17 Best Practices For Building Your List Every Single Day

Building a big, responsive lists requires you to take the following steps:

Creating in-demand lead magnets.
Setting up a compelling lead page to persuade people to exchange a good email address for the lead magnet.
Driving targeted traffic to the lead page.

And then of course you need to also send high-quality emails that build relationships, promote products, and retain subscribers.

That’s what this guide is about. Check out these 17 ideas for building your mailing list…

1. 15 Types of Lead Magnets

The key to a good lead magnet is to send something that your audience really wants. So, for starters, you’ll need to do your research by finding out what they’re already buying and consuming. Then determine what sort of format works best for your lead magnet. Here are your top options:

Ebooks/reports.
Multipart ecourses.
Access to membership site.
Webinars.
Videos.
Audios.
Software/apps/plugins.
Templates.
Checklists.
Worksheets.
Cheat sheets.
Planners/calendars.
Spreadsheets/calculators.
Gear list/resource list.
Group coaching Q&A.

Next…

2. The Lead-Page Checklist

Your lead page can make or break your list-building campaign, which is why you want to make sure it includes all the essential elements you need to persuade subscribers to join. Note that your lead page doesn’t need to be long – just compelling.

Use this mini checklist:

Does your headline present the biggest benefit?
Do you present a bulleted list of the other main benefits?
Do you offer a strong call to action?
Is your CTA button easy to see on the page?
Does the page look professional with a good design?
Do you have professional graphic for your lead magnet?
Does the opt-in form work?

Next…

3. Get a Feature-Rich Autoresponder

It’s a good idea to get a reliable autoresponder with the features and benefits you’ll need to run your mailing list. You’ll want to check if your email service provider has the following features:

Built-in stats to test and track your campaigns.
Opt-in form templates.
Email templates.
Automation (such as being able to add or remove people from lists depending on some action they take).
Reliable uptime.
Good deliverability rates.
Good customer service.
Good reputation.

Next…

4. 6 Ways to Capture Subscribers

The next thing you need to think about is how you’ll capture subscribers. You’ll want to make a plan for inserting opt-in forms into your website, including these options:

Use a standalone lead page. Then drive all your traffic to this page to build your list.

Insert a popup window or lightbox. This can be set on entry to appear immediately, on a timed delay, or when the person exits.

Insert an exit redirect. This is where anyone who’s trying to exit your page is redirected to an exit offer (in this case, a lead page).

Embed an opt-in form in you blog sidebar. Be sure it appears above the fold so it’s easily visible.

Embed a form within or at the end of blog content. For best results, embed the form at the end of highly related blog posts.

Create “registration” pages. For example, you can create webinar registration page or contest entry page.

Here’s the next tip…

5. Do Something Every Day

If you want to build a big, responsive list, then make a point of doing something every single day to grow your list. For example, take steps every day to drive targeted traffic to your list.

NOTE: Don’t complicate this process. Instead of trying to do a bunch of things at once, start by picking just ONE traffic source and one lead magnet to promote. Get that one traffic source working well, and then pick a second source. Rinse and repeat, never adding another traffic source until you’ve mastered the current one and are getting good results.

6. Offer Multiple Lead Magnets

As you expand your efforts, you’re going to want to offer multiple lead magnets. Not only does this help you grow your list more quickly, it also gives you an opportunity to segment your list in a meaningful way.

7. Create Sharp-Looking Lead Magnets

As you know, you need to create in-demand lead magnets. Beyond that, you also need to present them in a way that makes people really desire them. To that end, you need to do two things: create a good cover graphic for the lead magnet, and craft a compelling title.

TIP: If you don’t have the skills to create stunning graphics, then outsource this task using a site like upwork.com or even fiverr.com.

For example, here’s a boring title:

“How to Lose Weight”

That’s not going to really draw people to the lead magnet, is it? It’s descriptive, but it’s bland and won’t stand out.

Now consider this spiced-up title: “Fat-Busting Phenomena: The Secrets for Burning Fat Fast!”

8. Write for the Reader

Whether you’re crafting your lead page, lead magnet or emails to your list, be sure you’re creating reader-oriented writing. This means your writing is focused on the reader and how you can help them (versus being oriented towards you, the author).

Best way to show this is with an example. Here’s author-oriented writing:

I’ll teach my best strategies for losing weight.

Now let’s rewrite that to make it reader-oriented writing:

You’ll discover the best strategies for losing weight.

The key is to create sentences that use words like “you” and “your” versus “I” or “me.”

9. Help, Don’t Hype

Your lead page (and other materials) should focus on how you can help your prospect. Avoid hyped-up, aggressive sales messaging or shady psychological sales “tricks” in order to make the sale. If you focus on helping others, you’ll naturally attract and convert your target market.

10. Use Email Automation

You can make it easier to run your list by taking advantage of email automation.

For example, when someone purchases one of your products, you should be able to automatically add them to your customer list. For example, if you’re using a shopping cart, be sure this cart integrates with your email service provider so you can indeed add people to your list in this manner.

Which brings us to the next point…

11. Comply With All Rules and Regulations

Before you collect a single email address or send a single email to your list, be sure that you’re following all applicable rules and regulations.

Specifically:

Read and follow all the terms and usage policies set out by your email service provider.

Visit the FTC.gov to learn more about sending commercial emails. These regulations generally apply to you if you live in the United States or send email to people who reside in the United States.

Understand the regulations around the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation), which is Europe’s regulations. These regulations generally apply to you if you live in Europe or send email to people who reside in Europe. Learn more at https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/law-topic/data-protection_en.

When in doubt, seek out an attorney who understands these various protections and can help you comply with them. This includes creating your own terms of service and privacy policy laying out how you’ll use your subscriber’s information, as well as sending email that’s in compliance with applicable laws.

12. Build Your List Using Word-of-Mouth

One of the warmest types of traffic you can generate is word-of-mouth traffic (AKA referral traffic, viral marketing, and similar). That’s because most people tend to “tune out” anything that looks like an advertisement. But when a friend refers them, they’re more open to your offers.

As such, you’ll want to incorporate word-of-mouth traffic methods into your overall traffic strategy. For example:

Create shareworthy content and encourage your visitors to share it on social media.

Design a referral program, where you offer discounts and free products whenever someone refers a friend and that friend joins your list. You may even offer a two-way referral, where both the referral and the person making a referral get a freebie or discount.

Next…

13. Use Content Marketing

Another powerful way to drive targeted traffic to your list is by employing a content marketing strategy. This strategy should include starting up your own blog and then posting fresh content regularly. You may even optimize this content for the search engines in order to attract Google traffic.

Another good way to employ content marketing is by guest blogging. You can find targeted blogs in your niche by searching for your niche keywords (e.g., “gardening”) alongside words that will help you uncover blogs that accept guest content. Specifically:

List of blogs that accept guest authors.
Guest content.
Guest articles.
Guest authors.
Article submission.
Article submission guidelines.
Click to submit articles.
Guest author guidelines.
Guest author submission.

For example, you might search for “gardening blogs that accept guest authors.”

TIP: Be sure to follow the blog’s submission guidelines carefully when sending an article or a query. Also be sure that you only submit to targeted, high-quality blogs only. Research each blog thoroughly before you submit anything to it.

Here’s the next idea…

14. Drive Traffic Using Paid Ads

Another way to drive traffic to your lead page is by purchasing ads. You can purchase them on platforms like Facebook or use Google Ads, as well as purchasing ads on niche sites.

In all cases, the key is to start small and scale up if you get a good response. You want to be sure your ads are in front of as targeted of an audience as possible, so use longtail, highly focused keywords on the pay per click platforms, narrow your audience by demographics and interests on Facebook, and choose only high-quality targeted niche sites on which to post your ads.

15. Leverage Other Peoples’ Traffic

Here’s another way to get referral traffic that tends to produce really warm, targeted traffic: get marketing partners, and give them some sort of compensation whenever they send a subscriber your way.

One way to do this is to simply do a co-promotion. This is where your joint venture (JV) partner promotes your lead magnet on their various platforms, and in exchange you do the same thing for them. If you get several partners, then you’ll have a lot of people promoting your lead magnets.

16. Generate Traffic Through Social Media

Another good way to get traffic is by using social media, especially Facebook, to drive traffic to your lead page.

As mentioned earlier, you can use viral marketing to generate traffic, and Facebook is a good place to distribute this content since the platform is built for sharing. Here are other ways to drive traffic back to your site:

Post “Part 1” of an article on Facebook, and then direct people to your lead page to collect “Part 2.”

Create a contest and give people extra entries for sharing your lead page with their friends. (You can do this using an app like Rafflecopter.com.)

Create a Facebook group, post really good content, and then encourage people to join your list to get your very best content and strategies.

And finally…

17. Track and Test Your Campaigns

You’re wasting your money and/or time if you’re creating email campaigns that don’t really work. That’s why you need to test and track your ads and campaigns so you can focus most of your resources on the activities that are delivering the best results for you.

For example, if you’re using pay per click marketing, then you should test and track the following:

The keywords you’re bidding on to see which ones produce the best response.
The actual pay per click ad you’re using – tweak it until you get a good clickthrough rate.
Test and track the headline, benefits and call to action on your lead page.

This is just one example. You’ll learn more about how to test your campaigns and what, exactly, to test and track in a later guide.

Conclusion

There are plenty of steps that go into building a big, responsive list. However, as you just discovered, there are two keys to keep in mind:

Take consistent steps every day to grow your list. These steps may seem small in the greater scheme of things, but these small steps add up to big results over time.

Focus on one thing at a time. Get one source of traffic up and running before you incorporate another.

Now it’s your turn – go ahead and put these strategies to work for you!

Keep Reading: 17 Places To Look For Inspiration & Ideas To Write About (That Your Subscribers Will Respond To)

Previous: 17 Keys To Creating A Profitable Promotional Calendar

Or… Click Here To Get Our #1 Recommendation To Start Earning Today.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply