Author: blogmakingschool

The great thing about the mail list, and the whole subscribers based model of promotion, monetization, and running your blog is that it is incredibly scalable. That being said, you are better off starting earlier. And there are couple of things to have in mind. Acting the teacher part here, my contention is that separating these steps into clusters will make it both easier as well as concise.

For the purpose of keeping true to chronology they are as follows:

• Achieving whatever it is that you want to achieve with the list

Creating brand advocates, promoting affiliate offers, selling your own stuff… Whatever your goal is, it is crucial having figured out this upfront.

• Mapping the strategy

This is rather important, since in a way it dictates your entire approach towards how you are going to reach your goals

• Getting the subscribers

This, my friends, is the realm of conversion optimization. There is a whole chapter ahead in this book that will provide you with few dozens of selected gems, so here we will only explore its application to getting the most subscribers possible

What is your goal?

Why I keep stressing the importance of this one? Simple, really. Knowing what you want directs you in choosing how to approach visitors when you intent on turning them into subscribers. It also sets the tune for the content you are about to be sending them; the offers too, if any, as well as the subtle asking of them to do this or that.

Take for example a blog that has a broader niche. What do you think the unsubscribe rate is going to be if people who sign up with their e-mails start receiving content that is unrelated 50% of the time. Math is hard, so let me share my two cents from personal experience- an awful lot.

Therefore, you should have in mind which audience gets what.

That's why I get slightly irritated when I hear people talking about one mail list. If your niche is broad, or even if you approach subscribers with different intents, one single list is not going to cut it. You will need more.

For example, if you have a blog about healthy living, it goes without saying that those who enjoy diet related topics might not find fitness articles equally appealing.

Also, if you plan on selling something, it is important to figure out what first and even plan a sequence of related content that will serve as an introduction to the sale. This is called an automated e-mail sequence. Making one will put this process on automation because otherwise it can get quite overwhelming to keep track.

This way, whenever a visitor becomes a subscriber, he will start receiving the mails in the same sequence. Planning this sequence upfront, as you might imagine, is probably the most important aspect of the whole game. Aweber is a mail service that does this to perfection, offering you a wide range of options to automate the whole process in a very easy and straightforward way.

Mapping the strategy

Once you know your "why's" it is time for setting the wheels and getting the machinery up and running. Couple of things here as well.

Having in mind where your goals meet, you probably have the content all figured out. Great, now is the time to create it. Pictures, infographics, text… whatever it is, have it all ready, and keep true to the sequence.

It is also wise to figure out the sweet spot where you can include your affiliate offers or, even better, slightly push your product.

The great thing about e-mail conversion rates is that it tends to get higher even without knowing what the hell it is that you are doing. Why is this so, you ask? The simple answer would be having the right audience. If someone is ready to leave his address and agrees to receive content from you, it goes without saying that he will be more biased towards whatever it is that you are sending him.

Tend to keep the promotions to as low as possible though, since it is really cheesy and even considered rude to send one after another. My advice would be lots of content over time, and only one big offer. You can experiment with this to your hearth's content, but have in mind that the conversion tends to get higher if you are willing to invest more time and more content before pitching your offer.

We started mentioning monetization more than I had in mind for this far into the subject. So let me trackback a little.

The strategy also includes the design of your newsletter, which is better to keep true to your brand, as well as the exclusiveness when it comes to the content. For it is far better having content only for your subscribers. It makes them feel respected, special, making the whole thing personal. And this is not far from the actual truth of how things really are.

Aiming for the right subscribers is far more important than just building the number up. This is how people with small mail lists end up making big buck on launch days when they offer a product or a service.

Search traffic always convers better than, say, traffic sent from Stumble Upon. Have this in mind when you structure the opt-in form on every landing page. If people enter your site through Google, on a post that talks about fitness, it is great having your opt-in form centered towards whatever the post is discussing about. This falls into the category of conversion optimization, but it helps here too.

Another great tip when it comes to what type of content to put into rotation. Old articles, things that did well in the past, topics that regained popularity… Sometimes, as it did happened for me, this practice ends up with old articles going viral. So think about it.

Back to monetization now, shall we.

When I talk monetization I always tilt towards passive approach. That way I can focus on the stuff that excite me, and leave money to generate by themselves. Generate by themselves- it sounds nice, now doesn't it? Here is something to wrap your mind around.

Imagine you are in the parenthood niche. Nightmarish projection for some I believe, but bear with me. You get subscribers, and start sending them content. Every next mail in the sequence gives valuable advice on some rather important issues and then, when the mood is right, you promote an even more valuable piece of information, say a book, that costs 49$. If the information so far has been valuable, chances are people will buy the book. Now here is some math for you:

• You get 10 email subscribers per day
• You have a 10% unsubscribe rate
• 9 subscribers see the final email
• You convert about 20%
• You make $49 per day
• $49 x 365 days in a year = $17,885

And this is only from the top of my head. Invest yourself, let your creativity roar still further, and there is no telling what these numbers might look like.

Getting thousands of subscribers

Having in mind how small the number of people unsubscribing is after you set everything right, it goes without saying that you will spike the number of your subscribers in less time than you initially hoped.

So what are the tricks that convert more visitors into subscribers?

By now, you probably understand the importance of good design. Contrast in colors usually works better for opt-in boxes, but placement is crucial too.

For placement there are couple of options:

1. The basic approach is placing the sign up box right on the sidebar. Using a widget that makes the sidebar slide downwards as the visitor scrolls down usually makes up for a better conversion.

Another basic approach would be placing the sign in box right below the content. Opt-in skin is a great plugin that allows you to place both the share buttons as well as the sign up form into one. It is easy to use and surprisingly customizable.

1. Another option are the pop-ins, or the sliding sign up forms. Now I understand perfectly why people perceive these as spam, since it is rude making them appear right after someone sets foot on your site. The right thing here would be to make these appear after the visitor stays a certain time on the page, or after he reaches a certain point by scrolling down. This not only makes the practice far more acceptable, but it also increases the conversion rate.

2. Another idea is to leave a check-in box for people to click after they write a comment or do something on your site. Though this converts poorly, it is still an option I feel obligated to share.

3. What converts probably the best is having a redirect page. So how does this work? After someone leaves a comment, or interacts with your content in any way, you redirect him to a special page where you ask him to leave his mail in exchange for something. That something may easily be a promise for exclusive content, or even a free e-book, anything that has value. This technique, at least for me, tends to convert the best.

What is also very important to add is leveraging social proof. As with building up trust and authority, same applies here. Find a way to portray social proof, and conversions go up.

Sometimes it is also wise to prepare every future subscriber on what to expect. A twitter case study showed that those who include a tiny sentence on what future followers should expect from them usually convert more, i.e. have a larger following.

Another very important piece of the puzzle is understanding how incentive works. Studies show that including the word free into the copy tend to greatly increase conversion rates. Following this logic, offering a free resource or a book does seem promising. But, as both knowledge and experience thought me, offering some "ultra" resource sometimes pushes people away from subscribing. Think about it. Almost no one I know will invest the time in reading yet another free book that will somehow magically going to enlighten him all of the sudden. Me, you, and most likely every visitor on your site is not going to commit himself to reading a 100 page e-book.

What I advise you to go after is something more of a quick fix. A one page pdf file, a single list of useful tools, 10 easy and no-brainer tricks that do the work… Something that the visitor is going to perceive as a quick payback for the action of giving you his mail address.

This, in a nutshell, gives you all the knowledge you need in order to build a massive mail list, and then leverage it in order to promote your site, create brand advocates, put old content back into rotation, as well as make money in numbers you will find to be very surprising. Once you get the grip on these principles and techniques, you can improvise to your heart's content and probably come up with even more creative solutions on how to improve every segment of this strategy.