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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 I give away the free report, “10 Key Strategies for Any Business Owner to Earn More, Work Less, and Enjoy Life” plus “Live the Internet Lifestyle…Retire Young and Wealthy” 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.

Take a look at http://www.theterrydean.com. This is a squeeze page that subscribers people directly to this 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.

Tomorrow I will be sending out an email to blog subscribers only. They will get an audio and transcript for free which I will be offering for sale later in the week. It will show you how to grow your email and subscribers lists significantly faster.

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.

If you received my normal teaser email about this post, then you’re subscribed to my Aweber blog list. If you didn’t, you need to subscribe below to make sure you get this freebie. The gift will be emailed after noon tomorrow.


Subscribe Now to Make Sure to Receive Your Free Gift Tomorrow!

Also receive the special report "Live the Internet Lifestyle...Retire Young and Wealthy" immediately when you sign up for the blog announcement list. If you're already a subscriber to this email list, you don't need to sign-up again.









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Comments

12 Responses to “Build Your Blog Email List”

  1. Dave Lovelace on August 11th, 2008 2:27 pm

    Hi Terry,

    I like having the opt-in at the top, but on the other hand, I read on the plugin author’s site (from a user), to “Use this plugin to post a reminder at the bottom (!!! – make sure of this or else google may use this as the extract instead of the content of your post as a description and your search engine rankings may suffer as a result)..”

    That makes sense. What are your thoughts?

    Dave Lovelace

  2. Chris Cade | Spiritual Stories and Parables on August 11th, 2008 2:46 pm

    I was popup averse for over a year – I refused to do it. Then one day, I decided to test an on-exit popover that appears only once, ever.

    Instantly, my subscribe rate increased by over 400% without any increase in traffic and has stayed at well over 400% ever since.

    The way I see it is this:

    1) If the popup is on exit, they’re leaving anyway. What have I got to lose?

    2) Since it appears only once, existing subscribers may be temporarily mildly annoyed but forget about it.

    3) If I’m providing truly valuable content on my website, people will WANT to subscribe… they might not have noticed the subscribe box and will actually be grateful for this opportunity to sign up.

    4) If my newsletter / offer is good enough, people will WANT to subscribe just to get the initial benefits. And in this case, if my newsletter successfully builds a relationship with them and provides valuable content, they’ll again be grateful that they signed up.

    I did make sure to use a different tracking code for the popover, so I can see exactly how many people subscribe from each part of my site.

    Based on the numbers, I’ve lost THOUSANDS of subscribers as a result of not doing this sooner.

    I now use exit-popups on most of my sites… often for a new squeeze page I ask people a single question – to tell me why they’re leaving. Then after about 50-100 of those responses, I improve the website and then take the on-exit popup off.

    This has been invaluable feedback – I found out that one of my sites, due to the large # of international visitors, only focused on the “$97″ that was highlighted on my squeeze page, failing to notice that the entire phrase highlighted was “$97 of FREE…”

    So instead I highlighted “FREE” and saw subscribe rates increase (and that’s with no on-exit popup asking for the optin… since the squeeze page was already asking for optin I didn’t want to duplicate)

    Long story short: If a person isn’t using on-exit popups, they’re probably leaving money on the table in one way or another.

  3. Cheryl on August 11th, 2008 3:08 pm

    Hey, Terry, Good timing as always!

    Thanks for the reminders. I got so many irons in the fire that I forget the bread and butter part of this biz.

    Question: Do you know of some instruction on how to format the optin box with the neat red/green Submit button!! I do all my techie stuff right now and I suppose I could dig it out but man, I wish I knew how to do it – yesterday. Did you cover it in your Internet Lifestyle retirement system and I didn’t see it?

    Thanks ahead of time!

  4. Phil Tanny on August 11th, 2008 5:12 pm

    I can confirm that email subscription is a crucial link between this reader and this blog. It’s so very easy to get distracted on the Net.

    And yes, even though I’m more web tech savvy than 95% of webmasters, I still prefer email to RSS.

    It’s interesting perhaps that email marketing could be one of the oldest and best known Internet marketing methods, and there is really not much if any debate about it’s usefulness.

    And yet, I get the impression that most webmasters never quite get around to making real use of it.

    Even most prominent webmaster oriented forums never mail out any kind of reminder, update, news etc. They seem perfectly content that their registered users wander off never to return, which is strange in such a competitive market. I’ve made the same mistake myself, on more than one occasion.

    So, Terry’s post is an obvious, but clearly still needed tip.

  5. Jerry Lindenburger on August 11th, 2008 8:42 pm

    Hi Terry,
    I know lots of people use pop-overs, but you know I’ve never once signed up for anything with one! I just find them very irritating, and get rid of them without even reading them. Thats my opinion for what it’s worth.
    I really like #5 above, I’m on your list and looking forward to your next email!
    Thanks Terry,
    Jerryl

  6. Terry on August 12th, 2008 7:27 am

    Dave: I have not noticed rankings suffering from having it at the top although that is a possibility that someone would have to test.

    Chris: GREAT comment I’d recommend everyone read from you – giving very good test results we can all learn from.

    Cheryl: I don’t know of any written instructions although that is a great idea for a post.

    Phil: Thank you for the confirmation that the email is important. You’d be surprised how many bloggers use RSS only without much focus on email.

    Jerry: There’s actually quite a few people who find them irritating. Personally one popover doesn’t bug me, but multiple ones really do. But it all comes down to test resutls for anyone’s specific business.

  7. Paula on August 12th, 2008 7:52 am

    That’s interesting that Dave mentions not using the Seth Godin plugin at the top of the post. I use it at the bottom of the post on my blog but was considering using it at the top of the post at one point. Might think twice about that now.

  8. Tal Fighel on August 12th, 2008 12:52 pm

    Chris Cade made a very good point about Pop-overs. Doing this on your blog or on your site may do 2 things:

    1. It may annoy the visitor who is just about ready to leave your site. Jerry, Chris has made a good point when he said that this has increased his rate to over 400%.

    Even if the visitor gets annoyed at your site, so what. He is leaving anyway.

    2. Like I mentioned above, you can increase your opt in rate which is always good.

    Getting more and more subscribers to your blog is a great way to make more money.

    Terry, how has your Summer sales have been?

    It seems that the past 2 months have been really slow online in terms of making sales with affiliate programs.

    Tal

  9. Michael Beck on August 12th, 2008 8:42 pm

    Terry,

    Thanks for the awesome free audio. You and Daniel give some great, actionable steps to take. It nice to be rewarded for being on your list :)

  10. Welly Mulia on August 14th, 2008 12:35 pm

    Hi Terry,

    Yes bulding a responsive email list is the most important factor in running a wildly successful internet business, not forgetting to build great relationships with your subscribers, of course.

    I myself don’t like pop ups as well, but as you said we all need to test before coming to any conclusions.

    Nice Terry and keep them coming :)

  11. Nnamdi Uyanna on August 18th, 2008 8:38 am

    Terry,
    Indeed, money is in the relationship with the list.Cultivating friendship with the list over time will build trust which is very important in this business.Coach, keep coaching.,

  12. Pete | Food Processor Reviews on January 13th, 2011 12:09 pm

    I’m still not 100% sure about building a mailing list. I’ve heard the saying ‘The money is in the list’ often, but at the moment my style of marketing doesn’t lend itself to building a list I don’t think. I mainly build review websites at the moment so ideally I want my visitors to move on and view my products.

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