One of the biggest assets you’ll ever build is your mailing list. In fact, many an online marketer finds that their business really takes off once they start building a list. That’s because once you have a list, you can make money on demand – any time you want – simply by sending a targeted offer to the list.
With that in mind, it makes sense to get as many targeted subscribers as possible onto your list. How do you do that? Check out these seven proven methods for getting more subscribers fast…
1. Offer a Super-Enticing Lead Magnet
Your prospects are very careful about guarding their email addresses. They’re not going to give up their address for a run-of-the-mill lead magnet. That’s why you need to make sure that you’re offering lead magnets with these characteristics:
- They’re valuable. Even though you’re giving it away for free, it should be something that you could easily sell.
- They’re desirable. This is key – if people don’t want you lead magnets, then no one is going to join your list.
So how do you make sure you have an in-demand lead magnet? Simple: you find out what other lead magnets in your niche people are getting excited about.
One way to do this is to go to a marketplace like Clickbank.com to find out what other people are buying. If people are laying down good money for a particular kind of product in your niche, then you can bet they’ll happily exchange their best email address for it.
The second way to find out what’s popular is to check out what sorts of lead magnets and other content your competition is delivering. You can do this by:
- Subscribing to their mailing list to see what type of content they repeatedly deliver.
- Read their blogs to see which posts are popular (e.g., they get a lot of comments, or perhaps they’re even featured on the blog).
- Follow them on social media to find out what sort of content they’re sharing, and which of these pieces are popular among their followers.
For example, if you went around the online marketing circles, you’d quickly discover that big lists are really popular. Ryan Diess has the Ultimate List of Blog Post Ideas, which includes 212 ideas.
So what would you do? That’s right, you’d brainstorm an “ultimate list” of your own. For example:
- The Ultimate List of Killer Headlines
- The Ultimate List of Profitable Upsells
- The Ultimate List of Webinar Ideas
Just set aside a few minutes for research and brainstorming, and you’re sure to come up with dozens of ideas.
2. Match Lead Magnets to The Viewed Content
One mistake that a lot of marketers make when building their list is that they send every visitor to the exact same lead page. If you put a good offer up, you’ll get decent results. But if you the best results, then you need to put an ultra-targeted offer up. That means something that is directly related to the exact content the visitor was just viewing.
For example, if you have a blog post that offers three tips for faster weight loss, then your lead magnet might be a report for another 101 weight loss tips.
Another idea is to offer a content upgrade to your blog visitors. If you have a long anchor post on your site, then offer to send this post as a .pdf to readers. Alternatively, you can even offer the content in a different (deluxe) form, such as offering a video version of the content they just read.
For best results, insert in-content capture forms. In other words, don’t make people jump through multiple hoops to get to your opt-in form.
Next…
3. Install an Overlay Capture System
What we’re talking about here are popups and lightboxes that overlay your web page. These sorts of capture systems usually demand a response before the visitor can continue doing what they were doing on your website.
Do visitors like them? I doubt you’ll find anyone who actually says they like running into popups. But the truth is, they work like crazy.
Now here’s something important…
Don’t have your capture system popup or slide in immediately after someone lands on your web page. Your visitor doesn’t even know what your site is about yet, so they’re not going to join your list if you drop an offer in front of them the moment they land on the page. Use delayed overlays and exit overlays for maximum conversions.
Which brings us to the next point…
4. Redirect Exit Traffic
Just because your visitors are leaving without taking any action doesn’t mean they will never take action. Usually it just means that they didn’t see an offer that was highly targeted to their interests. So when they hit the “back” button to get out of your site, you have one last chance to put a lead magnet in front of them that will get them signing up to your list.
For example:
“Before you go, grab this free video to discover the seven best-kept secrets of looking 15 years younger…”
If you’re willing to work with the code on your site, you can create these redirects yourself. If you’d rather do it the easy way, then look for a redirect script or plugin that works on your platform. Still another way to do it is to use a service like CatchaMonkey.com, which lets you create these redirects without having to install anything on your site.
Next…
5. Funnel Your Social Media Visitors To Your Lead Pages
Social media is a great place to interact with your audience, launch viral campaigns and even get some sales. But what you need to do is focus on funneling your network back to your lead pages.
Many major email service providers (such as Aweber) have social media apps, such as the Facebook app. This makes it easy for you to add a tab to your Facebook page and start capturing email addresses directly from Facebook. That’s the best way to do it, because if you make your subscribers jump through hoops (such as clicking through to your lead page), you’re likely to lose them.
6. Post YouTube Videos
Another great way to take advantage of social media is by posting YouTube videos that include calls to action at the end of the videos. This call to action should direct viewers to your lead page.
Here are tips for maximizing your success with this strategy:
- Present targeted offers that are highly related to the video. The free content you’re offering on your lead page should be a natural extension of the video. So for example, if you just showed a video on how to do three kettlebell exercises, then your lead page might offer a video with another dozen exercises.
- Create videos that are likely to go viral. Offer something unique. Inspire people. Make them laugh. If you can get your viewers to share your video, then you’ll effortlessly get your calls to action in front of more people.
- Pay attention to your tags, titles and descriptions. A lot of people use the YouTube search function to find videos on particular topics, so research keywords using a tool like WordTracker.com, and then use these keywords in your tags titles and descriptions. As an added bonus, these keywords will help visitors find your video when they use other search engines, such as Google.
Next up…
7. Partner With An Influencer
The influencers in your niche are the ones who have big platforms--such as mailing lists, popular blogs, and big social networks—that are full of people who hang on their every word and take them up on every recommendation.
I’m sure you are well aware of the influencers in your niche. But have you thought about how to ethically borrow their traffic? That’s right, if you partner with them, you can leverage their traffic to build your own mailing lists.
Here are six ways to do it:
- Create a webinar together. You can co-create this webinar to teach a topic together, or you can even interview your partner. The key here is that your partner helps you promote the webinar, and you build a list by having prospects register for the event by joining your list.
- Co-promote each other in your respective newsletters. You can do this once, or you can agree to insert links to each other’s lead pages for a set amount of time.
- Swap links on your confirmation pages. This is a great place to promote each other’s lead pages, since the new subscriber is in a subscribing mood.
- Create and distribute viral content together. This could be a video, app, report or other piece of content. Each of you promotes the content, and each of you inserts links to your lead pages directly into the content.
- Recruit the influencer to your affiliate team. Then give them 100% commissions on a product. They get to keep all the upfront profits, but you get the valuable list of buyers and all the backend profits.
- Guest blogging. Pretty simple – just persuade your partner to publish your exclusive article on their blog. In exchange
That’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to leveraging an influencer’s traffic to build your list. Get creative, because these strategies are often the best and quickest ways to turn warm targeted traffic into subscribers and buyers.
Now let’s wrap things up…
Conclusion: Check Out This Bonus Idea
You just discovered seven proven ways to get more subscribers fast. If you implement all seven strategies, you’re sure to see your list grow by leaps and bounds.
Now let me share with you a method for super-optimizing your results: test, track and tweak everything.
A lot of people tend to neglect this step. They figure if their lists are growing, then they’re not going to fix what isn’t broken. However, even small improvements to your lead pages and campaigns can produce big results.
For example, let’s imagine you have a lead page that’s pulling a 5% conversion rate. That means for every 100 people who land on your lead page, five of them sign up.
Not bad.
But imagine if you did some testing and were able to improve that to a 10% conversion rate… or 15%... or even 20% or more. Suddenly, any paid advertising you do gives you a much higher return on your investment. And your list and your revenues are going to grow a whole lot more quickly.
Point is, it’s well worth it to test your campaigns. Here are the best places to start your testing and tweaking for maximal response rates:
- Your lead page copy, including headline, opener, bulleted benefit list and call to action.
- Your lead page design.
- The design of your call to action button.
- Text copy versus a video sales letter on your lead page.
- The lead magnet you’re offering to visitors.
- Placement of your lead page links and calls to action.
So now that you know these seven ways plus the bonus that makes them all more effective, it’s time to get started. Go ahead and put these to work for you today, because I think you’ll like your results!