Building a permission base (or an email list) is one thing that every web publisher should be doing. It is great to get free organic traffic from Google, but if there is one thing we learned in 2011 – it’s that you don’t want to rely on Google for traffic.

By building a permission base, you’ll be able to be in constant contact with your users. You’ll be able to notify them of new updates, important news, or special promotions. Having a connection with your users helps to turn one time visits to your website into repeat visits. And, ironically enough, repeat traffic is one data point that many people have said Google Panda looks for. So, by not relying on Google for traffic you may actually end up getting more traffic from Google.

With the Famous Daily, we will be focused completely on email as our delivery method as opposed to social media. You can subscribe to the famous daily here. Why are we so focused on email as opposed to a Facebook fan page? Here below are 4 reasons why Email is a better permission based marketing tool than Facebook:

1) Control of the User

Facebook continues to make it difficult to get a post in one of your fans newsfeeds. This is a troubling trend as it illustrates the fact that Fan page owners do not have control over their users. If Facebook continues to tweak its news feed algorithm to make it more difficult for brands to show up – what recourse will Fan page owners have?

Maybe Facebook will find creative ways to highlight a Facebook users friends updates while making Fan page and brand updates more obscure.

With email, this of course is never a risk – because you have direct access to communicate with the user via email.

2) Control of the Look and Feel

One great thing about building a permission base is the ability to tell online advertisers that you will also promote their product or service directly to your user base. With email – you control the look and feel of what goes out so you are able to offer branding or any type of creative placement via email.

Controlling the look and feel also allows you to Brand the email with your own products or services and it allows you to control how long the messaging should be and you can dictate how your call to action is baked in.

A Facebook post is a good way to market to a user – but with an email, you can clearly do a lot more. And internet users agree – an eMarketers survey earlier this year showed that 64% of shoppers prefer to get coupons via email while only 8% prefer social media channels such as FaceBook.

3) Email Will Withstand The Test of Time

On the internet, many things don’t withstand the test of time. Email, however, continues to become more and more essential in the daily lives of the entire world.

And while Facebook is the clear dominant force in social media today – history has showed us that what users love today on the web isn’t always what they will love tomorrow.

So, if a new social network was to ever make a large impact – it would diminish the value of a Facebook fan. Even today, some people say they use Twitter or Google + instead of Facebook. On the other hand – have we ever heard someone say they don’t use email?

4) Customization to the User

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, email offers unparalleled customization. For instance, you can have an email with 5 features, and let the user select which features they want. You can also create different emails based on the location, age, gender, or interests of the user.

Technologies exist today making email personalization incredibly effective – as the user can be made to feel you are talking to directly to them…

* Like this article? You can follow Evan Britton on Twitter at @elbst23

For Day 31, refer to pages 71-72 in the free
31 Day Guide to Growing Your List

Craigslist.org gets a whopping 10 BILLION page views per month

According to our guide, there are two ways you can use Craigslist to drive traffic back to your site: 1) by posting classified ads, and 2) by joining their huge network of topical discussion forums.

Craigslist is a very touchy site with a report-happy community, which is what makes it a great public resource, so you want to tread carefully and make sure that you don’t cross the spam line here. Before you post, study your category closely and monitor the ads that appear there. Particularly those that are more than 24 hours old, meaning they haven’t been removed or reported.

To me personally this seems like a lot of work. A great way to sell a car, or adopt a pet, but not necessarily the best way to build your mailing list.

I would take out ads in topical magazines, newspapers or other offline publications before using Craigslist myself. Of course, that depends on your product/service and your niche. It may just be a great fit for you!

I would love to hear your thoughts on this.

Have you ever used Craigslist to buy OR sell?

Best,

For Day 30, refer to pages 70-71 in the free
31 Day Guide to Growing Your List

“Bookmarking bland web pages isn’t going to help you out. You need to bookmark your viral content – your crazy videos and your shocking reports and articles…” -page 70

Social Bookmarking Defined

Social bookmarking is a method for Internet users to organize, store, manage and search for bookmarks of resources online. Unlike file sharing, the resources themselves aren’t shared, merely bookmarks that reference them.

In a social bookmarking system, users save links to web pages that they want to remember and/or share. These bookmarks are usually public, and can be saved privately, shared only with specified people or groups, shared only inside certain networks, or another combination of public and private domains.

The allowed people can usually view these bookmarks chronologically, by category or tags, or via a search engine.

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_bookmarking

Can You Use Social Bookmarking To Build Your List?

Indirectly perhaps, but it’s not what I would consider a list-building strategy. I say indirectly because it’s a means of driving traffic, and you can convert those new visitors to subscribers.

This is not a method I personally use. I would be interested to see the click-through stats from a Social Bookmarking site. I know some of you use them so do leave a comment below if you care to share your stats. My understanding is that most people use Social Bookmarking as a means of getting inbound links, so that your content ranks higher in the search engines.

Tip: If you use Social Bookmarking sites, make sure that you bookmark more than just your own content. For every piece of content you bookmark from one of your own properties, bookmark at least three others from domains you do not own. So if you bookmark your blog post, also bookmark someone else’s blog post and another person’s video, etc – all on the same topic.

Bookmarking all of your own content just for the sake of traffic and/or links is called “social bookmarking spam”. If you’re going to use it at all, create a great resource with your bookmarks!

Best,

For Day 29, refer to pages 68-70 in the free
31 Day Guide to Growing Your List

“Don’t stop at the well-known general social networking sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn. There are plenty of niche social networking sites that have more targeted users. Dogster.com and Catster.com cater to dog and cat lovers. There are sites for moms (CafeMom), wine lovers (BottleTalk), fashion (GirlSense), hip-hop music (CrackSpace), travel (TravBuddy), etc…” -page 69

Social Networking is very similar to Forum Marketing in that you’re entering a social community and need to use social marketing skills.

The goal is to create your own topical space and build a following or a network in that space. Blatant advertising will not go over well when you’re doing “social networking”. You have to actually be social, interact with your target market, provide *great* information and engage them in thought-provoking discussions.

There are no “tricks” to social marketing. It’s going to be work, and it’s going to take time. I always say “If you’re going to be on Facebook, BE ON Facebook.” Meaning don’t try to automate it with ad blasts, not respond to comments or questions, and expect it to take off. It is WELL worth it if you invest the time and energy to create a presence or a space that attracts (and engages!) your market.

In my opinion you do not need a course on “how to market on social networking sites”. Unless you need a course in people skills. Basically you go in with the intention to serve your market, and everything you do will resolve around that objective. If you go in with the intention of serving yourself, it will fail. I feel like I’m stating the obvious, but perhaps that did need to be said…

Your Task For Today:

Find topical Social Networking sites in your niche that you can join. These are great for expanding your personal network, and reaching a very targeted market. Also find the other leaders in your niche on some of major sites like Facebook and Twitter, and consider ways you can (politely) leverage their following. Share their content, join their discussions, ask their opinion etc. When people notice you, or like your comments & questions, they’ll check out your profile/page as well…

Choose 1-3 Social Networking sites and invest in those strategically. I recommend Facebook, Twitter and if you choose a third – go with a niche or topical Social Networking site. If you try to do more than that you’ll spread yourself too thin, and you won’t be able to give your communities on those sites your full attention.

Facebook Tip:

Now that Facebook will allow you to network AS your Page – meaning you can comment and post as your Page, instead of from your personal profile – you can get a lot of exposure by networking with related Facebook Pages in your niche.

I am looking to do more of that myself, and put out a feeler on Facebook to find new Pages in the marketing, tech & online business niches.

You can see my Facebook post here.

Best,

For Day 28, refer to pages 66-67 in the free
31 Day Guide to Growing Your List

What tool, product or service can you create that requires people to “sign up” using the tool? What products can you create that carry your marketing message such as blog themes, plug-ins, software, etc?

Our guide gives two examples: PayPal and Adobe PDF Reader. PayPal had timing on their side with the growing popularity of eBay. And it went viral fast due to two things: the pay-per-lead affiliate program during their launch phase, and the fact that you had to open a PayPal account to receive money from someone that sent you (or wanted to send you) a payment.

Other examples that come to mind are:

• Hotmail
• Yahoo! Messenger
• Skype
• Blogger (you often have to sign in just to comment!)
• FourSquare

More recently, WordTracker began requiring you to create an account and sign in to use their Free Keyword Research Tool. I’m sure there are many more examples, and I would love to continue discussing those in the comment section as they can spark creative ideas.

The key is to consider the things your market needs and wants, or could really use, and approach it from that angle. Are they competitive? Do they track anything in particular? What tools do they need, or which tools would they love to get free?

Another good angle is to consider what they use now, and what add-on products or services would enhance the experience. PayPal rode on the coattails of eBay as we discussed earlier…

I look forward to hearing your thoughts!

Best,

For Day 27, refer to pages 64-66 in the
free 31 Day Guide to Growing Your List

“On Day 20 we talked about ways to create buzz-worthy videos, and how to launch them to create a splash in your market. But here are a few more tips to really catapult your viral video…” -page 64

5-Step Outline for Creating Viral Videos:

• Create SHORT Videos (30 seconds to 1 minute)
• Choose Your Video Title & Thumbnail Strategically
• Post Your Videos Everywhere (Facebook, Twitter, Digg, Del.icio.us, etc)
• Encourage Heated Discussion
• PUSH Your Video Like Crazy!

Refer to the free guide for details on each of the 5 steps.

Quick Tip: ASK your subscribers, blog readers, forum friends and others to comment on your YouTube video. If you don’t ask, few will actually do it on their own. But once you get comments going (especially a heated discussion), more people will jump in and join the discussion. -page 65

The ultimate goal is to promote your video well enough that it makes it to the Most Viewed section of YouTube. That’s when your video will truly “go viral”…

Before you get started, be sure to see the tips for using video to build your list on the Day 20 post in this series.

Best,

For Day 25, refer to pages 62-64 in the free
31 Day Guide to Growing Your List

Start with the end goal in mind. Think about what sort of conversations you would like to see take place across blogs and forums in your niche. What will people be talking about after seeing or reading your product? -page 62

Viral Info Product Examples

A couple of examples come to mind. The “death of…” ebooks are a good example. They’ve been overdone in my opinion, but for good reason (they worked).

An older example is Harvey Segal’s SuperTips series. He is one of the original masters of Viral Marketing, offering free rebrandable reports on a variety of topics. He would often charge a small fee for the rebranding option and/or let people rebrand the product with affiliate links to his products. Very nice model.

There was Internet Marketing Sins by Sylvie Fortin, which was free but allowed affiliates to promote it for related sales in her funnel. And SEO Lies by Justin Brooke, which launched for only $1 and offered affiliates 100% commission.

Both were a means of building a list through a viral info product.

And of course we can’t forget Jonathan Leger and how he came on the scene by storm with his $7 Secrets method of creating low-cost reports with the 100% commission model as a means of building a highly targeted list – and fast!

Choosing a Topic For Your Viral Info Product

Any content that artfully and successfully includes these elements will increase the chances of your ebook or report going viral: highly useful, entertaining, controversial. Even better: using all three elements. (page 62)

Start by brainstorming “hot topics” in your niche. What gets people riled up, upset, makes them laugh? What is going on in your niche right now? What are people talking about (joking about, or ranting about) on forums, Facebook and blogs?

These are all good starting points for choosing a topic for your viral report.

How To Create the Viral Effect With Your Info Products

You’ve seen some examples, brainstormed potential topics, now it’s time to dig in to the how-to. The technical side of creating viral products is actually quite easy.

A simple option is to create a rebrandable info-product. I use Viral PDF which is only $27 and very easy to use. For more on that, read:

Easily Create Your Own Rebrandable Reports

The goal with rebrandable products is to give them away for free, get a lot of people on board to rebrand and give away your product, and then convert readers into subscribers. The best way to do that is to offer a “Part Two” (also for free) and send them to your landing page to opt-in to receive that second report.

For paid info products you have two options: you can use the 100% commission model, or you can use a pay-per-lead affiliate program. If you pay per lead, you basically set up an affiliate program and pay .50-$1.50 for every subscriber your affiliates send you. This is a serious investment, so you want to make sure you have a strong funnel in place.

The 100% commission model is “safer” as you simply give your affiliates and partners the amount your buyers pay for your product. You’re not spending out of pocket, and you’re building a list of buyers.

Resources:

• How to Write a Viral Report
• Viral PDF Classic
• Easily Create Your Own Rebrandable Reports
• How Affiliates Use Free Brandable Ebooks

Your Task For Today:

Brainstorm potential topics for your viral info product, decide which viral model you want to use… and start creating!

Best,

p.s. I highly recommend Write That Report! by Jonathan Leger for only $7. It ranks as one of the best investments I’ve made in my online business over the years. It’s the guide that finally got me creating reports & info products – and boy am I ever glad I did! Grab a copy if you haven’t already, or revisit your copy – you could have a new info product written & ready to market this week!

For Day 25, refer to pages 59-62 in the free
31 Day Guide to Growing Your List

“Petitions have the potential to go viral simply because the issues surrounding petitions are often emotionally charged. People sign them and pass them to their friends to sign them… especially if the issue is very important to them.” -page 59

There are some creative suggestions in the guide, and it’s free to download if you haven’t already, so be sure to check those pages out and familiarize yourself with the ideas and options they suggested…

Petitions could work very well in certain niches: pet, health, political, parenting – even foodies. The key is to stay on top of “hot topics” in your niche and jump on the opportunity from the start.

It may be a little more difficult to come up with ideas in other niches, but it can definitely be done. Let’s take Internet Marketing for example. Going by the heated conversation in the comment section of in yesterday’s post, I might start a petition for Internet Marketing Integrity. LOL. That’s actually not a bad idea…

Anyway, do check out the pages for today’s list-building task as there are some good ideas there. Including a tip for finding scripts & apps to run a petition. Just like using a quiz, you’ll want to offer your list to them with both grace and relevance. And of course, segment those petition-based subscribers.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this strategy!

Best,

For Day 24, refer to pages 58-59 in the
31 Day Guide to Growing Your List

I don’t know about you, but using a Quiz is not something I’d ever really considered to grow my mailing list. It’s definitely a creative angle, and one that may work better in some niches than others…

If you read the two pages (link above) in our free guide, you’ll see some creative idea for different types of quizzes. You can also do a search on Google for Facebook Quiz to get even more creative ideas. There are apps that let you put quizzes directly on Facebook, but I was looking at them mainly for ideas.

You can also search set up online quiz for solutions if this is something you’re interested in doing.

My advice:

If you want your quiz to go viral then you should limit the marketing you do throughout the process. Keep it light and fun if you want people to share it.

At the end of the quiz, when your app delivers the results, you might customize that page to offer them a free download. It needs to be highly relevant to the quiz and market, of course. You could lead into it by saying:

“Thank you for taking our Quiz! We would love to give you ___ (coupon code, free guide, etc) for participating. Let us know where to deliver it:”

(include opt-in form after)

Of course, my advice on contests and giveaways applies here too. Otherwise you could open yourself up to spam complaints.

Ideally you will have a way for them to share their results on Facebook, and also Tweet “I just took the XYZ Quiz at __! Find out what it says about YOU!” Using social media sharing will help your quiz go viral much more quickly.

I would love to hear your thoughts. Are fun quizzes something you might use in your own marketing strategy? Why or why not?

Best,

First, I have to ask- What prompted you to write List Building For Bloggers? And why in the world did you offer it so cheap??

Phil: I’ve been using email marketing for over a decade and blogging since 2003. As the FeedBlitz founder, I know a lot about how to best use email and social media together, and I was happy to share or help people one on one when they asked.

The epiphanal moment came while I was sitting in Darren Rowse’s (@ProBlogger) keynote session at Blog World in 2010. Darren was talking about the success he’d had with his e-book, and that crystallized it for me. I knew that there was a need to help bloggers and small businesses do much more with email, and that’s really where the idea for the book was born…

Pricing is hard! There’s a lot of value in the book, which is why its MSRP is $24.95. That said, as a first-timer, I wanted to pump prime sales and get people talking about it. So the programs created around the launch included early-bird specials and a two week introductory price to kick things off.

It’s even better value while the offer’s in place; even at $24.95 I guarantee that this book is going to make a huge difference to anyone’s email marketing efforts. That’s why I personally back it up with a 100% no quibble money-back guarantee.

Hundreds of copies have now been sold, and so far I’ve only refunded one – and that was only because the buyer couldn’t get it to download for some reason.

Note: If you haven’t yet downloaded List Building for Bloggers, grab your copy today! You’ll find my review here if you would like to learn more about this step-by-step guide full of actionable list-building tips for 2011.

Lynn: LBB is so professionally done including formatting, endorsements, and even An Appreciation by Seth Godin! It leaves me assuming this is not your first published work. Do you have other guides or books on the market?

Phil: You’re too kind! This is my first e-book, however. I’ve been blogging for 8 years and a professional marketer and consultant in the past, so I’ve done a lot of professional writing, such as white papers and brochures, as well as nearly 500 blog posts to date. I’m lucky enough to count Seth as one of FeedBlitz’s over 70,000 clients, and he was amazingly generous to write what he did.

I think it’s important that one’s work reflect your values. Since List Building for Bloggers was never going to be free, it was important to me that its production values made buyers an prospects comfortable before they read a single word.

I took some great tips from Amy Lynn Andrews’ (@AmyLynnAndrews) How to Write an e-Book series. I formatted the book myself after looking at what other published bloggers had done; I had the cover professionally designed.

For the testimonials, I asked for some quotes from my online friends who saw early copies of the book; I was incredibly flattered with and grateful for what I got back – I was never expecting the remarks I received. Although, honestly, I wouldn’t recommend tattoos.

I am considering what to write next though. We’ll see…

Lynn: Are you planning to also publish LBB on Amazon/Kindle? Why or why not?

Phil: Yes, a Kindle and Nook version is in the works. I’m having the book converted to the Kindl’s epub format professionally, and that will take a few weeks. I’ll be sure to let everyone know when it’s out!

Lynn: You state throughout LBB that email marketing isn’t rocket science, or “magic”, and you offer very practical EASY steps that anyone can do. Let’s assume most readers won’t act on *all* of the great tips and creative ideas…

If there is ONE thing you would encourage every blogger to do regarding their list, what would that one thing be?

Phil: If I can cheat and have TWO things I’d say (1) set up an autoresponder to set up a content rich sequence of mails to go to readers once they sign up, and (2) set up an appropriate incentive to encourage new subscriptions in the first place.

Lynn: Many people have said they literally *dread* emailing their list. Fortunately bloggers can simply let their feed send out email updates about new blog content. But do you have any advice about sending a broadcast mailing to your list, outside of your post notifications, that will be well-received?

Phil: That’s the virtue of blog-based automation; the dread goes away and it all just works. For mailings outside of your blog’s content, anything you send needs to be relevant and timely. It also needs to be something that you can’t send via a post on the blog or can’t wait for the blog to send automatically. So it has to be special too.

Broadcasts outside of content need to be the exception, not the rule. Subscribers don’t like to fee bombarded. If every broadcast is “20% off, free shipping” then people tune out pretty quickly.

Lynn: In your experience, what is the best placement for the opt-in box on your site or blog?

Phil: If you have just one option, then above the fold, clearly and unambiguously an email subscription offer. That is also where the incentive offer can go. The sidebar is a great place for this, or even in the banner!

You can also offer subscriptions at the foot of each post, so once a visitor has read it you’re ready to ask them for their subscription. But that option should be as well as, not instead of, your above the fold, incentive-based subscription form.

Lynn: Most people already know that my favorite method of generating traffic is SEO (Search Engine Optimization). What is one of your favorite methods of getting new visitors to your blog – the kind of visitors that turn into subscribers and regular readers?

Phil: Content is still king – high quality content that generates referrals from readers. Guest posting works well too, where the guest brings some of her readers to your blog, and where (if you guest post elsewhere) you can generate interest to have new visitors explore.

Interestingly, though, some of my most popular posts are ones that have been slightly off-topic and a little controversial. Being brave can work out really well! But I’m generally pretty brutal on sticking to my key phrases – “Email marketing” and “FeedBurner alternative” – no matter what I write, primarily for SEO reasons.

* * * * *

Thank you Phil!

I hope you guys enjoyed that as much as I did. I am a big fan of Phil’s brand new guide List Building for Bloggers, and am using it myself to refine my email marketing strategy. It’s chock full of actionable tips you can easily implement in minutes, plus many creative ideas you may not have thought of before…

Click Here to Download List Building for Bloggers

It’s an excellent read – one I continue referring back to. Enjoy!

Best,

Before you implement either of these list-building strategies, a very strong warning about how you present your giveaway or offer, to avoid unhappy (frustrated, annoyed) subscribers – and potentially serious spam complaints.

This could also relate to your opt-in incentive, or offering a “bribe” to get people to subscribe to your newsletter or mailing list, so please take this warning seriously…

Warning

In The Risks of Offering Rewards chapter (page 93) of List Building for Bloggers, Phil Hollows points out some serious email offenses that you may just make (or be making) accidentally. Given how much we’ve talked about these proven strategies to build your list, I thought it important to share the warning and prevent you from making some serious list-fatal mistakes.

In that chapter he covers:

• How list-building incentives can potentially harm you
• How to make incentives work without complaints
• 6 great ideas for your subscription landing page

Click Here to Download List Building for Bloggers

“If the opt-in to your mailing list wasn’t explicit when the user signed up for the incentive, then any increase in spam complaints is justified.” -Phil Hollows, Page 93

You face multiple risks here, if it is not clear they are also signing up for your mailing list or newsletter. First, it’s not CAN-SPAM compliant. While you can follow up on the specific transaction (your incentive, contest, giveaway, etc) you do not have permission to mail them otherwise – unless you made that clear when they subscribed.

The second risk is an obvious one: high complaint & unsubscribe rates. And it’s not only a reputation risk, and a waste of your effort at building the list in the first place, but it also leads into the third risk…

The third risk is getting penalized (or even banned) by your email service provider – such as MailChimp, FeedBlitz or Aweber – for high complaint rates and/or for not being CAN-SPAM compliant.

Serious stuff…

Segmenting For Contests & Giveaways

These risks are the reason I have recommended segmenting your lists from contests or JV Giveaways. The easiest way to do that is to set up a separate mailing list for each. This allows you to have incentive-specific stats, personalize your follow-up series, and of course you can later select multiple lists when you send a broadcast. So you can group them all together with your primary mailing list after you have successfully warmed them up to you and your list.

The option to personalize the experience is a great way to seal your new relationship with those subscribers. Anytime you offer an incentive, whether it’s a contest or a free download, you run the risk of building a less than responsive list. Or a list of freebie seekers who quickly unsubscribe.

Instead of looping them into your main list, to get lost in the unrelated confirmations & mailings, set up a very focused process for them. From the confirmation email (“thank you for entering XYZ contest!”) to the follow-up series.

In the follow-up messages you can refer specifically to the incentive, host surveys or even webinars related to the incentive, etc. You want to keep them engaged before you throw them into your less relevant mailing list. Less relevant to them, I mean, and to the reason they just joined your list.

The main point here is this: Make sure your subscription form makes it clear that they are (also) signing up for your mailing list or newsletter. Period.

Best,

p.s. I’ve mentioned Phil Hollows, and List Building for Bloggers, quite a bit lately. I was really impressed with the guide and have referred back to it multiple times since I first read it. I was going back through my notes & highlights over the weekend, and came up with 26 things (so far!) I need to do or change with my own email marketing strategy. Luckily they are all EASY quick-fixes, which will have very nice long-term returns.

If you haven’t picked up a copy of this guide yet, I highly recommend it!

And yes I’m an affiliate for LBB, but at less than five dollars commission I wouldn’t even consider promoting it just for the money. This is simply one of the best guides I’ve read in a long time, and certainly the best ever on list building and email marketing. It’s a must-read for ANYone with a blog, in my opinion.

For Day 23, refer to pages 56-57 in the
31 Day Guide to Growing Your List

The downside to JV Giveaways is that some of these events attract freebie seekers. You’ll need to select your giveaway carefully, and create a specific follow-up series for the event…

How JV Giveaways Work

The giveaway events are generally niche-specific, attracting a target market that benefits all of the marketers involved. They usually revolve around Resale Rights, general Internet Marketing products, or could even revolve around a teleseminar series or virtual event where each speaker gives away a relevant product.

Each marketer involved promotes the event, so it becomes a competition as much as a joint venture. All marketers benefit from the mass promotion, and the traffic leaders generally get perks – such as higher placement for their offer.

The more influential the marketers, and the more valuable the giveaways, the more successful a JV Giveaway event will be.

JV Giveaways have a reputation for offering low-value products, and have somewhat lost their appeal over the years because of that. That plus sheer overwhelm for those downloading dozens – or even hundreds – of products at once, and finding themselves in email overwhelm from all the email lists they joined just to download those products.

You want to be selective about which events you participate in, and what you decide to give away during the event.

What To Give Away To Increase Opt-In Conversion Rate

Since the giveaway visitors are given a lot of options to download free products (ie potential overwhelm), you really want your offer to stand out. The first step to that is a well-designed squeeze page that grabs their attention as they are scanning through the offers.

You want to give away something of your own so that you attract highly targeted subscribers to your specific list. It needs to be something of high value, and something new or exclusive – or that you have not given away before. Perhaps a product you usually sell, or something you create specifically for this event.

Tip: Instead of funneling them directly into your main mailing list, set up a new list just for this event. You can also segment the subscribers from this event, but it’s better to create a unique follow-up series for this particular group so that you can warm them up to you before throwing them into your regular mailings.

A customized follow-up will welcome them specifically, and thank them for downloading your product. You’ll deliver the product in the first autoresponse message, and also offer them something else of value to begin earning their trust and appreciation. A few days later you can follow-up to ask them for feedback on your free product (and your bonus), and invite them to participate in a survey for a chance to win a related prize.

The goal is to create a highly responsive list from the giveaway and turn them into happy subscribers, not just rack up numbers real quick and then ignore that new event-based relationship.

Your Task For Today:

JV Giveaway events are more popular in the Internet Marketing space, but can easily be hosted in other niches. If you can’t find any active JV Giveaway events in your niche, that may be a good opportunity for you to host one yourself.

I found a free guide on the topic at http://www.jvgiveawayevents.net along with a list of a few current JV Giveaway events. You can also do a search for “jv giveaway” at Google to find more lists. Signing up for an active, current event will give you an inside look at how they work.

You can also search “jv giveaway script” on Google for scripts and software you can use to set up your own JV Giveaway event.

Best,

Today we’ll look at 7 strategies you can use to create the best email subject lines. The kind that evoke interest and curiosity, and compel your subscribers to open your messages.

Punching up your subject lines will benefit ALL of your automated marketing pieces (blog broadcasts, email list archives, etc) as well as your social media activity.

They are perfect for Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn headings as well as email. Using engaging keyword-rich headlines is also great for SEO, and how your content looks in the search results (giving you a higher click-through rate)…

The above paragraph is a paraphrase from Phil Hollows on Page 77 of his List Building for Bloggers guide, the Subject Line Optimization chapter. While Phil goes into great detail about each of the 7 strategies, I’m simply going to give you a quick overview and some fun examples to spark your creativity.

The BEST Email Subject Lines contain
one or more of these elements:

• Short Subject Lines
• Controversial Headlines
• A Keyword Phrase
• Numbers and Counts
• Actionable Subject Lines
• Timely or Urgent
• The “Classics”

The subject line of the post you are reading now is an example of a combination of those elements. It contains a number. It’s fairly short (8 words). It contains a keyword phrase (“best email subject lines”).

To create some fun examples, I’m going to use Link Bait Generator (a great tool for brainstorming creative titles) and a variety of niches/topics.

Short Subject Line – Example 1

Exercise Tips To Ignore!

Controversial Headlines – Example 2

10 reasons civilization may collapse because of organic foods…

A Keyword Phrase Subject Line – Example 3

What the best weight loss program looks like

Number and Count Subject Lines – Example 4

6 bits of exercise advice that will land you in the hospital

7 bizarre ways patio furniture can kill you suddenly

8 things you probably don’t know about dog food

Actionable Subject Lines – Example 5

Make your first scrapbook the easy way – this week!

Fix your hair loss problem fast. Learn how…

Timely or Urgent Subject Lines – Example 6

Exclusive coupon code, but act fast – offer ends in 24 hours!

How to start making money online… today!

The “Classic” Subject Lines

Phil shares that the two subject lines with a history of repeatedly high open rates, no matter what, are: “You are not alone” and “Did you get it?”. I would advise you use those sparingly (and so does he).

Be cautious about using “tricky” subject lines. They may have a high open rate, but you may find your open rate declines following any “trick”…

I hope that inspires you to use some of these 7 strategies for coming up with great blog post titles, email subject lines, forum thread titles and more.

Getting your links in front of your market is not enough – you have to entice them to click through and actually read your content.

Best,

p.s. For more great tips from Phill Hollows, download List Building for Bloggers

Which is a shame. Your email subscribers are, in fact, your greatest fans and probably your most under-valued resource.” -Phil Hollows, LBB

As a follow-up to Do You Dread Emailing Your List?, today we’ll have an open Q&A on List Building – and answer your top questions on the topic.

You sent in great questions!

We’ll look at the Top 10 List Building Questions which cover a variety of topics: where to place your opt-in box, best ways to get more subscribers, how to create an attractive opt-in box, which mailing list manager to use, what to send out to your list, etc…

Best Placement For Your Opt-In Form

Justin says: “Do you have any data or knowledge about where the best place to put your opt-in box at on your blog? For example as a pop-up, top sidebar, below each post… Which spot gets the highest opt-in rate?”

The absolute best place to have a subscription form is at the top of your sidebar, above the fold, clearly marked. It should be on every page.

If you have to scroll to find it, move it up.

If it blends in too well, make it stand out.

Other places where forms can be effective are above your logo or banner example, and also below every post as part of the footer of the content. To research positioning further,
check out this heatmap (right).

^ From List Building for Bloggers: Chapter 4, Section 1, Page 25

Lynn: I will add that your form placement will really depend on your theme, design and layout. You may want to perform a usability test, and also split-test different placements, as what works well on one site or blog may not perform the same on another. This is generally due to “eye pull” and whether your colors & images weight your page to the right or left.

It will also depend on your objective. If list-building is the main objective, you want that to stand out above anything else on the page. If you have a different call-to-action for that page, you don’t want to distract the visitor from that objective.

Autoresponders vs Broadcasts

Grace says: “Is there a magic number of autoresponders you should set up for an email list. Is it better to reduce the number of auto responses and develop a habit of using broadcasts instead?”

At the very least you should have one autoresponse email set up, to welcome new subscribers to your list after they have joined. This email should welcome them to your list, and set their expectations. Let them know what they’ll receive from you, when they’ll hear from you, and tell them about any features/content they may be interested in as new subscribers (ie “the next best click” after reading your welcome message). <- Don't forget to include a call-to-action!

If your subscription form offered visitors an incentive, you’ll want to deliver that incentive in the first follow-up message. You should follow-up with a second autoresponder message 3 days later to make sure they received it, ask them if they have any questions about it, and invite them to submit questions or feedback.

Broadcasts are useful for timely information, invitations to current events, special offers, etc. You can easily intermix them with your autoresponder series for a combination of evergreen content and time-sensitive content.

In the Autoresponders chapter of List Building For Bloggers (page 89), Phil suggests several things you might include in your autoresponder series:

• Thank You message, Deliver incentive
• Your most popular blog posts for them to browse
• The outline of your ebook, then invite them to download/buy
• A survey: How can you improve?
• Tips article from your blog archives on a relevant topic
• Archived videos or webcasts
• Useful third party resources

“Autoresponders are a great way to repurpose archived content as long as it’s still relevant (evergreen).” -Phil Hollows, LBB Page 90

What To Send Your Subscribers – Email Content Ideas

Christina says: “I struggle with what to share besides offers. I have a hard enough time getting content onto my blog in the first place so then I’m lost when it comes to emailing content.”

First, I assume that you are sending your subscribers notification of new blog posts – correct? If not, that’s a great place to start. You can set up a Blog Broadcast in Aweber using your feed, and it will automatically send an email each time you publish a new post – or on the schedule you request (weekly digest, for example).

Tip: Share resources that do not belong to you, or come from one of your own properties. This may be a competitors blog post, video or Facebook page that you enjoy – and think they would as well. It could be a funny video or great forum thread that you find. It might even be a magazine article you can link to online. ALL of the content YOU consume & enjoy may also be great to include in a friendly, resourceful email to your subscribers!

Also see:

• Email Newsletter Ideas
• Writing Tips & Inspiration
• 5 Types of Content Readers LOVE

Finding Your Voice: Improving Your Writing Style

Terry says: “When I write I don’t want to sound like a used car salesman (no disrespect to that profession) and not like talking to my children. I see there is two extremes- and I want to try to be in the middle…”

Finding your voice is important. There are two things to consider: sounding real and personable (being yourself), and appealing to your target market. If you have a list of Harley Motorcycle enthusiasts, you don’t want your writing voice to have a sweet housewife sound. If you’re talking to league bowlers, you want to use their lingo. So 1) know your market and what they expect, and 2) be conversational.

What works best for me is to imagine that a close friend or peer phoned me and asked me about XYZ. Or that I phoned them to let them know about XYZ. Write like you talk, and more importantly: write the way you talk to people you know.

How to Get More Traffic and More Subscribers

Carol says: “Many of my friends and self are struggling getting people to opt in to our attractive free offers. Any suggestions on where to find our appropriate people – as facebook and twitter are not driving traffic?”

If you use social media to drive traffic and build your list, you’ll need very focused profiles with a very focused following. The #1 mistake I see people making is having a general or personal profile, and trying to appeal to a general audience with a very specific audience. Your site should have a branded Twitter account, and a branded Facebook Page (which you create in addition to your personal profile).

Social media is an important piece of your marketing plan, so don’t dismiss it. If what you’re doing is not working, change what you’re doing – don’t stop doing.

In addition to the connections, searches and networking ON the social media sites… the new Google Social Search offers your target market “social proof” and personal recommendations. See this example:

Social mediums are only going to grow from this point forward, so revise and improve your plan now to stay relevant going forward. Of course, social media is just one piece to your online marketing plan…

Lain says: “I seem to have hit the limit of my personal circle — what’s the best way to expand beyond my circle of influence into the next level?”

Great question! Assuming you have not hit the limit of your market size, just your personal network, the next step is to leverage the personal circle of other marketers with reach & influence in your niche.

Ideas for Leveraging Your Competition include:

• Guest Blog for them
• Write an exclusive tip/article for their newsletter
• Joint Venture with them
• Create a case study or review of their product/service that they can share with their readers
• Join their “network” (forum, blog comments, Facebook page, etc) and join the conversation there
• Submit articles to magazines & publications that are popular with your market
• Recruit them as your Affiliate

In addition to social media and networking, you should place a strong focus on Search Engine Optimization to funnel highly targeted traffic to your site & opt-in incentive. This is the best way to step outside of your own personal & extended reach, and get in front of the exact people that are searching for you (and what you offer) online every single day.

See: How To Optimize Your Site For Free Search Engine Traffic

Also read Keyword Strategy and download the two free reports in that post to help you create content that attracts your market and converts them into subscribers.

How To Create An Attractive Opt-In Form

Debbie says: “An easy/free way to design a good looking/better converting opt in box?”

Your mailing list manager should offer several options, including customization and split testing of design elements. I know that Aweber does. I just went in to my own Aweber account and created this basic form in under 5 minutes using one of their fill-in-the-blank templates:

Also see the Squeeze Page Design section towards the end (click on the link and scroll down) for more options including resources for both opt-in boxes and full squeeze pages.

Getting Over The Technical Hurdles

Debbie P. says: “The whole landing page, opt-in and autoresponder thing just misses me. Seems like a magical process. Where it all goes on my blog site, how works, etc., etc.”

You’re not alone. Fortunately you have two very good options. You can outsource the design and set-up to someone that does know these details. Or you can learn either hands-on or through a training course if you want to learn how to do it yourself.

If you use Aweber as your mailing list manager, they have helpful video tutorials for creating forms and placing them on your site. They also have free webinars and many other free video tutorials.

Michael Rasmussen also has a Free Video Course on creating mini-sites that is very detailed. Mini-site is another term often exchanged for Squeeze Page or Landing Page.

Success Secret To List Building

Dana says: “What’s the #1 activity, above all else, that you must do to create a list?”

That’s a loaded question. I looked at it again carefully before choosing my response, and after a bit of thought… this is my answer:

You must ASK people to subscribe.

It’s as simple as that. Of course that requires having a mailing list manager, setting up your list, and putting an opt-in (subscription) form on your blog or website. All very easy to do. Once you have that in place, you simply have to invite your target market to subscribe to your list.

Another question I hear frequently, a slight variation of yours, is “what do I need to do to sustain my list – to keep them engaged and responsive?”. My answer would be:

Stay in front of them.

The secret to success with list building & email marketing is to be consistent. Be consistent in both marketing your list, and communicating with your list. Letting a list grow cold from lack of contact is a real waste of a super valuable resource…

Which Mailing List Manager Should I Choose?

Diana says: “What are the differences between FeedBlitz and Feedburner? Are they similar? Are there advantages to one over the other?”

FeedBlitz is considered “a FeedBurner alternative”. You can see comparisons here. The main difference is that Feedburner will ONLY send a notification of new blog posts to your subscribers. FeedBlitz allows you to send a broadcast or newsletter to your subscribers, in addition to post notifications. And FeedBurner is free, but FeedBlitz is not.

I would not recommend FeedBurner for email list management. They don’t give you enough control, or customization options.

I do use FeedBurner to “burn my feed”. This allows me to have RSS stats, and it also integrates with Aweber (my mailing list manager) to give me combined stats – and also to set up a Blog Broadcast for blog email notification.

It can be a real hassle to move a mailing list, so I recommend you choose your provider carefully upfront – or before you list grows too large, at least. Aweber is the industry leader in list management, offers top notch training and customer service to their clients, and has all the bells & whistles you might possibly need.

I like Phil Hollows so much that I actually compared my Aweber account to a FeedBlitz account but the pricing nowhere near comparative due to my list size – which only continues to grow. Aweber continues to be the best choice for me in both service and pricing…

Email Marketing Is More Important Than Ever!

While it’s easy to put email marketing on the back burner for newer strategies such as mobile marketing, or social media marketing, email is even more important now than ever. With the majority of people “going mobile” via smart phones and other portable devices… you can now reach them via immediately, anytime and anywhere, right in their back pocket.

Content streams such as Facebook and Twitter updates move fast, and you either get in front of your market while they’re scrolling through them – or your timing is off and your update never gets seen. An email on the other hand, will wait for them in their personal inbox and be right there waiting when they get ready to read it…

“Don’t get me wrong here – I’m a huge fan of Social Media. I blog, tweet and all the rest of it. This isn’t an email vs. social media battle.

It’s this basic: Email is the perfect complement to your blog and other social media channels.” -Phil Hollows, LBB

To close with personal examples, I made two purchases from my smart phone in the last week alone. One was a physical product recommended by someone I respect in their field, and I clicked through and ordered directly from Amazon mobile. The other was a book recommended by Jason Falls while he was speaking in Nashville. I was able to open my Kindle app and order it on the spot, and also have it delivered to my iPad – all from my back pocket.

This is where you want to reach your buying market: anywhere!

Save or Share these tips – Download in PDF Format here

Best,

With List Building For Bloggers, you can quickly and easily raise the value of your list with very little effort.

It is written in plain English. It is full of actionable, proven tips and techniques you can easily put in place, step by step. It isn’t magic.

Most steps take no more than a few minutes to get working. But the rewards will last the lifetime of your blog. -Phil Hollows, LBB

* * * * *

You’ll want to use this marketing strategy carefully so as not to build a list of freebie seekers, but rather to attract your ideal subscriber & potential buyers.

For Day 22, refer to pages 54-56 in the 31 Day Guide to Growing Your List

Whatever you do, don’t offer prizes like cash, iPods, general gift certificates, etc – OR – submit your giveaway to general contest sites. This will bring freebie seekers out of the woodwork and you’ll end up with a list of people that aren’t even interested in your site, products or services!

Contest Prizes: What Should You Give Away?

Ideally you should offer your own products or services as a prize. Or if you don’t have a product or service, something of specific interest to your target market. You want to use this method to build a list of responsive, engaged readers.

A brilliant idea from Phil Hollows in his List Building For Bloggers guide (Practical Personalization chapter beginning on page 133) is to offer a giveaway during the birthday month for your subscribers. You would need to collect this information at the opt-in, but it would keep your readers subscribed anxiously awaiting their gift when their month rolls around.

You can announce the winners and their prizes each month (using initials or first name only of course) to keep the concept fresh for all subscribers. It will show them the cool types of prizes that are given away each month, increasing their anticipation. A fun idea!

This is a great way to keep your list engaged by using giveaways on an ongoing basis. Just one of many brilliant ideas I got from Phil! He also mentions contests & giveaways specifically on pages 37-39.

If you want something a little easier, you could do a random drawing from your subscriber base on a monthly or quarterly basis. Consider what they want or need most, and use those ideas to come up with offers and prizes.

In my case for example, I might do a random drawing every quarter for free lifetime access to my Private Brainstorming Group. That would be four new (free) members a year. It would attract the right people to my list, and I could keep it fun by interviewing the winner each quarter.

Tips For Successful Contests & Giveaways

• Brainstorm prizes or formats that people will share so your contest goes viral.
• Consider giving a prize to every entrant – perhaps a coupon code for our product/service, or for one of your merchants if you’re an affiliate marketer.
• Require participation (sharing or blogging) for greater exposure.
• Run mini-contests for specific JV Partners, or when you write guest blog posts. An exclusive and personalized giveaway for a specific group is sure to be well-received!

Bonus Tip: If you are doing a one-time contest for the purpose of growing your subscribe base quickly, I would segment the contest entries by creating a new list in your Aweber account. You can also segment those subscribers using other list features, but a separate list is simply easiest.

You can easily choose both lists anytime you send a broadcast, but it gives you the option to personalize your communication with contest subscribers – and to keep separate stats for that list.

Your Task For Today:

Decide on a prize to give away, and how you want to structure your contest. Will it be a one-time contest or an ongoing contest? Brainstorm all of your options, and outline how you will set it up and what tech you’ll need to get it running.

See Viral Marketing Examples to brainstorm ideas for your contest or giveaway.

Have an example or idea, or know a great plugin or program to help people run successful contests and giveaways? Leave a comment below and share it with us!

Best,