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Get More Blog Subscribers — It’s all about the approach (and a few other things)

It’s a warm day in August 2014. I am in Cape May—a true paradise in its own right. I have over 100,000 Twitter followers. Over 150,000 people have visited my blog ever since I first launched it. I am approaching 20,000 Pinterest followers.

I have written over 1,000 blog posts for this blog alone. It would be unfair to not mention the hundreds of thousands of words I wrote for Squidoo webpages (now on HubPages) and my other blogs.

I made just as much money as when I had less than 10,000 Twitter followers, less than 500 blog posts, only a few hundred monthly visitors, and no Pinterest account.

Everyone wants a large social media audience these days for the ROI, but even with my social media audience, I wasn’t generating any ROI. I felt frustrated. Luckily, I was in Cape May, so the frustration left quickly.

During that vacation, I made the most important decision for my growth. I finally created an email list, and I couldn’t be happier.

The good thing about having 100,000 Twitter followers was that it was easy for me to gain subscribers. I immediately went from gaining zero subscribers to gaining over a dozen subscribers every day. It was an overnight change that was made possible by years spent growing my Twitter audience.

More and more often, I woke up to making more money online. Now, I make money every day. It’s a great thing to see my products bringing in revenue.

I started taking my email list seriously when I got my first 1,000 subscribers. With a little under 2,000 subscribers, I made over $200 from my first promotional email. It was a starting point, and I now get more results from my promotional emails.

I want to help you reach your first 1,000 subscribers so you can establish a strong base for yourself. Here are five methods you can implement to get more subscribers.

Create A Landing Page

A landing page is a page on your blog that is dedicated to getting more subscribers. There is no menu or navigation other than having the person enter an email address. Here is an example of one of my landing pages that I created with Optimize Press:

Optimize Press Landing Page

This landing page gets numerous people from Twitter every day. My landing pages are responsible for a majority of my subscribers.

Promote Your Landing Pages On Your Social Networks

The only way to get subscribers from a landing page is if you promote that landing page. The reason my landing pages get conversions is because I promote them on my social networks often. I use Twitter to promote my landing pages every 1-2 hours. Here was my most successful tweet

Although Twitter is my top social network, the promotion doesn’t end there. I also promote my landing pages on Facebook, Pinterest, YouTube, and my podcast. I am always exploring other options to promote my landing pages.

Use A Pop-up

Pop-Ups work, and based on my experience, they have an insignificant impact on bounce rate and the amount of time people spend on your blog. In other words, people will either click the x button and continue reading, or they will subscribe. It’s hard to go wrong there.

When I started using a pop-up for my blog, I quickly doubled the amount of daily subscribers I gained. I use the pop-up to promote my free eBooks that I would otherwise use my landing pages to promote.

I recommend timing your pop-up to show up within 20-30 seconds. That way, your visitor has enough time to look at your blog and get a feel for it. You want your visitor to feel comfortable on your blog so that visitor feels comfortable with giving you his/her email address.

Opt-In Box Above The Fold

I recently bought PlugMatter, a brilliant plugin that lets you put an opt-in box at the top of every blog post you write. It even goes on top of your blog’s homepage. If you didn’t notice it when you visited my blog, here’s what it looks like

Plugmatter Optin Form

This opt-in box allowed me to more than double my daily subscribers in a few days. This plugin essentially turns all of your blog posts into opportunities for you to get more emails.

The most important thing about PlugMatter is that it appears above the fold. Anyone who visits my blog will immediately see the opt-in box. People who are interested immediately enter their email address. People who aren’t interested simply scroll down and then see my blog posts.

While PlugMatter has resulted in a big increase in subscribers, it also leads to an indirect increase in subscribers. As people visit my blog again and again, they will constantly seeing my opt-in box. Seeing the same thing over and over again results in familiarity which results in that person eventually subscribing.

Host A Webinar—The Cool Way

A webinar is a live event on the web in which you empower others with knowledge. Webinars are basically seminars on the web. To some people, it may sound complicated to host a webinar, and hosting a webinar can get quite expensive.

It costs around $49 per month for an entire year just to get 100 people on the webinar. If your webinar already has 100 people, and person #101 tries to join in, that person gets blocked out.

What if I told you there was a free way to host a webinar? What if I told you the free way to host a webinar is better than most paid options?

That option does exist, and it’s called Periscope.

I know what most people are thinking: Wait, Periscope is a social network. Since when did it before a place to host webinars?

Periscope is a social network with many capabilities. Hosting a webinar with a Periscope is just one of the options. Just get a stand for your iPhone or iPad, position it right by your computer, and deliver the presentation just like any other person with a webinar would do.

Want to see what a webinar on Periscope looks like. Contact me marc@marcguberti.com and ask me when my next webinar goes live.

Promote sign-up for the webinar with a landing page. Don’t forget to promote a product or landing page during the webinar.

In Conclusion

When you get your first 1,000 subscribers, you will be more motivated to surpass 2,000 subscribers. As you accomplish each milestone, you will be moving closer to an email list that can generate a full-time income.

What are your thoughts about using an email list to generate revenue? Which of these methods do you use to get more subscribers? Is email marketing in your strategy? What tips do you have for us? Sound off in the comments section now!

Did you know that your email list reflects your income? This is a powerful statement that has been backed by marketers throughout the industry. Some of the marketers who back this statement have tens of thousands of subscribers. Others have over 1 million. Their earnings don’t lie. The people with tens of thousands of subscribers are making six figure incomes, and the people with millions of subscribers make millions of dollars in income every year.

Many people who focus their time on growing a large social media audience may feel silly, wondering where all of those hours went. I know the feeling. Before I optimized my blog to get more subscribers, my income level would be the same even when my Twitter audience started to grow at a rapid pace. At some points, I wondered why I didn’t just entirely switch from growing my social media audience to growing an email list.

The truth, I quickly realized, is that they both help each other grow. Trying to grow a social media audience and growing an email list at the same time allows those two areas to grow faster than they would if you focused on one area at a time. You can promote your social networks to your email list, and you can promote your landing pages on your social networks.

This article will discuss six of the methods you can use to grow your email list with the help of social media. Stumbling across these methods allowed me to more effectively utilize my Twitter presence. Twitter is now one of my streams of indirect revenue that continues to build my email list, a direct source of revenue. The same can be true for any social networks, but only if you implement these six methods:

#1: Pin Your Landing Page To The Top Of Your Social Media Feeds

Twitter and Facebook give its users the option to pin one of their posts to the top of their feeds. These posts automatically get seen by everyone who visits your social media account’s page which gives those pinned posts more visibility. You can use these pinned posts to promote your blog’s landing pages that are designed to get more subscribers.

If you don’t have a landing page for your blog yet, then you need to create one. I use Optimize Press for my landing pages.

#2: Promote Your Landing Pages Every Day

Even if your landing page is pinned to the top of your feed, not everyone will check out your feed. Some people who view your tweet or Facebook post may decide to read the post but not click on your name. In these cases, the pinned landing page never gets seen.

That is why it is important to promote your landing page every day. Some social media marketers tweet promote their landing pages 10 times every day. Promoting your landing page every day will give that landing page more attention. The extra attention your landing page gains from constantly getting reposted over a long period of time will lead to more subscribers.

#3: Offer An Irresistible Free Prize On Your Landing Page

Landing pages with irresistible free prizes convert better than landing pages without irresistible free prizes. You want your free prizes to align with your niche and your audience’s interests. On this landing page, I give away my eBook 27 Ways To Get More Retweets On Twitter. You want to lead people to a landing page that converts well, not a landing page that simply begs for a name and email address.

#4: Create And Promote Multiple Landing Pages

Once you create one landing page, you can create another landing page with its own free prize, and then another one after that. As you increase your library of free prizes, one of those free prizes is bound to get a visitor’s attention. If you write one book about SEO, another book about social media, and another book about growing an email list, then you will have more free offers that can potentially lead to more subscribers.

You can lead repeat subscribers through different autoresponders based on which list they subscribe to. You can use these autoresponders to provide value and eventually promote one of your products that is related to the free prize. This is a great strategy to get more sales. Kim Garst utilizes this strategy very effectively. She has multiple landing pages that she promotes on Twitter every day, and each of those landing pages has its own autoresponder sequence that promotes her own products that are related to her free prizes.

#5: Grow Multiple Social Media Audiences

Once you grow a large audience on a social network, look for the next social network to master. The more social networks you master, and the larger those audiences grow, the more visibility your landing pages will get. More visibility for a landing page never hurt any marketer. You can use some of the revenue you generate from your new subscribers to promote your social networks to the next level. I have been experimenting with buying visibility from Twiends to grow my Twitter audience (this is different from buying fake followers. I would never do that to my reputation), and by the end of 2015, my goal is to utilize Facebook Ads. No matter how large your social media audience is now, it can always grow.

#6: Provide Valuable Content

Consistently providing valuable content over a long period of time is what entices people to enter their name and email address on your landing pages. Numerous people who visit your landing pages will have read some of your blog posts. When your potential subscribes decide whether the free prize is truly worthy of an email address or not, those potential subscribers will think of the value you provide in your blog posts.

Providing valuable content for free is okay. It allows you to build the long-term relationships that lead to returning customers.

In Conclusion

Social media is the best source of indirect revenue on the web. Where you lead people on your social networks determines how much of your revenue your social networks are responsible for. One of the most powerful ways to generate revenue with your social networks is by promoting landing pages so you can grow your email list. Promoting the landing pages you currently have and create others in the future so you can get more subscribers and put your current subscribers into new autoresponder sequences.

What were your thoughts on the methods discussed in this article? Did you have a favorite? Do you have an additional method that you use to grow your email list with social media? Please share your thoughts and advice below.