optin Form at the top of your website’s sidebar? Many people taking this suggestion saw upto 26% plus conversions in their signups after moving this form on top. No. 2 Do you provide Social Proof in your sidebar which helps building trust with your future subscribers? I suggest if you don’t have a large subscriber base already simple use words like “Popular”, “Best”, “Essential”, etc. That should be enough. And if you already have a huge subscriber base lets say, may be 10,000 or greater, then you should boast about it. If you have testimonials from famous experts or influencial people in your industry. Use it. If you got recognized in magazine, newspaper, or online media. Use it. That helps building your credibility and hence better conversions. No. 3 Have you created atleast four different sections in your sidebar? Well, let me be honest. I haven’t tested this out on any of blogs yet. Anyhow, after studying a lot of successful blogs on the web. Your sidebar should atleast of 4 sections on your website which is a MUST HAVE. Even though, I try being minimalistic but here they are: 1. Obviously, Email Signup/Optin Form (With preferably, a bribe for them to subscribe. By bribe I mean free report, interviews, etc. the moment they signup) 2. Popular Posts on your website 3. Search bar to help with navigation 4. Ads (To help you monatize)]]>