Ready to get to work? Let’s start by looking at some list building tasks that you may have forgotten about. Hopefully you haven’t ignored all of these, but I’m sure you’ll find a few things throughout this chapter that could be improved upon.
Growing your list on a consistent basis is one of the best things you can do to insure growth. If you want your business to thrive, you need to do something every single week that helps you grow your audience and your subscriber base. I’m sure there’s a lot you’re doing already to send fresh traffic to your site or your blog. But are you taking full advantage of the list building capabilities this offers?
Your first goal when a new reader makes it to your site should always be to get them on your list. The first thing you should do then, is make sure that there is an opportunity for your visitors to do that on every single page of your blog or website. Take a look through your site and make sure you have opt-in forms on all pages. They could be in the side bar, they could be pop –ups or pop overs, or they could be within your content or at the end of your blog posts for example.
Start by making sure you have some way for your readers to opt-in on every single page on your site. Then mix it up and see what works better for you and your readers. Maybe a pop up gives you a much better conversion rate then the side bar opt-in. And don’t forget to sprinkle some opt-in forms into your content. Start with a few of your most popular and most visited pages and see how those convert for you.
Of course opt-in forms aren’t your only options. They are a quick and easy thing you can throw on every page of your site, but they aren’t always the most efficient way to grow your list. The best way to convince a visitor to sign up and become a subscriber to your list is through an opt-in page. I hope you have at least one or two of these set up for your site and are driving traffic to them regularly. If you don’t, put this high on your to-do list. If you have the pages up, but aren’t actively working on sending traffic to them, work on a plan to start doing that. You can use paid advertising, include links in all your social media profiles and on your blog posts where applicable. You can also have your affiliates send traffic to these lead pages or swap ads with other list builders. They recommend your opt-in page and you recommend yours to your current subscribers. Keep working on new techniques to try to send a steady stream of traffic to that page.
Developing fresh new opt-in pages that speak directly to a particular portion of your audience or take a new angle on your main topic is another great idea. A new visitor may not be too interested in your first opt-in page, but will jump on the lead magnet offer of a different one without hesitation. Don’t be afraid to try new stuff. Throw an option at the end of all your blog post, install an app that gives you the ability to display the opt-in offer as a bar above your header, or in the corner of your page, making it look like the folded corner in a magazine. There are lots of different tools and plugins out there to help you get the attention of your visitors. Switch things up and move your opt-in forms around. You never know when you’ll finally catch the attention of a long time blog reader and convince him or her to sign up for your list. Keep it fresh, keep trying new techniques and see what works best for you and your audience.
Since we’re on the topic of opt-in pages, this is also a great time to remind you to review those pages from time to time. It’s another one of those tasks that’s easily set up and promptly forgotten as long as it continues to work. Make sure your opt-in pages are looking nice and reflect what you know and what you share with your subscribers. Try new techniques, new copy, and anything else you can think of to see if you can increase your conversions over time. You’ll have to send a lot less traffic to your opt-in pages if you can improve your conversion rates. Doesn’t it make more sense to work on those tasks then stay busy day in and day out doing everything you can to drive more traffic to your site.
The tasks in this section and the next are all about working smarter instead of harder Take that concept to heart and work on improving your list building and email marketing funnel a little here and there. It will start to pay off before you know it.
Let’s move right along and talk a little more about conversion. The key to improving your opt-in conversions is testing. You want to test anything and everything you can. We already touched on testing different placements of your opt-in forms, and trying out different types (side bar forms, pop ups etc.). Next, start testing your individual forms. Try a different color, layout, font, headline, call to action, subscribe button and anything else you can think of. Auto-responder services these days make it very easy to split test just about anything you can think of. Make a list of things you want to test against each other, read up on a/b split testing to get even more ideas and then set aside a little time each week to test something new. Trust me, it won’t take you more than a few minutes to make a couple of small changes and review the data from your last test. Even minor tweaks can improve your opt-in rate and over time those small increases result in quite a few extra subscribers.
Since we’re on the topic of testing, let’s talk about your lead magnets. You know what I’m talking about. Those are the short reports, videos, email courses or audio recording that you’re offering your subscribers as a thank you or ethical bribe for signing up for your free list. Chances are that you put something together when you first set up your list and then never looked back. That could be a big mistake. Think about how much you’ve learned about your audience and about marketing in that time.
Go sign up for your own list right now. Pay close attention to every step along the way. Take notes of anything and everything you can improve throughout the process. Then download your lead magnet and read through it with fresh eyes. Next you have two choices. You can either start fresh with something new and different your subscribers will love, or you can work on improving your existing one. If you’re really ambitious you’ll do both and test the two offers against each other. Either way, you want to end up with a quality lead magnet that makes a great first impression. You also want it to be something that your potential subscribers are anxious and excited to receive. Make it fun, make it entertaining, and make it helpful. Some of the best lead magnets out there help the audience solve a problem.
Once you’re done with that, go through the auto-responder emails you have set up for your readers starting with the welcome email. Does the content you’re sharing there still reflect what you’re currently doing? Do all the links in those emails still work? Do you have better content and offers to share? Can you add fresh content to the A/R sequence? Make a list of what you can do to improve your auto-responder to make it more helpful to your audience, and more profitable for you. These are the emails every single reader on your list gets sooner or later. It’s always a good idea to go back and make sure everything is still working and keep adding to it.
And let’s not forget about the thank you page. This is the page your readers land on after they sign up for your list. This is usually where they download the lead magnet. But don’t waste this important page. You have a fresh, hot lead looking at prime web site real estate. Use this page to either build a deeper relationship with your readers, or get them to make that all-important first sale. Put together a killer offer at a low price that’s hard to refuse. Try to move them as quickly as possible from the subscriber list to the paying customer list. Those folks are a lot more valuable to your business and a lot more likely to buy from you again and again. Make it a point to review and test this offer often.
Speaking of offers…. They aren’t just for emails and thank you pages. Have you thought of monetizing your lead magnet directly? Work a great offer – possibly the one you’re using on your thank you page – into your lead magnet. This will greatly increase your chances of closing more sales which is important on so many levels. Not only do you want to turn subscribers into customers as quickly as possible, you also give yourself a lot more options when it comes to list building, if you can make it profitable from the start. If you can convert say 20% of your subscribers to buy your $20 product right away, you can suddenly afford to buy some advertising. You can give Facebook ads a try, or you can buy newsletter ads and the likes. In other words, you have a lot more options for growing faster.
Work on all the paid and free traffic you can get to your opt-in forms and opt-in pages. Look into a new advertising method each week or get some fresh lead building content out there. Offer to write an article for an online publication in exchange for a by-line that includes a link to your opt-in page. Track and refine your Facebook advertising. Keep working on getting more traffic and making the most from the traffic you have.
Start with your list of things to work on and improve upon. Add to the list as you learn more and keep getting better at this marketing gig. Then make it a point to work on at least one task from that list per week. If you’re feeling ambitious, and if you break that list down into simple little tasks, you can even get one done per day. You’ll be pleasantly surprised at how quickly your list will start to grow once you get into the habit of doing that. More importantly, your list will start to become more profitable… and we’ll kick it up a notch in the next chapter when we focus on the email marketing aspect of this.
[Optional – include a note and download links to the included checklists for Forgotten List Building Tasks]
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