Now you have all these elements in place, your website should be a veritable ‘sign-up machine’. The next trick is to get people to your website. If your content is great, your opt-in form is prominent and you’re sending lots of people to your site every day, your list will grow.

But here’s where things get a bit more tricky. Because it’s actually not about building a massive list. Far more important than that is to build a highly targeted list. You need to make sure that your mailing list is filled with people who actually want to be there, who enjoy your content, and who might want to buy your products.

This means you need to market your site, but you also need to market to the right people. Later, we’ll look at how to build your squeeze page and content in such a way that it also filters the kinds of people you don’t want on your list (people who won’t open your emails).

PPC

PPC is ‘Pay Per Click’ advertising. This means you’re paying only when someone clicks on your ads, which in turn means that a completely unsuccessful ad campaign doesn’t cost you anything.

The two main platforms for PPC advertising are Google AdWords (adverts which appear alongside Google searches) and Facebook Ads (adverts that are shown to specific Facebook users). The most important benefit of these though, is probably that they allow you to target your visitors very specifically.

On Google, you do this by carefully selecting your keywords. If you sell information about fitness, then you want people who are actively looking to get fit. The best way to find those people, is to place adds on SERPs (search engine results pages) pertaining to topics like ‘lose belly fat’ or ‘ebook on building muscle’. If you do this, then you’ll only be promoting yourself to people actively looking for information similar to that which you supply.

On Facebook meanwhile, you can do the same thing by targeting your viewers based on their hobbies, interests, gender, location etc. If your website is about wedding planning for instance, then you can ensure that your ads are only being shown to people who are engaged.

That will make sure your ads are targeted, but is it enough? You’re still paying several cents for each of your visitors and even more for each subscriber. Is a subscriber worth that much?

While estimates vary, it’s generally agreed that a subscriber is broadly worth about $1. As long as you’re paying less than $1 per subscriber then, you should expect to see some ROI. But this will only happen if the list is targeted – it will only happen if the people who subscribe are likely to buy your products down the line.

That’s why you might choose to go even further in targeting your list. For instance, you could state outright in your advert that the list is to receive information about exciting new products. Now only people who are potentially interested in buying your products will sign up.

Likewise, if you have a squeeze page, you can focus this on a project that you’re currently working on – something you intend to sell in future. Then you can invite people to sign up if they’d like to learn more about the product. Again, you’re now paying for people who are actually interested in buying something – not just in reading your mailing. And that means ROI.

Thankfully, Facebook provides a tool that you can use alongside such a method called ‘CPA’. This is ‘cost per action’ and essentially means that you’re no longer paying per click, but paying per action. And in this case, that action is signing up to a mailing list.

Now you’ll only pay if someone actually subscribes and they will hopefully only subscribe if they’re interested in buying your product. This is why targeting is so important – it’s what ensures maximum ROI. You really shouldn’t even consider paying for your subscribers or you’re marketing unless you’re going to be using this level of targeting alongside your list building.

SEO and Social Media Marketing

Meanwhile, you can keep driving people to your site using SEO and social media marketing. Of course SEO is search engine optimization and revolves around adding lots of relevant content to your website, as well as generating lots of links on external websites. Social media marketing means that you’re going to be posting comments, links, pictures etc. that your audience can appreciate – and this in turn will drive them to your website.

Getting someone to follow you on social media is a great step toward getting them to sign up to your mailing list. This way they are already subscribing to your content in one sense, so it’s a small push to encourage them to join your mailing list. Again, that step is going to be motivated by the high quality content that you’ll keep adding to your site.

Make sure you post content to your website regularly and that you do the same with your social media. Likewise, maintain a consistent branding across social media and your website, and be sure to link your website to your social media and vice versa. You want to create as many ‘in roads’ as possible to help people discover your site, and thus your list.

Using Incentives

If you have lots of people visiting your squeeze page and your content pages but no one is signing up, then you may need to give a little extra push to get them to make the decision.

This is where using incentives comes in. An incentive is essentially something that you’ll use like a ‘bribe’ to make your list more appealing – and normally that takes the form of a free gift.

Of course if you’re a small business then you can’t afford a big loss-leader. Thus, the gift you give away should be something free that won’t cost you any money per download. A great example of this is an eBook and these tend to be one of the most popular types of incentive. Similar options include free ‘reports’ (mini eBooks), email courses, mind maps etc.

Doing Incentives Right

Incentives can be an excellent tool for generating more subscribers but unfortunately, they can also be damaging to your list for a number of reasons.

Some marketers advise against using eBooks for instance. Why? Because there is a danger than an eBook can be seen as taking up too much time for the reader. How many people are actually likely to read all the way through an eBook? And by the end of that, are they going to want more of your content or will they be all burned out?

Another risk when giving away free eBooks, is that you can end up with a lot of subscribers who are hunting for freebies. This is bad news, because it means that you can end up with people grabbing the book and then unsubscribing or never reading your message again.

For this reason, the smaller option of the report might actually be a better strategy. Whereas an eBook takes time, a report should save time for your readers.

But you’ll still find that this creates some of the same problems – especially if you’re paying for advertising or SEO.

And that’s why you can consider getting a little more creative with your incentives.

Ideally, you want to make your e-mail itself the incentive.

We already described how you can drive people to a mailing list by talking about an upcoming project or product. Discuss how life changing it’s going to be and get people excited for it, then  at the end tell them they need to sign up for more information. People always want what they can’t have and as such, an unfinished product is something that will always drive a lot of subscriptions. At the same time though, your audience is now very likely to keep their eyes peeled on their inbox for more information and also more likely to potentially buy your product when it does release. You see how this is a more effective strategy?

Another way to make the mailing list itself the incentive is to describe it as a newsletter, filled with breaking industry news and exclusive advice and tips. Or how about making it into an e-zine with some glossy pictures?

You can even run a contest regularly for your subscribers. This way, there’s the promise of winning something big, but you will only have to pay out once. Better yet, people will need to keep checking the e-mails you send in order to find out whether or not they won.

Finally, you can sell your mailing list on the strength of the special offers and deals you’re going to be offering. This is a great way to attract people with money to burn and it also means they’ll want to open your messages to see if the deals apply to them.

Using the right language also helps a lot. Refer to your subscribers as your ‘VIP members’ and make sure to keep offering them extra bonuses and benefits that your other readers can see. Make it sound exciting, exclusive and important to be a subscriber and therefore a member!

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