Back in 2006 I decided it was time to build my first email list.
I had been blogging for just over a year at that point, and had over five years experience running websites already under my belt, yet I had never created an email newsletter or list of any kind.
Finally, after repeat recommendations from countless internet marketing experts stating that the “money is in the list” and similar comments from successful entrepreneurs, claiming your “business is only as good as your database”, I realized there might be something to this idea.
I went out and did some research on what methods I could use to create an email newsletter. I concluded after reading forums and blogs that using a third party service was the best option if I wanted to minimize spam complaints and maximize deliverability. Deliverability, which means how good your email list service is at actually getting your messages out to your subscribers, turned out to be a very critical component for successful email marketing, so this became my top priority.
Although there were many reputable providers in the email autoresponder market, including GetResponse and Constant Contact, AWeber consistently demonstrated the best reputation based on my research.
I made up my mind and paid the roughly $20 to register an AWeber email autoresponder account, which I still use to this day.
My First Newsletter
My very first newsletter, the blog traffic tips newsletter branded under the blog traffic king name (which I ended up retiring because I got sick of the jokes from my friends), started off well enough. I had my blog redesigned to include an opt-in box, and created my first landing page at BlogTrafficKing.com, coding the entire page myself, making the process much more painful and slow than it needed to be.
My blog had over 1,000 RSS subscribers when I launched my list, and roughly 500 to 1,000 unique visitors dropping by each day as well. This translated into 10 to 20 newsletter opt-ins a day, which I considered pretty good, though at the time I hadn’t optimized the opt-in area of my blog with good copy or video like I have today.
I continued to write my blog posts and started to write one email newsletter a week as well.
Slowly but surely my list grew. At the start of 2007, about a year later after adding the newsletter to my blog, I had 3,000 email subscribers. It was a good start, and I had a platform to grow my business from.
Ramp Up Lead Generation
I don’t like the term “lead generation” because it dehumanizes the relationship between you and your subscriber.
People who join your list can be considered leads, and when you talk business talk with business folk, this is the language people understand. However I believe it’s much better if you look at each of your subscribers as a real person who has stuck up their hand as interested in forming a relationship of mutual benefit with you. These people are “members” of your community, not leads.
Regardless of the terminology, you’re going to need to figure out ways to increase the number of people who join your list. This was the challenge I faced, though at the time I was happy that I could simply keep blogging and people will continue to find me and join my list.
In 2007 I launched my first product called Blog Mastermind, which you very likely know about already as it’s plastered all over this blog and promoted by my affiliates on countless other blogs in the internet marketing and blogging industries.
As part of the launch process for this course, I wrote what has become the most well known report on how to make money from blogging, the Blog Profits Blueprint. To this day I continue to receive feedback from people that the Blueprint is the best document they have ever read about the subject of profitable blogging. Considering it’s three years old now, that says a lot about how foundational the Blueprint is – it really stands the test of time.
I wrote the Blueprint in five weeks, spending a couple of hours every single day writing one to two thousand words of the report. Once I released the Blueprint, the number of people who joined my email list ballooned. I went from 3,000 people at the start of 2007, to about 5,000 in the next few months leading up to the release of the Blueprint, to 15,000 subscribers after the launch of Blog Mastermind and the Blueprint.
What I didn’t see coming was the impact after I released the report. Having never done a launch before I didn’t understand the ripple effect post launch. Prior to launch I was maxing out at 30 to 50 new opt-ins a day. After the launch I was up to 100 to 150 a day.
Enter Social Media
In 2007 Twitter didn’t exist and Facebook wasn’t on my radar. Social media as a marketing force didn’t come into play for another year or two. From my perspective I was content simply writing blog posts and leveraging my free report to bring in new subscribers.
Over the next few years the online marketing landscape, and the blogosphere, became a whole lot more crowded. Facebook and Twitter became significant new sources of email subscribers, not to mention LinkedIn and other niche specific social community sites. Social recommendation tools like Digg, Stumbleupon and Delicious, which have the power to send hundreds of thousands of eyeballs at websites in a matter of hours, surfaced as powerful exposure tools.
And let’s not forget the mother of all social media sites – YouTube. Video wasn’t common when I started building my newsletter, but today it’s almost a mandatory requirement for every blogger and internet marketer to make use of. In fact it’s so powerful, you can leverage just exposure on YouTube, by publishing a consistent stream of videos and driving the viewers back to your blog to opt-in to your email list, as your main lead generation method.
(If you want more details on how to do this, I highly recommend Gideon Shalwick’s Rapid Video Blogging report and three-part video series. Gideon breaks down the marketing process for you in very finite detail. If you’re not capturing new subscribers from YouTube, this is the resource to check out.)
Did You Read Between The Lines?
It’s now four years since I started my first email newsletter. Today I have almost 70,000 email subscribers and I continue to attract an average of 100 new subscribers every day.
These people come to me by conducting a google search, coming across one of my blog articles and then opting-in for my report and newsletter. Or maybe they get referred by one of my affiliates. Perhaps a friend recommends my blog or report in real life in the traditional word of mouth fashion. Maybe they watch one of my videos on YouTube at my Yaro.TV channel and then come to my blog. Perhaps they read one of my tweets spread by my followers, or stumbleupon my content, or follow a facebook share, or read about my work in a forum.
Online lead generation – or list relationship building – is a very holistic process today. This is a good thing, as there are countless channels of traffic you can get in front of if you’re willing to do the legwork. There are fundamentals you have to lay in place in order for the machine to work, but there’s never a shortage of audience if you’re in a niche people care about.
You truly can diversify your exposure points and construct a very stable source of new subscribers that requires very little effort to maintain. I’m living proof of this concept, as our countless other bloggers who have followed similar content and marketing strategies.
If you read between the lines in this article (actually I made it blatantly obvious), I’ve talked about 14 methods to attract new subscribers to your email newsletter. In case you can’t figure it out, I’ve listed the methods for you below.
14 Methods To Grow Your Email List
- Register an AWeber account and start your first email list
- Add an opt-in box to your blog
- Create a dedicated landing page for your newsletter
- Giveaway a free report
- Create a product and promote it using a launch process
- Recruit affiliates to promote your resources
- Create a Facebook fan page with an opt-in landing page
- Build a Twitter following and release great content to encouraging retweets
- Create a LinkedIn profile and interact in the community to build your network
- Become a quality user of Digg, Stumpleupon or Delicious to build your reputation power
- Start a YouTube video marketing campaign to drive traffic back to your blog and newsletter
- Buy a specific domain name just for branding your videos (like Yaro.TV)
- Encourage word of mouth and viral distribution by creating content that changes your industry
- Participate in on-topic conversations in leading forums in your industry
If you enjoyed this article, please tweet it, share it on Facebook or on your preferred social network. And of course, if you haven’t done so already, please join my email newsletter on this page (enter your name and email to join).
Yaro Starak
List Builder
Great post, Yaro. Look forward to trying these steps out soon. It’s amazing how quickly things come about. I too can barely remember when Twitter came about and back in 2007, even though I knew about Facebook and had just created an account, it was merely something of a novelty to keep up with the Jones, so to speak.
Yaro,
I have been hearing that newsletter and list building is important. However, when you are starting out, putting out content, link building, twitter, facebook, comments on your blog, commenting on other blogs and other activities can be very time consuming. Unless, people automate the process or hire some assistant, one can be work horse, do you have any suggestions for that? how to do it all?
One step at a time in the most efficient order possible. The lowest hanging fruit to eliminate the most immediate constraint, and so on…
Yaro, this is the best tip for me at this moment. Thanks. The article is nice as always.
Hi Yaro
Every time I read your blog posts I’m always amazed at the information that you freely give, and how genuine and sincere your posts are.
This is what to me, makes your posts worth reading.
Thank you
Graham in UK
Excellent, well laid out post (as usual). Thank you!!
This will come in very handy as I’m ready to begin building my list now.
I enjoyed a fair amount of success in the offline world in different realms, and I must say I have a huge amount of respect for what you’ve done in the online IM realm. I only hope I can follow your lead without falling down too many more times.
Thanks for your post,
As somebody that’s on ‘your list’ for a pretty long time, I was wondering how
‘Me myself and I’ ended up on ‘your list’.
Thinking back, and taking ‘a walk down memory lane’ I realised
that it was Nr. 4, the Give away – the Blog Profits Bluepint – Free Report
BTW I think that it’s one of the best Reports on this subject
I have ever read!
An other tactics that I also like, and that you probably could call
a Giveaway also is a Mini-course, like for example a ’7-Day Mini-Course for Getting Traffic to your Site’ or something like that. I do think that it has the advantage that
you directly can Start to get the readers ‘tight attention’ for a few day’s in a row and instantly have them in an ‘Information Absorbing’-State.
All the Best,
To your Happy Inspiration,
HP
These are good tips, but I still find I get 90% of my subscribes from offering something free in exchange for their email.
Hi Yaro,
First of all let me say that this article has reached me in time of launch of my new website. Secondly, why is every blogger all of a sudden talking about email subscription and using email marketing? There seems to be a drastic shift from web marketing. Is there any reason for this?
Hi Yaro,
Awesome post…
:]
The best way i have found to incite people to register to newsletter is to offer exclusive reductions or private sales for the subscriber, and event with this tip it’s still very hard to have them give a valid e-mail address !
Great stuff, Yaro. I have a couple questions. First, what’s your approach to writing email titles (subject lines)? Have you experienced more success with vague titles – “You have to see this…” or more specific ones – “Product XYZ is fantastic and here’s why…” ?
And second, I’ve noticed too many internet marketers send an email, then follow up an hour or maybe a day later with something saying “I sent the wrong link last time, here’s the right one.” Is this an honest mistake or a sales tactic to send the same message more than once? If it’s a mistake, it happens an awful lot.
Thanks,
RJ
For email subjects I find shorter and personal ones work well, but they still need to be on topic.
The good old “how to…” always works well.
I would not want to send two emails to a list after screwing up the link, so it wouldn’t be a ploy by me because it would hurt my open rate and increase unsubscribers.
Love the list of 14 specific things to do, Yaro. I missed a few. Guess I’d better print out the list and use it as a “To Do” resource. Great useful info!
Once again you have come up with another great blog post. In my opinion your blog is the best on the internet. Keep up the good work Yaro. I’m heading to put some of these tactics to work right now!
Sean
Hey Yaro, awesome post and I think your blog design and theme is killer I know I am already on probably more than one of your lists. What a good idea to come up with a weekly newsletter. Right now I am offering a “free gift” for people that sign up as a subscriber. And you’re right to think these people are not just leads but real people. All I can say is never give up cause you’ll never know if you quit!
Joseph D
Great post Yaro, very insightful.
I think that the greatest tactic for attracting Email subscribes, however, cliché it might sound is providing great content. Without the content in place, there’s now point in employing these tatics. The first thing any blogger should concentrate on is their content, they shouldn’t worry about monetizing their site.
You can only be truly successful in business if you are doing the things that you find most passionate. If your passionate about what you do then this will come across in your content. Your passion for the content you provide, should not be centred around money, because ultimately this will not come across in your content and no matter what tactics you employ you’ll never be able to attract new Email subscribers.
Thanks, for the post, I will be trying out a few new things myself.
As usual Great post Mr Starak! I have recently finished reading your BPB (I must say its still a great Yarn) again before setting up my new blog at Internet Marketing 101 and on there I have my default AWeber form and a graphic (That I made myself) that reads “want a blog like this? download my FREE eBook “Blogging the easy way!”" as well as something very similar on my FB Fan Page!
I am slowly building a following though for it finally! but not many people are opting in I find! I think my book has some great content and have had some good feedback from it!
Lots of bloggers have said to me that in order to get that optin I need to provide something of value to incentivise that person to optin! Are there any other ways I can promote my book and build that list?
On a totally different subject what are your thoughts on Mobile/Cell list building? I am just testing this out! I have created a new list relating to the Health and Weight loss niche and have created a Splash/Squeeze page for mobiles using the aweber form and optimized it for mobiles by using some free software (have actually left out the name field and turned off the double optin)!
On the follow up emails I am providing 2 free PLR eBooks on the subject and on the 3rd am promoting a clickbank product all related to that same niche! and set up 2 advertising campaigns in both adsence and admob by targeting women and who have IPhones and Android Sets!
I Figured that there are 6 billion on this planet and 5 of them have mobiles! That’s a lot more than people who are actually online! The way I see it is like this: some 20somthing girl tanning on a beach in California gets out her IPhone and see’s my add. “177 ways to burn those calories” “enter your email to get this book for FREE”! i think she will enter her email to get my book and then 2 days later i send her another free book relating the the same niche!
Whats your thoughts on this Yaro
I think having an app for your blog is a good way to increase your opt-ins, this is something I want to test soon by getting an app made for my blog.
I have registered with aweber from the first day I started out online, everywhere I read about email marketing and building your list says that you should start early rather than later.
Therefore my list can grow all the while my Blog does too.
Stuart
Great Post
Great info… just in the planning stages for my first blog! Thanks!
Great article! I’ve been running my own email lists for years but this article gave me insight into the latest trends. I’m just too old school
An excellent tips for preparing email list for marketing. Thx for sharing your experienced techniques and advices to start successful marketing.
One thing that worked really well for me to get subscribers is to put out surveys of upcoming services or offers. People had a good idea of what it is that’s coming. After the survey I gave them an option to subscribe to the newsletter if they wanted to hear the announcement. Over the last four months, with similar approaches I have doubled my subscribers.
Also, I like your approach of talking about people, and not leads.Your Message
Hey Yaro. Thanks for the awesome advice on getting your first email list up and running. I have several small websites and blogs that I have been trying to build lists on and have not had any success with them so far. Your success is very inspiring and it pushes me to continue to work hard and build my subscriber list. You said in the comments here that you weren’t using a pop-up but when I visit your site now there is a pop-up box. You should write a post sometime about how this has helped build your list. Just a suggestion.
Great article yaro, thanks for the useful tips….
Hey Yaro
Thanks for the great post. Very helpful. I just have one question – and I can’t seem to find an answer anywhere on the web. What’s the connection between having an email list and making money? How do you make money from your email list?
Thanks
This is an excellent post Yaro ,
thanks for sharing.
I am building my first list, I need all the info that help me make it better.
Email Marketing is an important tool to help you get your business off to a solid start. With so many companies to choose from you’re sure to be able to find one that meets your needs and budget of your company. Thanks for sharing this great info.
Great article yaro, thanks for the useful tips….
Thanks.
Misbah Mumtaz
Yaro, I’ve been reading your blog for years now, ever since I got into internet marketing back in 2008. You’ve been a great inspiration to me so I just thought I’d say thank you! Now it’s time for me to stop reading and put your advice into ACTION. =)
Yaro, thanks a lot.
By reading your article, I ‘ve done my jumping forward now.
My God blessing you always
Shinta