List Building: 62 Super Strategies For Gaining Subscribers

I often hear online business and marketing types talk about how important it is to have a good subscriber list.  In many cases, having a reasonable sized list of responsive subscribers can make the difference in whether your online business succeeds or dies a slow painful death.

You’re heard it before, “The money is in the list.”

What exactly is a list?

Simply put, a “list” is generally a database of subscribers that you contact regularly.  Your form of contact could be direct mail, email, phone, fax, or any other technology available.  For purposes of this discussion, we’re talking about how to successfully build an email list, but many of the strategies below could also apply to other kinds of list building.

Most online businesses create newsletters or ezines to send to their subscriber lists (a method I highly recommend), you can also create email lists in order to disseminate other types of information like website updates, ebooks, email courses, reports, blog posts, etc.  As long as subscribers know in advance what kind of information they’re signing up for, the sky’s the limit.

So, what are the benefits of building a good list for your business?

• Sending high quality information to your lists helps you build rapport with your subscribers and potential customers.  Relationship building is a huge plus in any business, but is especially profitable in an online business.  It also helps to establish you as an expert in your field.

• You can promote special offers and products to your list.

• An email list allows you to keep in touch with your subscribers and potential customers.  This gets them back to your website more often and will increase your sales.

• Promoting to email lists is much less expensive than other forms of direct marketing.

• You can easily gather additional information from your list that will help you plan future promotions and products.

• Regular mailings to an email list can make your website seem more human.

• There are lots of ways to monetize your email list, making it a huge money making opportunity… if you do it correctly.

Clearly there are lots of benefits… probably a lot more than what I’ve mentioned here.  I’m sure you’re all gungho to start your own mailing list now… or maybe you’ve already started a list and you’re looking for ways to get more subscribers.  That’s what very few people actually talk about… how to get a good subscriber list.  So that’s what we’re going to discuss here.  I’ve put together a list of 62 strategies that you can put into practice to build yourself a great list.

One word of caution before we get to the list… don’t try to implement every single strategy on the list at one time.  Just pick a single strategy, fully implement it, and then move onto another strategy.  In reality, there’s really no way to implement all the strategies listed – so develop a plan for implementing the strategies that seem best suited to your business.

One more quick note: The list below starts out with the most obvious and easiest to implement strategies and gets more creative as we go.  I came up with so many ideas that I decided to split them up, so Part 2 will come out later this week.

Now, let’s get on to the list…

1.  Put a subscribe form on every webpage of your site.

Most email experts agree that you should put your subscription form in the upper left or right hand corner of your website.

You never know which page of your website visitors will reach first, so putting a subscription form on all your relevant pages ensures that potential subscribers will see your message.

2.  Create some kind of graphic representation of your newsletter, course, etc.

You’ll will always see a higher response rate if you use a graphic rather than just words.  A cover is more dynamic, personable, and professional.

It’s easy to create your own graphic with any of the popular graphics programs or you can use a software program especially designed to make ebook covers, newsletter pictures, ezine images, software boxes, etc. covers like Killer Covers , Cover Software Pro, or the one I use:  Cover Action Pro.  You can also hire a cover designer.

3.  Tell people why they should join your list.

You’ve got to give potential subscribers a compelling reason to join your list.  Tell them what kind of information you’ll give them, what they can expect, and how they’ll benefit.  As will so many things in business, answer the question, “What’s in it for me?”

4.  Create a separate pitch page.

It’s not enough to just slap up a subscribe form and a graphic to get people to subscribe to your list… You’ve got to sell them on the idea.  To do that, you need to write a well-crafted sales page that outlines all the benefits to joining your list.

The way I usually do this is to link directly from my subscribe box to a sales page with a link that says “click here to read more.”  I also link the graphic for the list to the pitch page.  Don’t forget to include your subscribe box prominently on the pitch page as well.  After all, you’ve talked them into subscribing.  You want to make sure they have a place to do it.

5.  Target your forms and pitch page to your audience.

It’s important to know who your target subscribers are before you go through all the trouble of creating an ezine, newsletter, or ecourse.  That’s obvious… but you also need to have thought through your potential subscribers’ possible reasons for subscribing, what they’re looking for, and how you’re going to give it to them.  That way you can tailor the graphics, pitch, title of the subscriptions, etc. to what will most likely appeal to your target subscribers.

A properly targeted list will be much more responsive and profitable.

6.  Allow email subscriptions.

Sometimes people make the mistake of only allowing new subscribers to subscribe through an online form.  They often do it that way to make sure that someone isn’t harvesting emails and fraudulently subscribing people.

In my opinion, you should also allow people to subscribe by sending an email directly to your list.  This is an easy option to set up in most email management programs.  As long as your list requires subscribers to confirm their subscription, you shouldn’t have any problems with spammers.  If spammers become an issue, you can always turn the option off.

If you aren’t comfortable with this idea, you could also allow people to send their subscription directly to you and you can manually add them to your database.  It might take a little more time, but if someone goes through the trouble of sending you an email, they’re probably going to read every email you send them.

7.  Offer incentives to subscribe.

There are lots of different incentives you can offer to entice people to subscribe to your list or ezine.  You can offer free ebooks, special reports, audios, videos, teleseminars, free coaching, or anything else you can think of.

There is a school of thought that offering freebies to get subscribers can actually lower the responsiveness of your list because many people will only subscribe to your list to get your freebies then unsubscribe.  On the other hand, if you offer high quality original material to your subscribers, you may retain more subscribers.  My advice is to offer freebies that give subscribers a taste of what to expect in your ezine.

8.  Show archives or samples of past ezine issues.

This is a really good way to let potential subscribers know what to expect when they subscribe to your newsletter or ezine.

If you don’t want to archive all your issues for non-subscribers, then you can always provide a few samples to whet their appetite for more.

9.  Be sure to post your email privacy policy.

Make it easy for people to subscribe to your list with confidence that you won’t spam them or sell their email address.

You may also want to try something like, “No obligation.  Nothing to buy.”  This is something that I’ve begun implementing on my own subscription forms and the results have been good so far.

10.  Use a strong call to action.

A call to action is exactly what it sounds like… it’s a command for your subscriber to subscribe.  Some common calls to action on a subscription for are:

• Subscribe Now!
• Send Me The Report!
• Click to Subscribe Now!
• Show Me How To…
• Join Now!

In other words, tell potential subscribers exactly what you want them to do.  Ask them to subscribe to your list.

11.  Advertise in newsletters/ezines.

Find other newsletters and ezines that are related to your target market, but don’t directly compete, and buy advertising.  If the newsletter or ezine that you’re interested in doesn’t currently offer advertising, contact them anyway and see if you can work something out.

A somewhat riskier tactic is to actually advertise in competing newsletters and ezines.  Some publishers won’t allow competing advertising, but most aren’t paying close enough attention to their lists to care.  The risk to advertising in a competing ezine is that you will be directly compared to your competition… if you think you can go head to head, go for it.

12.  Advertise on Google Adwords or other pay per clicks.

Pay per click advertising can be extremely effective and get you a lot of subscribers in a hurry… if you know what you’re doing.  It can also cost you a small fortune and result in very few subscribers if you don’t know how the game is played.

I highly suggest doing a little homework on the subject before you embark on this type of campaign.  You can choose to purchase a course on the subject like Google Money Pro, but you can get a good idea if pay-per-click advertising is for you from a free email course from Perry Marshall called, 5 Days to Success With Google Adwords.

13.  Put subscription information in your signature file.

I’m guilty, I admit it.  I rarely use a signature file on my outgoing emails.  Why?  I guess I’m just plain lazy.  It’s a really good idea to create a mini-ad about your newsletter or ezine and include it in your signature… I’ll have to put that on my list of things to do (boy that list sure is getting long!).

14.  Incorporate your subscription information into your print media.

So many businesses that operate out in the real world in addition to the online world totally miss the boat on this one.  If you have a business that uses print brochures, fliers, business cards, etc. you should include information about your newsletter, ezine, or update list, ecourse or any other type of list you have on your printed media.

If you have a retail location, for example, you could actually build a good email list out of your customers and visitors by offering to send them updates of upcoming sales, special product offers, or special shipments coming in.  You could even hold a contest and collect email addresses at your retail location so that you can notify the winner by email.  I could go on here, but you get the idea.

15.  List with ezine directories.

List your newsletter or ezine with directories specifically for that purpose.  You may not get a lot of subscribers this way, but every little bit counts.

16.  Advertise in print publications.

This is a great idea that is very rarely used, from what I’ve seen.  The idea is simple.  Find printed publications related to your website or business and pay for advertising in them.  In your ad, you’ll want use your pitch page URL so that potential subscribers go directly to the subscription page.

If you’re really smart, you’ll create a separate subscription page for each advertisement that you place so that you can track the results and see which ads are paying off and which ones you should drop.

17.  Do link exchanges.

If you do link exchanges on your website, that presents an excellent opportunity to advertise your newsletter, ezine, ecourse, or free report.  All you have to do is link directly to your pitch page rather than your website when you exchange links with other websites.

You could also take this one a step further by developing a link exchange program on your website that is strictly for ezines, for example.  In other words, you provide links to other “great ezines” while the ezines you link to do the same for your ezine.

18.  Ad Swaps.

A truly simple idea that creates a win/win for everyone involved.  All you have to do is find a newsletter or ezine that’s related to your target audience, but that isn’t direct competition and exchange ads.  You place their ad in your ezine and they place your ad in there’s.

One thing to keep in mind when you do this is that any publisher you approach should have about the same size email list as you.  If you have far fewer subscribers, they may require additional ads to make the swap fair and equitable.

19.  Write high quality articles.

If you already write articles as part of your overall marketing plan, simply add a plug for your ezine or newsletter.  You could also write articles specifically with the idea of promoting a special free report or something similar.  If you’ve written high quality articles, subscribers will flock to your ezine.  If you want more information about article marketing, visit The Amazing Article Formula.

20.  Send articles to other newsletter publishers.

You can get even more mileage, and subscribers, by sending your well-crafted article to other newsletter and ezine publishers for use in their publications.  A lot of online publications don’t offer advertising, but they love really good articles because it means less work for them!

21.  Get your articles published in print media.

Nothing gives you and your ezine or newsletter more credibility than being published in a printed – as in paper and ink – magazine or newsletter.  Guest articles in print media usually include some kind of information about the author, just like online publications do.  This provides you with a great opportunity for some free publicity about your special report, ezine, or free online course.

End of Part 1. Click here to go to part 2

Related posts:

1. List Building: 62 Super Strategies For Gaining Subscribers Part 2
2. List Building: 62 Super Strategies For Gaining Subscribers Part 3
3. How Does Attraction Marketing Really Work?
4. Why Don’t SOME Affiliate Products Sell?
5. Boy Did Google Slap Me Hard!

Tagged with: Advertising • Affiliate Marketing • Article Marketing • Copywriting • Email Marketing • landing page • make money • Marketing • newsletters • pre-selling • preselling • profit funnel • targeted traffic • traffic generation • Website Design

Filed under: Email Marketing

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