I’m on a mission to build my email list. Not only is it good business, but heaven forbid Facebook, Twitter and Instagram decide to shut down, I’d lose tens of thousands of potential clients and customers.
Now, although I’ve been blogging to some capacity since 2010. I have to admit I’ve really dropped the ball with list building techniques and email marketing. Here are just a few of the mistakes I’ve made:
- Didn’t have an email list the first six months of blogging because I thought it was pointless.
- When I did have an email list, the opt-in form had no lead magnet, for months.
- I was not doing anything to drive traffic to my blog.
- I went through two rebrands and two email marketing upgrades in two years. Lost a lot of subscribers that way. (Fortunately, I’ve made up for it already).
As you can see, list building techniques have not been my strong suit. However, that’s all about to change. Here are some of the list building techniques I’m starting to implement to grow my subscriber base beyond just my social media following.
Have your opt-in placed in strategic areas on your website.
One really effective list building technique is to have your opt-in form placed in multiple places throughout your website. This includes your a huge opt-in above the fold, your footer, underneath blog posts and on your About page. Other strategic places include your Facebook page and as a pinned Twitter card.
Use a pop-up.
Love them or hate them, pop-ups work. Speaking from personal experience (which is in no way scientific), my conversions double when I’m using a pop-up versus when I’m not. Regardless of how you feel about them, pop-ups are still one of the best list building techniques out there.
There are other pop-up like options available including a Welcome Mat from SumoMe which I plan on experimenting with in the coming months.
Lead a challenge.
One of the best list building techniques comes in the form of offering a free challenge where you are walking the audience through some actionable steps that help them reach a specific goal.
Tiffany Aliche of The Budgetinista is a prime example of this. Each year, she hosts the Live Richer Challenge which is a free email challenge where she delivers one actionable step a day in an effort to improve your personal finances.
The first year she ran it she helped over 18,000 women. As we approach 2017, she’s grown her list to over 200,00.
I’ll be experimenting with this technique with my own money challenge for millennials. What I’ve noticed is that even without marketing it much, free challenges tend to attract leads and have high conversion rates. People love a good challenge.
Host a giveaway.
Another one of the more popular list building techniques is to host a giveaway. I’ll actually be doing this in conjunction with my challenge to test it out. I’ll be giving away some sort of prize (like an Amazon gift card) to encourage people to sign up for the challenge.
I’ve used giveaways in the past when trying to get people to fill out a survey and it was extremely effective, so I’m expecting good results with the challenge.
Have you implemented any of these list building techniques? What worked and what didn’t?
