5 Ways To Build Your Blog Email List

Are you building a list of email subscribers on your blog?

If not, why not?

Even though RSS (Really Simple Syndication) usage is growing, you’ll still find a majority of your readers prefer email (unless you’re in a very technical market).

You have probably heard, “The money is in the list.”
This isn’t entirely true. The money is in your relationship with the list.

I watch my email subscriptions very closely to see how different posting schedules affect my subscriptions, open rates, and sales. For example, in the past few months it’s become very obvious that my best open rates for blog emails are for posts titled, “5 Ways to…” or “3 Steps to…”

In other words, the best way to get people to open my blog emails is to tell them a specific number of steps along with an end result.

What about building the email list itself?

Here are 5 ways to grow your blog email list faster:

#1 – Give away a valuable freebie.

You’ll notice over there on the right sidebar, I give away 2 free reports, when someone signs up for my list.

Think immediate gratification. What value can you give your new subscribers for signing up to your list? Don’t just promote it as a “blog signup” or an “email list.” Nobody is sitting around thinking about how they need to get more email. They’re trying to cut their email. You “sell” your free email list by the offer you give immediately…and you keep them subscribed by the content you provide them regularly.

This gift could be a written report, an mp3 audio, or a video. You could include other bonuses along with the primary gift such as coupons, discounts, etc. (one of your goals should be to sell these customers as soon as possible).

#2 – Focus your design toward building the list.

Take a look at my blog. The most prominent feature on the top right is my email list signup. That’s what I want you to do here. On your first 3 visits to the blog, there is also a subscribe section on the top of every post using the “What Would Seth Godin Do” plugin.

At times I build a subscribe right into the post itself (see the bottom of this post for an example). Make your email subscribe box OBVIOUS to your visitors.

#3 – Add a popover.

This one causes some debate. Some will say a popover is evil and the most horrible thing you could do to your visitors while those who have tested them will often swear by the value of them. At times I run tests with popovers that only appear once (you can also run them to only appear to those who haven’t subscribed yet).

Right now I’m not running a popover here, but I will be testing it again soon. And I’d recommend everyone at least test it on their blog to see how it affects their daily subscribe numbers.

#4 – Run a squeeze page and/or entry page.

 This is a squeeze page that subscribes people directly to your blog’s email list. While running some paid advertising tests, I’ve found I’m ALWAYS better off driving my paid traffic to a specific landing page instead of the blog directly.

Yes, I said ALWAYS. Using a squeeze page to get people to subscribe produces better results for my blog than sending them to any page on my blog.

#5 – Send subscriber only gifts.

Your only opportunity to get it for free is to make sure you’re subscribed to the list. This is a reward for email subscribers only.

 To Your Success
Mark G Roberts & Temogen
Step by Step University
http://www.stepbystepuniversity.com/jointventuretips/

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