25 Pro Strategies for Building Your Email List Like a Boss

Do you want to try your hands at email marketing? Here are 25 ideas to help your help you get more people signing up for your newsletter, and build a bigger list of potential customers.

I want to help you get to the first thousand signups to your newsletter mailing list, so you can see how easy it is to get the next thousand.

Landing Pages to Capture

1. Blogs generally don’t convert very well. Be sure to have a landing page. Better still, turn your blog into a landing page with a sign-up action copy at the top of each page. You might get 1 to 3% from your sidebar opt-in form, but the landing pages convert like crazy as there’s no distraction.

2. Headlines are important, especially on landing pages. So spend some time crafting a killer one.

3. Give your visitors a compelling reason to subscribe. They won’t do it just because you have the email signup form.

4. Keep the distractions away. Give them only two options on this page: opt-in or leave out. If you have the right elements, they’ll sign up.

5. Provide them with multiple opportunities to enter their email address. One above the “fold” and one for the “scrollers”.

6. Use social proof. If they see that others have taken that step and subscribed, they’ll be more likely to do so.

7. Don’t ask for too much information so soon. This transaction marks the beginning of the relationship, you don’t need much more than a name and an email address to start building trust.

Content is King

8. Sell your offer, even if it’s free. Free is a powerful word, but it’s not enough. Free junk doesn’t cut it…show me why it’s wonderful!

9. When writing the copy for your offer, always focus on the reader. Remind them of the problem and tell them how they can solve it with your free gift.

10. Remember, features don’t sell, benefits do.  Sell the sizzle, not the steak….the smell, the taste, the special occasion….not a slab of beef.

11. Use a call to action: Tell your visitors exactly what to do to sign up. Don’t assume they know what the next step is.

Your Content is the Bait

12. Your content should attract a targeted audience. These are the people who will eventually buy from you so make sure your future offers are congruent with the original free gift. Ex: I give a free e-book on setting up a blog…subsequent offers should target bloggers.

13. Don’t waste your guest posts traffic. If you have an opportunity to write for a completely new audience, don’t send them to your homepage. Send that traffic to your landing page for best results.

14. If you’re recording video and posting them on YouTube, send them to a landing page.

16. Your blog has a lot of valuable real estate. Don’t place ads where your subscription forms should be.

17. Experiment with new locations frequently. You never know how a pop-up or header bar will perform until you try it.

Promote, Promote, Promote

18. Lead generation is 50% “set and forget” technical stuff – and 50% promotion. Once you have everything up and running, ready to collect emails, spreading the word becomes your number one priority.

Get Personal

19. People want to learn from (and connect with) a real person – no matter how big your company is. Add personality to your content, landing pages and emails and your existing subscribers will share what you’re doing with their friends.

20. Reply to emails from your existing subscribers. Share more and you’ll get more.

Test Everything, Again

21. Don’t assume that everything you’re reading in this post will work for you. Or that once you implement these ideas, that’s the best you’ll do. Test everything.

22. Test the different locations that you’re placing your opt-in form.

23. Test the headline and copy of your landing pages. Use different words.

24. Test the layout of the landing page. Move stuff around.

Images & Visual Appeal

25. Don’t ignore the image. It can be the difference between success and failure. Once one of my ads wasn’t performing, and then it converted at 10% after using another image. If you don’t have one, add one. If you do, try taking it off. Try multiple images and test the results to find the one that helps get maximum results.

You’re not building a list of emails, you’re building a list of people who are actively searching for a solution to their problems.