Effective ways to build your list of contacts
Effective ways to build your list of contacts.
Some online marketers think that a lead generation form and a freebie are all you need to start a list. They make whatever free gift is easiest for them to make and put it on a landing page with a simple message that says “Download this free gift.”
The sad part is that they are surprised when this method doesn’t work to get website visitors to sign up for their email list. After all, they did the work to set up the form and give the public something for free.
So, where is the problem then? The catch is that you are competing with hundreds or even thousands of other marketers who want the same subscribers as you. Many people won’t give you daily access to their email inbox unless they think what you have to say has some value.
So, you can’t just use any free download as an excuse to make a landing page. You need to write content for your landing page and make a lead magnet that makes the visitor feel like they can’t refuse your offer.
You’ll find a simple 10-step plan for getting subscribers and making your business stand out in a market full of specialized businesses.
Get a free gift that most businesses would never give away.
But just because something is free doesn’t mean that people who visit your site will find it useful. In fact, if you try to get people on your list by giving them a freebie that isn’t very good, they will leave your URL right away in search of a more reliable source of information.
A bad example of a lead magnet is a title like “Tips for Losing Weight.” Common tips like “stay hydrated” and “watch how much you eat” are so basic that the reader will already know them.
If you want a visitor to give you their contact information, your gift needs to seem more valuable than it is. Because of this, people can be very protective of their inboxes, and spam is something that no one wants to deal with all the time.
If you haven’t taken the time to make a lead magnet that makes you stand out from every other marketer and website on the web, your potential customers will be less likely to take a chance on you.
The first thing to do is find out what your potential subscribers want and need. If they have clear goals, you should pay attention to the details instead of the big picture.
Weight loss could be a goal for many of the people you want to reach. Still, there may be a large number of people who want to learn about calorie deficit weight loss strategies. These involve figuring out how much food to eat every day and adjusting calorie needs to match.
The higher the conversion rate of your landing page, the more detailed you can be about the lead magnet you offer without turning away potential subscribers.
Keep in mind that you can offer different lead magnets to prospects on different landing pages.
By looking at search engine results for certain keywords, you can find out a lot about what people need and want. Your keyword research should reveal not only the goals your target audience wants to achieve with your content but also the problems they want to solve.
Depending on your field, this could sometimes be very painful for your body. Sometimes, though, they just have a mental block that keeps them from achieving their goal.
Whether you use a free or paid keyword tool, you’ll be able to research a wide range of broad and long-tail keywords and phrases that can help you come up with interesting free opt-in offers. Lead magnets can be made by putting together different ideas, which can be very useful in some situations.
You could also look at online discussion groups to find out more about the problems that your potential customers need to be solved. They talk about how frustrated they are that there aren’t enough resources in their niche and how the market isn’t giving them what they need.
You can also find out what your market wants by looking at the full range of products that your competitors sell. If they are already interested in buying the product, they are much more likely to sign up for your free gift if it has something to do with the product they want to buy.
Many people make their lead magnet offer quickly because they are eager to start growing their mailing list. Others, on the other hand, take their time and come up with an amazing offer that customers can’t refuse because of the value it represents.
If you take the time to make a full course on a certain topic and use it as your opt-in offer, your lead magnet page is more likely to work. If you’re on the fence about giving up potential earnings, think about how building a large list of subscribers who buy your products and click on your affiliate links will help you in the long run.
Also, you should think about making your lead magnet available in more than one way. Text, video, and sound are all good ways to talk to someone. You can make your eBook more valuable to your customers by turning it into something else, like a video course with many episodes or an audiobook that can be downloaded.
You can try to offer all of these on a single lead magnet page, or you can test them out separately to see which ones work best. Multimedia offers can often make the difference between losing a visitor because your content doesn’t interest them and gaining one because you have something for everyone.
How to Make a Landing Page That Works
You should use clear, concise language on your landing page to draw attention to the freebie you’re giving away. Most people who come to your site will be sent here in hopes of getting on your mailing list.
If you have a landing page for your sign-up form, visitors won’t be able to get distracted by the rest of your site and end up not signing up. Visitors to your landing page only have two choices: to sign up for your service or to leave the page.
The content on your landing page should only be above the fold. So, the site visitor won’t have to scroll down to see the rest of the article. You should make things as easy as you can.
With so little space, it’s important to make the most of every word and cut out anything that doesn’t directly help you achieve your goal of turning visitors into subscribers.
Marketers usually work hard to come up with one or two headlines that show how valuable the free offer is. You might have a main headline and a secondary headline, for example.
Then, you could show them a picture of the freebie you’re sending them, along with a bulleted list of its features and the problems it would solve or goals it would help them achieve.
There will also be a form made for you to add to the homepage. Don’t ask too many detailed questions. This will make people not want to sign up. Instead, ask them for their first name and email address so you can send them messages that are more relevant to them.
Do not start a conversation with a stranger by asking for personal information like his or her address, phone number, or date of birth. If you need this information in the future, you can send a survey to your list of people who are happy with the value you offer.
You should put a short call to action right above the form that tells them exactly what they need to do. So, it should stress how important it is to take advantage of this chance while it’s still free.
Many marketers no longer use headlines and bullet points on their landing pages. Instead, they use videos. You could also use a landing page that has both video and text, but make sure everything is visible above the fold.
With a hybrid landing page, you can give all of your visitors a multimedia experience that meets their needs. Some people may want to watch your video to see how trustworthy you are before they give you their personal information.
Write compelling copy for a landing page. You can’t just say, “Download this freebie,” and think that will be enough to get people interested. No, that’s not true. Then you won’t have done anything with your time.
Find out what has worked on other landing pages and what makes for a good short copy (not a long copy with lots of storylines). Your landing page should be powerful and get people to sign up quickly.
Keep yourself from getting any kind of attention.
Surprisingly, many new marketers skip the important step of making their signup forms widely available. They only have one landing page, which they rarely promote.
They are hoping that it will be found by accident or get good search engine results (search engine results pages). But the amount of information on such sites is usually not enough to beat the rankings of sites with longer articles.
You should still have a landing page that actually works. This will be the main place you send people to from your social media pages and other places. If you send them to your blog, where your sign-up form is hidden in the sidebar, there is a higher chance that they will get distracted and never sign up.
Adding more people to your list is definitely helped by the sidebar. If you are a good blogger, you will probably start getting traffic from search engine results pages and links that other people have shared.
Even if the visitor came to read your content, if they like it or are interested in the niche topic, they will be drawn to the image and form in your sidebar for the chance to win a free gift.
You can get email addresses for your mailing list from the footers and sidebars of your blog posts. When a reader gets to the end of a post you’ve written, the sidebar form might not be visible anymore.
If you put an opt-in form and a call to action at the end of your posts, people who like what you’ve written will be more likely to sign up for your mailing list.
You can put a call to action and a link to sign up for your list in a bar at the top of your blog or website, but you can also advertise it in other places.
You can make these bars look like the rest of your site’s navigation, but visitors will still notice them. There is a plug-in that can help you do this. The visitor will be taken to a landing page on your site where they can enter their information to get the freebie.
Many marketers use pop-ups because they can be used at any point in a visitor’s journey. You can set a pop-up window to appear 10 seconds after a visitor arrives on your site or right before they leave.
Sign-up forms that tell you what to do, like “Wait! Please take a moment before you leave to get my freebie, “10 Diet Tips That Are Stopping You From Losing Weight.”
Depending on the sites you use and the software you use, you may be able to use your social media profiles to start an email marketing subscriber list. For example, if you want to add an opt-in form to your Facebook page, Aweber tells you how to do it in detail.
You can also let people know about your lead magnet offer by using signature files in online forums and email. These are easy-to-use “set it and forget it” settings that make sure your signature always has a link that people can click on whenever you talk to them.
The best way to improve how well your list-building efforts work is to test them in different ways.
Split testing is not just something that vendors do before a product launch, as many people think. Email marketing and the process of building a list are both good options. In spite of what some people may think, the process is actually very easy.
You can create more than one landing page and then compare them. Keep in mind that you will be making changes to the form’s media format (text or video), headers, subheadings, bullet points, and more.
Images and colors of products, as well as the size and style of the font, can be tested to see what makes customers most interested. People could try out different “calls to action” to see which ones actually get people to sign up.
Make sure to test only one variable at a time when you compare two pages. If you make more than one change, you won’t be able to figure out which one caused conversions to go up or down.
Split testing should be done on even the real freebies. To get more people to sign up, you need to know what kinds of freebies your target audience would like to get. This could include things like templates and checklists that don’t have much to say.
Some examples of this are in-depth case studies and discussions that focus on specialized issues instead of general ones. They might be more interested in quick fixes or “hacks” than in simple explanations of the topic.
When you make content for your subscribers, think big.
People who find your site by accident should feel like they’ve found something special. Customers aren’t likely to sign up for your mailing list if they can read your helpful content without giving you any personal information.
“Subscriber-Only” blog posts that require a password to read are a surefire way to get more people to sign up. The key to being successful is having useful things to say in your public blog posts.
They are left wondering how much more value there is beyond what they are already getting as free users. For this to work, you should regularly add subscriber-only content to your blog.
Subscribers are more likely to stay with the blog because they know that if they unsubscribe, they will no longer be able to read the exclusive blog content. Of course, once a month isn’t enough to see real results, so you’ll have to keep at it.
Make sure that your blog has a page just for subscribers that explains how to get in. When users see “subscribers only,” they might not know where your opt-in form is right away.
They need to be shown how to use it before they can use it. You should explain what subscriber-only content is and why only subscribers can see it. Then, you should tell people how to become subscribers so they can see the restricted content.
There are many ways to make premium content that only paying customers can see. Closed case studies on password-protected blog posts let readers see how you put a course into action or share the results.
If you want, you can add a full series. Instead of giving a general summary in a public article, you could give detailed instructions with both text and embedded videos or screenshots in a password-protected section of your site.
You could even create a password-protected blog series with free group coaching for your subscribers. You can give them a challenge that will last for a certain amount of time, like 14 or 30 days.
Here, people can listen to and think about your lecture, share their thoughts, and ask questions of the other subscribers. You need to show that you are a helpful, easy-to-reach marketer who cares about how well your subscribers do when they follow your advice.
Use social media to tease potential subscribers.
By promoting it on social media, you can get a lot of qualified visitors to your landing page where you collect email addresses. Leaders in a certain field can connect with their followers on a more personal level in these settings.
Your first goal on social networking sites should be to show that you can be trusted. Your suggestions should be based on the problems and goals of the people in your specific group. They don’t need to be long pieces of information, but they do need to be consistent.
Many niche marketers only show up once in a while, but a daily (or more frequent) presence can show your audience that you are committed to meeting their needs.
Join in their talk to show that you care about what they have to say. Take the time to respond to the comments on your Facebook post or TikTok video if they are appropriate.
Use as many different kinds of media as you can on each platform. You can share a video, a picture, or some text on Facebook. It gives people who like to talk to you in different ways a chance to hear your ideas and thoughts.
If you post a lot of useful content on social media, you need teasers to get people interested in subscribing. You could say something like, “I sent this to my list, but if you missed the email and are a subscriber, you can now access my private class on (insert topic) for free here.” and a link to a blog post with content that only subscribers can see.
You could also include a note that says something like, “Join the list here if you haven’t already, and I’ll send you the password.” Because no one wants to miss out on an exclusive event, this teaser will make people want to send in their contact information.
That happens often on YouTube channels that get a lot of views. They have a lot of content that anyone can see, and both subscribers and people who just want to watch it like it. But in a letter to Patreon backers, they will say that they will get access to behind-the-scenes footage that will make people who don’t back them green with envy.
Create a small group of content that will get people to sign up.
Visitors who aren’t sure if they want to sign up for your list will probably do some research to see if it’s worth it to do so. The vast majority of bloggers don’t put in the time and effort needed to write well, find new ideas, or really lead their specialized audience.
Instead, they put up random content so that search engines will index it and send people to their site. Only a very small number of people put in the extra work to make a good blog with useful content, and those are the people who can easily build up a large email list.
Blog entries are plentiful, but quality, long-form pieces are rare. These are the long articles that go into detail about well-known topics.
Some marketers even use plugins that let readers save the post as a PDF and download it to their computer since these posts are often so long that they can be turned into a PDF report.
If your free offerings have a lot of value, people will want to join your list to get more tips and information. This is because businesses with a good reputation put their customers first when deciding how to spend their money.
These foundational blog posts will not only impress your visitors, but they will also do better on search engine results pages. This will increase the number of people who find your site on their own, which will lead to more people signing up.
Your blog’s success could make you want to give your paying subscribers an exclusive upgrade. You’ll have access to content that is only available to subscribers, but these extra materials will make a lesson more interesting and useful.
To make sure that people who read your blog see the option to sign up for instant access to the upgrade, you can have an image made that explains it and put it at the end of the post with the sign-up form.
Hold a competition with the right opponents.
Participating in a giveaway event is a great way to reach more people and add new names to your mailing list. You can invite as few as five marketers or as many as fifty, depending on what you need.
When you set up a promotion, you will be taken to a single sales page that lists all of the stores that are taking part. Each contributor will get a short segment that has as much information as a landing page and a link to download their offer.
They can sign up for the free offer and get the download by clicking that link, which will take them to a landing page made just for that seller. If a group of marketers decides to hold a giveaway, each prize will have a short description on the landing page where their mailing lists will be sent.
There isn’t just one huge archive that you can look through. Some marketers have used this method and just swapped lists, but this could cause problems. Instead, each person has their own form to fill out in order to register for the event.
Because visitors might end up on a lot of mailing lists, they might be more careful about which links they click on. Use good graphics and persuasive language to make your entry stand out and make it more likely that people will sign up for your offer.
You can always throw your own giveaway event if you weren’t invited to one. You might get an invite if you network with other marketers in your niche. You only need a page builder and the ability to find the right people to attend to each listing.
You should make sure that everyone you work with has a good reputation and makes good products. Some people will hand out small bonuses, while others will hand out long training programs. You want the guests to be so impressed that they can’t help but buy from you.
If you have trouble finding people to help, you can hold a giveaway event by yourself. Using a platform like RafflePress, you can plan your event and collect email addresses from people who are interested in exchanging them for a chance to win a prize that will only be given to a small number of people.
If you decide to do this, you should give those who didn’t win the grand prize something to cheer them up after the system has picked the winners. This doesn’t have to be a big thing, but it should be something important.
Take part in podcasts, webinars, and other events in the media world.
It can be hard to find reliable hosts for podcasts, webinars, and other projects like these. Start making your own and let people know you’re available.
Others may come to you and ask if you’ll do the same for them. You’ll get more exposure without spending anything but your time. In all three of these situations, the people who might be interested in your content can get a taste of who you are and what you have to offer.
The best way to record an interview is with a split-screen so that both the interviewer and the person being interviewed can be seen and heard. When you’re the one doing the interviewing, you can still show your worth by taking the lead, asking smart questions, and adding to the conversation after the subject has spoken.
Most podcasts only have audio, but some hosts also stream live videos of their shows. When you have interesting guests on your podcast regularly or show up on other podcasts, you can build a loyal fan base with just audio.
Webinars don’t have a good name in the world of digital advertising. Some people have taken advantage of it by using it only to send spam to people who visit their sites. Instead of trying to force people to buy things and scare them away, you could show them how you can help them and then, like in an interview or podcast, send them to a page where they can get a free, complete gift from you.
It’s obvious that you should launch a product, so it makes sense to go for the email lists of influential affiliates.
During a product launch, affiliates who send traffic to your offer give you the chance to get their readers. You can get your strongest opponents to join your launch team if you know who they are.
These names need to fit with the niche you’re trying to reach. Getting a keto diet expert who sends 100,000 people to a list about carbs is a waste of money.
Your message won’t get through to the people you want to hear it. To start your business off on the right foot, you need to find people who teach the same thing you do.
You shouldn’t think that your competitors won’t help your business get the word out. In truth, the opposite is true. They can make money just by telling other people about the products. They don’t have to make the products themselves.
By signing up for their mailing list, you can find out what your top competitors and potential affiliates have been pushing on social media and their blogs.
Find out how they test the quality of products and what they think will do well on their list. When you do, you can use what you’ve learned to make a product that your competitors will want to buy.
Make sure the brand’s image and the products it usually sells go together. You’ll need more than just a great front-end product for your affiliate marketing campaign to work.
You want at least one upgrade offer, and two would be even better. To get the best affiliates, you can sweeten the deal by paying them 100% on the front end and 50% on the upgrade offers.
Also, the cost at the beginning must be high enough to matter. Don’t expect them to be thankful if you charge them $3–$5 upfront and make 100% of that back. This can be changed to a $17–27 start, a $47 upgrade, or a $97 upgrade.
You can really seal the deal and get affiliates on board with your list-building goal by giving bonuses to the best people and making swipe files just for them based on the style and tone of the emails you’ve seen them send.
Give them enough time to review the product and set up a promotion, but don’t bother them until it’s ready. Even if you do all the work for them, they might not agree if they only have a day or two to think about it.
The parts of list building that have to do with technology are only a small part of the whole. The key is to plan ahead and make people think twice about turning down your offer.
This is also something that never stops. You won’t do this once and then never think about it again. You must always get new subscribers. You can do this through social media, blogs, or the release of brand new products.
To add to that, don’t worry if someone drops off of your list. There will always be a process of finding the best niche leader. So, you can’t make everyone happy.
Now, if a lot of people leave your list or if people sign up and then unsubscribe within a week, you might want to think about what you’re doing in light of the value you said you would provide on your landing page.
Maybe you didn’t provide the service you said you would. If you’re having trouble coming up with content for list building, like blog posts, social media posts, or even products and lead magnets, you can use pre-written private label rights (PLR) content as-is or change it to better reflect your thoughts and ideas.
If you have the money, you could also hire freelance ghostwriters who know a lot about your topic to help you come up with list-building content and get more people to sign up for your list.
They can be found on many websites, like Fiverr and Upwork. If you buy PLR or have someone else write list-building content for you, always check the quality of the writing and the information it gives to your new readers.
