An Overview Of Subscriber List Building

By Tom Seest

How to Unlock Your Subscriber List Building Potential

Unless you want to be chasing sales and revenue on a regular basis, working overtime to nail down every dollar, you need to invest your time and effort into strategies that will deliver for you by increasing your profit potential with less work.
List building is a concept that many online entrepreneurs fail to do, putting it off until a day in the future when they may feel ‘big enough’ to take that next step. But that time is now, not after thousands of people have come across your content and clicked away, never to encounter communications from you again.
You want to unlock the power of business growth by leveraging your ability to reach out to people on a regular basis. List building is a tool that can help you build a bigger brand, rake in higher profits and solidify your position as a niche authority figure.
Below, you’re going to discover how you can attract new subscribers to your list and use a number of methods to gain exposure for your lead magnet landing page. Some are quick and easy, and others will require more effort, but they all have the ability to help you increase your profits.

This photo was taken by Lokman Sevim and is available on Pexels at https://www.pexels.com/photo/wood-nature-people-art-15197038/.

Can The Subscription Gift Effect List Building Performance?

It all starts with offering the right incentive. Without a gift they’ll want, many people won’t be willing to hand over their name and email address. They’ve encountered too many spammers who email them incessantly and then sell their contact information to others to do the same.
Your lead magnet’s value is determined by the pressing needs of your audience. If you can develop a gift based on the pain points they’re experiencing or maybe the goals they want to achieve, then you’re more likely to get a subscriber.
You can conduct some reconnaissance to see what people are searching for by using free or paid keyword tools, online databases like Answer the Public, or predictive features like Google’s People Also Ask questions.
You can lurk in forums and watch engagement on social media and get a good idea of how your opt-in ideas will go over with your target audience. Try to set yourself apart in some way with your gift, so it’s not basic, general information they can read anywhere ‘ and at the very least, put your spin on it.
The media format might play a determining factor in whether or not someone signs up, so you may want to offer both a text and video version of the information. You can even vary the slants to see what topics, tones, and styles potential subscribers want to opt in for.
The quality must be good! You might even want to give a sneak peek into the lead magnet so they can see what it is they’re signing up for. Make sure it has a professional look and feel and is edited to the highest quality.

This photo was taken by Lokman Sevim and is available on Pexels at https://www.pexels.com/photo/sea-nature-fashion-beach-15197054/.

Can The Copy and Look Affect the Performance of Subscriber Opt-in Forms?

When it comes to your lead magnet offer, there are two different areas where you need to master copywriting. The first is the landing page itself. On the whole page, you’ll have room above the fold for one or more headlines, an image, bullet points, or a list of benefits, and the form.
But on the form itself, space is more limited. You have some room for a sentence or two, max ‘ so the headline or call to action must be concise and drive home the point that they need the report.
You also have some wording on the button, which is often where the call to action is re-emphasized for the visitor. Start with the headline on your landing page. Make it punchy and communicative of the value your gift has.
You can move on to the what and why next in your bullet points. Tell them what you have to offer and why they need it. Be descriptive and paint a picture. This is not the place for long storytelling like you might find in a sales letter.
Use a sense of urgency whenever possible, or tout that they’re getting exclusive access that the rest of the public who are not on your list is missing out on. In some cases, you might be able to squeeze a strong testimonial onto the page for social proof of the value you provide.
Make sure you’re using strong call-to-action language like “Ready to?”, “Grab this”, ‘Here’s our free report that will”, “Download this cheat sheet to shortcut”, or “Double your By downloading this.”
On the submit button, you can do better than simply ‘Sign up’ or ‘Submit.’ For example, you can say, ‘Yes! Let me in!’ or ‘Send Me Lesson 1 Now’ ‘ it doesn’t have to be dull and boring.
With your form, make sure that you’re limiting the required fill-in areas to their first name and email address. If you’re asking for their phone number and mailing address, you’re going to lose more people who will refuse to give those extra details.
Some marketers like to include a small note about their privacy and spam policies, and you can do that in small italics below the button if you want to. This reassures people that you don’t share their information with others.
Most email autoresponder systems have a plethora of templates to choose from, but you can customize the look and feel of your form. You can find niche-specific templates and blank ones that you can tweak so that it blends in nicely with the rest of the design on your site.

This photo was taken by Lokman Sevim and is available on Pexels at https://www.pexels.com/photo/nature-sunset-fashion-beach-15183374/.

Can The Location of Subscription Forms Help with List Building?

Where you put your forms is just as important as how your form looks and what it says. If your prospective subscribers don’t encounter or don’t see your form, they can’t get on your list.
You have to have a main lead magnet landing page. This is the primary place where you will send targeted traffic to get on your list. It’s a dedicated space that highlights the opt-in form and includes some light, yet hard-hitting copy, to convert the visitor into a subscriber.
Some people prefer to watch a video, so you have the option of including a video (kind of like a hybrid sales letter) to convince people to opt into your list. Just make sure it’s short and to the point if you go this route and not a 30-minute video.
Make sure your landing page is mobile-friendly. Some marketers only see their landing page on a PC, and it might be difficult to navigate and sign up on a smartphone, iPad, or tablet of some sort.
While a dedicated landing page might be on a URL location such as domain.com/freegift, you also want the opt-in form on your home page. Some people put their WordPress blog right on their domain.com URL, but others use a domain.com/blog option.
If you’ve used the /blog option, make sure the home page includes an opt-in form. If you are using a blog, then you will want to set the form up in several places. It can be above the header as a thing, horizontal line, in the footer, and in the sidebar, too.
The sidebar is a popular place to include the form because it’s highly visible on all pages whenever someone is navigating around your website. You can create a thinner opt-in form that will fit in a sidebar that’s different from the wider one on your main landing page.
Make sure you also include the form at the bottom of every blog post. Sometimes, people get so immersed in your content that they aren’t paying attention to your sidebar. So when they scroll down to the end of your post, they have passed the opt-in form completely.
Pop-ups are also a popular way to get sign-ups. Someone might visit your site, and as they go to leave, you can serve them with a pop-up. You can also have a slide-in pop-up that appears while they’re on your side, even before they’re considering leaving.
Another thing to consider is possibly putting opt-in forms on your page content, not just the posts. For example, if you have an About page or a Contact page, you can put the form on there, too.

This photo was taken by Lokman Sevim and is available on Pexels at https://www.pexels.com/photo/nature-fashion-beach-people-15183375/.

Can Social Media Be Levered for Traffic for Subscriber List Building?

Men and women of all ages are on social media platforms on a regular basis ‘ sometimes for hours upon hours each day. The topics on these platforms run the gamut from success to survival – cooking to crocheting.
You want to tap into the platforms where your target audience is most active so that you can build a list from those interactions. There are five main social media platforms that marketers like to lead generate from, but there are many more in addition to these that you can test to see how they perform for you.
The first is to use Facebook groups and pages. Most people use their Facebook profile as their personal entity on this platform, and they use groups and pages for business measures.
You can integrate some email autoresponder systems with your Facebook page and put an opt-in form directly on that page. Or, you can always hyperlink from your group or page out to your lead magnet landing page.
If you want your links and opt-in form to perform well for you, then you need to prove that you give value to your followers so that they’ll want to go sign up to your list for the freebie as well as more exclusive content.
Instagram is a wonderful social media platform that utilizes images and videos more prevalently than text. Each post can also have a text-based element to it, but in order to drive people to your landing page, you will need to have a link in your bio.
The best thing you can do to generate leads on Instagram is to make sure that your profile is optimized for your niche topic and that you are sharing great content on a regular basis consistently.
This is a platform where users enjoy the use of hashtags, so make sure you are targeting people with relevant keywords in your hashtags so that your posts reach the appropriate audience.
TikTok is another platform where you need to reference the link to your landing page in your bio. Many people use tools like Linktree so that they can showcase their landing page in addition to links to products.
Like Instagram, you will want to post consistently and deliver valuable content through the use of short-form videos. YouTube has more flexibility with how you link out, so you can create content where each video, long or short, that sends people directly to your landing page.
Pinterest is another image-based social media platform. You can send people to individual posts on your blog or directly to the landing pages that you have set up with a variety of lead magnet slants.

This photo was taken by Lokman Sevim and is available on Pexels at https://www.pexels.com/photo/sea-nature-beach-sand-15183377/.

Can Free Events Be Leveraged to Gain More Subscribers?

Whenever you can share value for free, it goes a long way in convincing people that being on your list is a worthwhile adventure. Not only can you give away a lead magnet to get people on your list, but you can give them value ahead of time so that they want even more information from you and are willing to give their contact information in exchange for it.
The first thing you may want to do is host a webinar. Many people use these specifically to push products that they are launching, but you can use them for lead-generating purposes.
Instead of having a product that you are touting at the end or in the middle of the webinar, you can encourage people who are watching or listening to your webinar to go sign up for your list and download a free course from you.
Or, you can simply force people to register in order to attend the webinar and include an opt-in form that gives you permission to communicate with them via email autoresponder.
If you don’t want to put them on your list at that time, you can still have them register for the webinar and then send a confirmation email that allows them to get on your list officially.
If you only had people register for the webinar, you can also send them an email as a follow-up after the webinar has ended as a reminder that you have a free gift waiting for them if they want to subscribe to your list, but after that, you don’t want to continue email marketing to your webinar attendees unless they are on that list.
Another method that will allow you to get people on your list using a free event is a giveaway. Usually, one person will organize a giveaway event and invite several other vendors and competitors to participate.
There is usually one page created that will host all of the gifts that are being offered. You will provide a thumbnail image, a bit about what you are offering, and a link to your landing page where they can get on your list and download it.
The key is to not participate in any and all giveaway events but to pick and choose wisely who you partner up with. You want to participate in and give away events where the vendors are likely to have an identical audience to those you want on your list.
Instead of offering something older or previously launched, you want to create something exclusive just for this event so that people are more likely to get on your list just to get their hands on it.
With a giveaway event, all of the participants will work hard to promote the landing page, which gives you an opportunity to quickly and easily build your list using the effort others have put in alongside you.

This photo was taken by Lokman Sevim and is available on Pexels at https://www.pexels.com/photo/cold-snow-nature-fashion-15183376/.

Can Guest Blogging Help With Strategic Subscriber List Building?

Guest blogging is another great way you can build a list of targeted subscribers. The first thing you want to do is conduct some preliminary research to see which bloggers attract a target audience similar to what you want to put on your list.
Spend some time looking at their content, how often they publish, and their ranking to make sure that it will be worth your while to approach them with a guest blog offer. If the site doesn’t get very much traffic, it may not be worth spending your time on this strategy.
Whenever you create a guest blog post, you want to make sure that it is being offered exclusively to that one person. You don’t want them to have to publish duplicate content that someone else is already using on their domain when it is meant to be a perk that you are offering.
You want to focus on creating a well-written, comprehensive pillar blog post that has the potential to not only rank high in the Google SERPs (search engine results pages), But also stands a chance at becoming one of the answers for the People Also Ask section on Google or the Snippet Features.
If you simply create a short, thin content piece that has very little value to their readers, most bloggers will decline your request to participate as a guest blogger on their website.
If you create a post that has a lot of value to it, the blog owner will recognize the benefit of letting you post it to their domain in exchange for a byline that leads readers directly to your lead magnet landing page.
Ideally, the blogger will allow you to include a strong call to action with the link to help drive targeted traffic to the page. If and when you are allowed to publish the guest blog post on their site, make sure you promote it on your social media accounts so that it gains traction and is able to be shared by others.

This photo was taken by Lokman Sevim and is available on Pexels at https://www.pexels.com/photo/city-nature-art-landmark-15223932/.

Do Product Launches Offer Subscriber List Building Opportunities?

One of the best list-building methods that you can do as a marketer who is looking to add subscribers is to launch a product of your own. But you have to do it the right way, or it will be ineffective and a waste of time.
Start by figuring out a product that will be highly in demand by your target audience. If there is any cutting-edge news or strategies that you know people want to know more about, choose something of that nature.
You can create a video or text-based course that you sell on platforms like ClickBank, JVZoo, or Warrior Plus. You want to make sure that you have a funnel planned and in place that will allow you to attract the top affiliates to promote for you.
You want the front end to be relatively low priced, if not free, so that you can get people on your list with very low objections or hesitation. However, you need to make it worthwhile for affiliates to promote for you.
You can do that with a funnel where the upsells have a significant dollar value in total, allowing affiliates to monetize their promotion. Another thing you may want to do to attract affiliates is to implement a contest.
You can set up a cash prize contest where the winners have to achieve a minimum number of sales in order to win a prize. That way, you won’t be out of pocket if not enough sales come in, but you’ll be able to pay out your prize winnings.
You want to spend as much time on your joint venture (JV) page to recruit affiliates as you do on your sales copy. If you are not enticing enough top affiliates to promote for you, it will result in a failed lead-generating campaign.
There are other perks you can offer certain affiliates in order to get them on board for your launch. These include things like giving them a bump in commission, allowing them to promote during an early bird session exclusively, or giving them a spot on your download page for a banner ad.
Make sure you send them a review copy in advance so that they have time to go over it and get their promotions ready beforehand. Don’t wait until the last minute to contact people.
If you want to go above and beyond, you can make an exclusive bonus that some of your top affiliates can give to their list. But if they don’t want that, giving them enough time to create a bonus is crucial.
Whenever you set up your product funnel listing on a platform, make sure you have connected your email autoresponder so that a confirmation e-mail is automatically sent to those who buy your product.
Once you have people on your list from their purchase, make sure you immediately give them a gift and tell them what to expect so that you are able to keep them on your list after their purchase.
You also want to make sure that you have a link inside the product to the landing page. There will be some people who fail to confirm their subscription after they purchase your product but decide to get on your list at a later date after seeing the value you provide.

This photo was taken by Lokman Sevim and is available on Pexels at https://www.pexels.com/photo/light-city-road-landscape-15223931/.

Can Exclusive Partnership Promos Be Leveraged to Build a Subscriber List

If you don’t want to go through a public launch promo, where you are trying to juggle many different affiliates all at once, you can arrange an exclusive partnership where one of your top competitors with a large list of subscribers gets to promote a product that you create without having to compete with others.
What you want to do in this situation is find someone whose list you want to replicate and create a product that is specifically tailored to the needs of their followers. You want to take a look at what they have launched in the past or spy on previous leaderboards to see what other products converted well for their list so that you will have a better idea of what will go over well.
Go through the same steps to create a front end and upsell(s) that will make it worthwhile for them to promote. Once you have everything in place, approach the other marketer with the opportunity.
You want to make sure that they know this is an exclusive arrangement just for them and that you will be offering certain perks such as 100% commission on the front end or a readymade bonus that they can use in their promotion.
You really only want to go to these great lengths for marketers who have a very responsive or big list. If you find a marketer who only has 500 subscribers and they are unable to break into a leaderboard with a promo, it’s probably not worth putting effort into an exclusive arrangement.
You can even create the swipe files so that they can simply plug in their link and the email into their autoresponder system without having to lift a finger. Make sure that you send them a review copy and all of the details they may need.

This photo was taken by Lokman Sevim and is available on Pexels at https://www.pexels.com/photo/sea-nature-fashion-beach-15223916/.

Can Podcasting Help Build a List of Subscribers?

Podcasts are something more and more people are tuning into. They do it while multitasking, usually ‘ either on a commute or while working, doing chores around the house, etc.
You can create a niche podcast at no cost using a platform like Anchor.fm and have it syndicated across other platforms. You don’t need any special equipment ‘ a smartphone will do.
The key to succeeding with lead generation through a podcast is to come up with an amazing topic that people will be interested in listening to. You can have podcast episodes at any length.
Some people even have 60-second podcasts, although 20-minute episodes are more common. You want to make sure you give it a professional intro and outro (and you can get one made on Fiverr if you need to).
In order to lead generate from your podcast, you want to have a call to action within your episode, at the beginning, middle, and end, if possible, where you encourage listeners to go to a simple URL and download a free gift.
You can also create show notes for your podcast episode, and in these, you can include a hyperlink to your landing page so they can get on your email list at any point during the episode.
Sometimes, podcasters will collaborate with each other to cross-promote content to their target audience. You need to make sure you have similar audiences before approaching anyone for that kind of arrangement.
You still need to optimize your podcast by using good search engine optimization techniques with keywords, descriptions, tags, etc. Whenever you get a new episode up, make sure you promote it on social media for more exposure.
With podcasts, people like to feel like they are part of the show. You can set up a phone number and allow people to call in with questions or leave messages about your content, which you can showcase and discuss on a future episode.
In order to make sure people get hooked on your podcast and sign up to your list, make sure you consistently publish new episodes and have a set schedule, so people know when to tune in.

This photo was taken by Lokman Sevim and is available on Pexels at https://www.pexels.com/photo/sea-nature-fashion-beach-15223919/.

Can Word of Mouth Referrals Be Added to a Subscribers List?

Never underestimate the power of word-of-mouth referrals. Whenever people want to know who can help them, they will often point to a particular niche leader that can give them the advice and insight they need.
If you treat your list right and serve their needs with valuable content, they will speak up on your behalf, and those personalized recommendations hold more weight than any copy could.
Some marketers incentivize word-of-mouth referrals. But often, simply making sure they know they have the ability to live and share your content is enough. Word of mouth isn’t a super fast way of list building, but it is an effective one, and it will snowball as your audience grows.

This photo was taken by Lokman Sevim and is available on Pexels at https://www.pexels.com/photo/sea-nature-fashion-beach-15223917/.