I asked my Facebook group for one word to describe their list building efforts. That is, how they’ve been going with building an email list of subscribers to grow their business.

It’s been reported that email marketing has a 4x greater ROI (return on investment) than other forms of digital marketing – like Facebook and Twitter.

Yet the comments in the group included:

“poor”,

“frustrating”,

“non-existent” and

“convoluted”.

It’s fair to say, building a mailing list isn’t easy. But it’s important if you want to create leverage in your business. The question is: how you build an email list fast?

Instead of sharing a heap of traffic-generating strategies and completely overwhelming you, today I wanted to share how to tweak what you’ve already got to quickly increase the number of conversions you gain from your existing efforts.

This means minimal effort to build your email list fast.

To work out what your current conversion and customer value is, be sure to access this super simple Digital Marketing Calculator. You’ll walk away with greater clarity on WHERE you need to be focusing to increase your email list, improve conversions and scale your business:

1. Add an opt-in to each new blog post

I’m guessing you’ve likely heard of the term “content upgrade” by now. It seems to be “THE” thing marketers are recommending. Me included. The content upgrade is simply adding a free gift (also called an opt-in offer, lead magnet or ethical bribe) within your blog post to turn your reader into an email subscriber and allow you to continue to nurture that relationship.

Popular content upgrades include:

• a checklist of what you’ve taught in the blog post, especially if you’ve written a mega post
• if you’ve suggested 5 different ways people can build their email list fast, then offer a further 5 in your opt-in

Explore different examples of opt-ins to see what will work for you and your ideal client.

I highly encourage you to add an opt-in to every single blog post you write – unless its goal is to lead to a sale. In which case, have your call to action go straight to a sales page or order form. This is particularly effective to send to warm traffic (otherwise known as people who already know you or are in your community).

Another example of an opt-in is a tool that can help people further explore what you’re explaining in the blog post. As an example, for this blog post, I can use the below image with the call to action to:

Gain instant access to the  Simple Online Marketing Calculator to discover if it’s traffic or conversions you should focus on to scale your business.

And in case you’re wondering, I’m using Leadpages.net’s Leadboxes to embed the image into the blog post and allow it to “pop up” when clicked.

Lastly, to take this one step further to help in building your email list fast, I would upgrade or include more images in your blog post so you have additional opportunities to pin your images to Pinterest for automated traffic.

TOOLS I USE: Leadpages.net* 

 

2. Exit intent pop up for your content upgrade

This takes the content upgrade one step further. Yes, have the opt-in within the blog post itself, but also look to use an exit intent pop up for those who lose track and forget to opt in while they’re reading.

An exit intent pop up will “pop up” when someone moves their cursor to leave the page, hence “exit intent”.

I’m not a fan of pop ups, if I’m perfectly honest. I completely understand they can dramatically increase the number of people on your email list. But a large portion of people hate them. I don’t want to lose readers because of it.

Many find it annoying to get part way through reading a blog post, only for an opt-in offer to pop up and interrupt them. When time on page is so important to getting ranked on page one of Google, it’s critical for me to create an enjoyable user experience.

However, exit intent pop ups are another thing altogether. The reader was going to leave anyway, so why not have a last-minute reminder to sign up for the free gift.

And no, there’s not one on this blog post for reasons I might explain in another post.

For me, only using exit intent pop ups feels better. They can also be easily created with tools like PopupAlly and Leadpages’ Leadbox feature.

TOOL I USE: PopupAlly, HelloBar or Leadpages.net’s Leadboxes,

 

3. Optimise High Traffic Posts and Pages

If you’ve been blogging for a while, chances are you’ve accumulated quite a few blog posts by now. If you’re anything like me, you have some that now attract traffic from all sorts of channels – Google, Facebook shares, links in other people’s blog posts…

I encourage you to take a look at your Google Analytics and determine which blog posts and pages are attracting the most amount of traffic. You can do that by going into Behavior > Site Content > All Pages and play around with date ranges at the top right of the page.

Have a look at a month-long view, quarterly, half yearly and full year to determine what pieces of content have a consistent flow of traffic to them.

Then, go take a look at those posts and pages on your website to see how you can optimise them. Doing a content marketing audit to increase email subscribers is one of the simplest, yet most powerful things you can do in your business if you’ve been blogging for a while.

Are you linking to an opt-in or a landing page from those blog posts? If not, how can you change this? Which blog posts and landing pages would make a perfect match? Or do you need to create a new free gift?

I’m guessing (just a sneaky suspicion) that when you take a look at your analytics, you’ll discover your About page is one of your most highly read pages. Unfortunately, for most of us, we don’t pay much attention to this page. But you should. This is a great opportunity to turn readers into email subscribers. If they’ve bothered to click on this page to learn more, they’re highly interested.

If you offer a core opt-in offer, this is the perfect place for it. At the moment, I’m experimenting with sending people straight to a strategy call with me. Of course, when you schedule the chat, you’re also being opted into my email list. So it’s a double win.

What could you put on your About page that allows people to take the next step with you?

Another tool fantastic for looking at how your keywords are tracking in Google is SEMrush.com. Add your website address and it will bring up a list of the keywords you’re ranking for and which posts they’re connected to. Then, look a little closer at the data to see which keywords are going up and which are going down in ranking. The tool will tell you where it ranks now and where it was previously ranking.

Pick the blog posts that are connected to keywords ranking well in Google and see how you can improve them to make them rank higher in Google – and start attracting some automated traffic. 

TOOL I USE: The tools mentioned in No. 1.

 

4. Facebook Timeline and Twitter Cover

When people first discover you on Facebook, they look at your profile to check you out. Well, that’s what I do, anyway! And, when they arrive there, they’re greeted by your timeline cover. This is prime real estate.

However, your timeline cover can pop up in other places too. If you’ve ever linked up your Facebook page in a Follow Friday or similar Facebook thread, you’ll notice your timeline cover appears as the image.

What are your projecting with your timeline cover? Are you making the most of this piece of real estate?

It’s a perfect place to share your opt-in offer and increase the number of email subscribers you get with very little effort.

Likewise, when it comes to Twitter, you can also use the big space at the top of your homepage to create a call to action to your followers to download your gift and join your email community.

This is how to build an email list on Facebook – or Twitter.

TOOL I USE: Stencil, PicMonkey or Canva to create a Facebook timeline cover. Leadpages for the landing page – Leadpages.net also allows you to link up one opt-in as a Facebook app.

 

5. Pinned Tweet

This goes for Facebook and Twitter, but as I mentioned, when people first discover you they’ll check out your profile. What they see – after they see your timeline cover – is the latest tweet or Facebook status you made.

On both platforms, you can pin a tweet or Facebook status to the top of the page. Use this pinned position to promote your free gift and see your email subscribers increase.

It sounds too simple – but it’s effective.

Take this a step further and look at your recent statuses or tweets with a call to actions to your email list or a blog post with a content upgrade in it. If you see a particularly popular one on your Facebook page, one with a high number of likes, comments and shares, pin that to the top of your page as a form of social proof. We’re more likely to want in on something we see others have already taken up.

Try it!

TOOL I USE: As for Facebook Timeline Cover, use Stencil, Picmonkey or Canva to create your image and Leadpages to send people to the landing page.

 

Build Your Email List Fast

This is just five simple things you can do to grow your email subscriber list fast. There are many more. You need to choose which are the best way to build an email list for you.

But the key to all of the above is to

meet people where they are and give them what they want to build your email listClick To Tweet

If you’ve tried some of these and they’re not allowing you to build your email list fast, then you need to determine if you have a traffic problem or a conversion problem.

This is the greatest indicator of where your sales funnel is blocked and how to diagnose to fix it.

When you access the Simple Online Marketing Calculator, you’ll walk away with greater clarity on WHERE you need to be focusing to increase your email list, improve conversions and scale your business.

Have you had a play with the calculator? What is it for you? Traffic or Conversions you need to focus on to grow your email list?