49 Advanced List Building Strategies - Ahfaz Ahmed [PDF]

EBOOK

49 Advanced List Building Strategies

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Learn 49 advanced strategies that will help you grow your email list. These strategies include different ADVANCED methods of growing an email list from your website, Facebook, Twitter, Quora, Pinterest, Email, SnapChat and many other platforms. To pick the strategy that is best for you, the Ebook mentions the difficulty and time required for each strategy to work and bring results.

By Ahfaz Ahmed

Difficulty Level - Easy

Content lockers are a great way of growing your email list. Usually content lockers are used to get more shares to a content. But if you have locked content that is irresistible, people would love to give away their email address. Setting up of content lockers can be done using many plugins. The best plugin you can use for hiding content is Bloom.

Bloom has many templates and provides a locked content opt-in.

You can lock a part of your content and ask users to sign up for access locked content.

Difficulty Level - Easy

Many marketers are using this method for getting more email subscribers. You can add a featured opt-in area at the top or bottom of your website. There are many themes that provide this feature. But if yours doesn’t, you can use plugins like PlugMatter.

And instead of using “Sign up for my newsletter” on your featured opt-in area, provide a free material like an ebook or a course. This will get you more email subscribers. Look at how Alex Tooby uses her featured opt-in area.

You can also provide something cool in your featured opt-in area to get more email subscribers fast.

Difficulty Level - Medium

Having a separate homepage and blog page is not essential but if you want to grow your email list, you should consider making the change. Create a homepage that is optimized for list building. What I mean by this is that you should provide something on your homepage. I promote my bonus materials on my homepage to grow my email list. Some great marketers also turned their homepages into list building machines. Look at Chris Ducker’s homepage:

You can design a custom homepage using different plugins. Thrive Content Builder is a great plugin that will help you design a custom homepage. It has many templates you can choose from. But if you want a fully custom homepage, you can also design it from scratch.

Difficulty Level – Medium

You already know an eBook, checklist, template or a spreadsheet can help you get more email subscribers. And you can double your list growth if you rank that on Google. This is what Hubspot did to grow their email list fast. They have created a resources library with eBooks, templates, checklists and more. What’s great about it is that most of their offers are ranking on Google. When you search for “on page SEO template” on Google, you’ll find that their template is ranking first. And this a landing page asking visitors for their email list.

You can also do this. It’s not easy but if you choose a keyword that is low search volume and low difficulty, you can also rank your landing page.

Difficulty Level - Hard

Webinars are a great way to get more email subscribers. If you have good relationships with other bloggers and influencers in your industry, you can conduct webinars. These webinars can help you grow your email list fast. If you convince a big industry expert for a webinar, you struck gold. Now you can offer the webinar completely free and if people want to watch it again, they can sign up. Or you can simply ask people’s email address for webinar registration. Both ways work great. But the second one will grow your email list fast. And always record your webinars. This way you can create a dedicated landing page for your webinars. If anyone wants to watch any of your webinars, he/she will have to give their address. Pretty cool, right?

Difficulty Level - Easy

One testimonial can skyrocket your list growth. Why? Because if people who visit your website read that you really provide value and helped people, they will not hesitate to give you their email address. Getting testimonials is not easy when you’re new. So here are some ways to get testimonials: 1. Reach out to your blog commenters and ask them if they are ready to send you a few lines about you. 2. Send out an email to your current email list and ask them to give some feedback about you and your content. 3. If you have good networks with people in your industry, ask them to check out their blog and give some feedback. 4. Check your blog comments and find a comment that will fit good for a testimonial. 5. Publish a status on Facebook and ask your blog readers to write something about you in one sentence. If your website doesn’t provide value to people, you won’t find any good testimonials. If you have testimonials, include around 2-3 on your homepage and one below your opt-in widgets on sidebar and inside your content.

Difficulty Level - Easy

If you are leveraging your Facebook page, you must have a sign up button. This button can lead users to your homepage or a separate page designed for Facebook visitors.

If you design a separate landing page on your website for people coming from your Facebook page, your conversion rates will boost.

On this dedicated page, you can provide more freebies or exclusive freebie. And on your Facebook page, you can pin a post that says:

“Click on the sign up on top of our page and get an exclusive freebie made just for our Facebook fans”.

Difficulty Level - Easy

If you want to properly utilize your email signature, include a link to your landing page. Instead of including a link to your blog page, use a link to goes to a landing page. This way people you know personally will sign up for your email list.

And not just email signature. If you are active on different industry forums, you should include a link to your landing page in your forum signature.

Forums can really grow your email list fast if you’re active there.

Difficulty Level - Easy

You can use your current email subscribers to get more subscribers.

In your emails you can ask them to share or forward the email to someone who may find it helpful. This way you can also get more readers for your website. If you’re confused about how to do this, include this at the end of your email when you send your next campaign to your list: “If you found these tips helpful, share it someone who will also find it helpful. Because sharing is caring. Just forward this email to someone who will love these tips. There’s no feeling better in this world than helping others. Let’s see to whom you will forward this email”

Difficulty Level - Medium

Time – 1 week

Create a separate board named “Website Name VIP area”. And pin images of your eBooks or any bonus content. This is a great way to use Pinterest for getting more email subscribers. But before you create a board like this, make sure you are active on Pinterest and have at least 10 different boards with lots of images.

If you haven’t used Pinterest yet, don’t start off with this technique. This will make you look spammy on Pinterest. First create around 10 boards related to different topics in your industry. Start pinning images on these 10 boards. Once you have 15-20 images on each one of your boards, request admins of group boards. Once you’re in some group boards, start pinning images there and don’t just promote your own content. After doing all this, if your Pinterest profile is getting good engagement start your board of bonus content. Pin just one image of your bonus content in group boards and request people to check out your new board which contains VIP content. This is the best way to get people visit your VIP section board and make them sign up for your email list.

Difficulty Level - Hard

Create short videos about your eBooks and promote them on YouTube. No, I am not talking about paid ads or anything like that. I am just talking about creating your YouTube channel and making short videos. You can create long tutorials also but if you want to test out if YouTube helps in getting more email subscribers, you can create short videos.

These videos can be 5-minute long and at the end you can ask users to download your bonus material from the link in description.

For example, you can create a video on best link building tactics and then at the end of the video, you can ask people to download your bonus to get 2 extra link building tactics not mentioned in the video. This method is not easy as you’ll have to work hard for getting views on your YouTube video.

You can implement this strategy if you already have a YouTube channel which gets decent views.

Difficulty Level – Hard

When writing content for different websites in your industry, always try your best to include a CTA to your landing page.

You can either create a bonus file and offer it in the guest post. But most of the website owners will not allow you to do this.

So you instead of including a link to your blog page in your author bio, add a link to your landing page.

This way, anyone who wants to visit your website will first reach your landing page.

And as I said above, if your landing page is providing something valuable to the user, he/she will not hesitate to sign up.

Difficulty Level - Medium

There are many survey tools that allow you to take quick surveys of people who visit your website.

At the end of the survey, you can offer something to the user. This method is really great and many people have started using it. One such tool that allows you to create surveys is Quaraloo. You can easily set up your survey by adding questions. You can also use existing questions from their library. It also provides many targeting options that allows you to start the survey at specified time and action.

Ask five quick questions in your survey and at the end of the survey, include a strong call-to-action.

Difficulty Level – Hard

This method might cost you some money but if you manage to create a cool tool for people who visit your website, your email list will grow very fast.

Not only this, tools are a great way to get links to your website. Neil Patel uses a tool on Quicksprout to collect email leads. His tool is a simple website analyzer that checks your website and gives results.

You can also create a simple tool. Hire a developer from Upwork and get your tool developed. But make sure your tool is something helpful to people visiting your website.

/ Difficulty Level – Medium

I’ve already talked about webinars above. But if you’re not able to provide a webinar, just record a simple video and offer it to your visitors.

You can offer this on your homepage, about page and also in the featured opt-in area of your website.

Offer something valuable in your video and have a strong call-to-action.

Difficulty Level – Easy

Yes, popups are a bit annoying.

But there’s no harm in using popups when the user is about the leave your website. Such popups have a very high conversion rate and can help you boost your email list growth. There are many tools that help you create exit-intent popups. OptinMonster can help you create high converting exit intent popups. But if you’re looking for a free alternative, you must try Privy.

Difficulty Level - Medium

Courses are a great way to get more email subscribers and make money. But if you want to grow email list fast, create a free email course.

This course can be an email course, video course or a series of eBooks your email subscribers get every day.

Almost everyone is doing this and it works. Create a small e-course and promote it all over social media.

Difficulty Level – Medium

This one sounds weird, right?

Well, if you host meetups you can provide access to your newsletter and ask them to sign up.

The best way to do this is to create a dedicated VIP section for people who attend meetups.

This way they will be more likely to sign up. Always offer value in your meetup.

Don’t just show up and ask them to sign up for your newsletter.

Difficulty Level – Hard

Similar to hosting meetups. If you’re invited to speak at an event, create a bonus eBook or course just for your speaking gig.

And at the end of your talk, offer your free incentive.

If you attend different events in your industry, you’ll notice that many experts and influencers use this tactic to get more email subscribers.

Difficulty Level – Easy

If you have a good number of followers on Instagram, you must leverage that by promoting your free eBooks and offers. Thus, you can convert your Instagram followers into your email subscribers. Pat Flynn recently promoted his list building challenge on Instagram.

You can also promote your offers. All you need to do is to create a good looking image. This can be done using a tool like Canva. Once your image is ready, post it on Instagram and include a strong CTA in your caption so that people take some action. Use relevant hashtags to attract people who will sign up for your offer.

Difficulty Level – Easy

Using Canva, design images covers for Facebook and Twitter and promote your free incentives. This way, anyone who visits your profile will first look at the cover image. Here is an example of how Foundr Magazine uses their cover images to get more people subscribe for their email list.

Difficulty Level – Medium

Subscriber-groups really help to build your audience and grow your brand.

You can start a VIP group for your subscribers and ask them to share it with their friends.

There are two advantages of doing this: 1. You can get to know your subscribers more personally by connecting with them on Facebook. 2. They will share the group with their friends which means half of the promotion work will be done by your subscribers.

But don’t grant entry to anyone in your group. Make sure people sign up for your email list before joining the group.

Difficulty Level – Easy

I guess you share your blog posts on different Facebook groups, LinkedIn groups and Google+ communities.

Similarly, you can also share your landing pages on such groups and communities.

Write a brief description of what you’re offering with a strong CTA. Don’t just slam a link on every group you are a member of.

First provide value to people in that group/community and then share your offer.

Remember: Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook!

Difficulty Level – Hard

Now this one is the most dangerous strategy.

Reddit doesn’t love self-promotion. And people will beat you down badly if you try to be smart.

Choose the subreddit where you will share your free offer. Get active on that subreddit.

Just try to be the most active member of that subreddit. And when people appreciate what you share, right hook people with your offer.

The other way around is to do an AMA in that subreddit. But for doing an AMA, you have to be an expert in what you do.

Difficulty Level - Easy

Quora is a great place to get people visit your website.

You can promote your landing page on Quora to grow your email list.

Answer questions in your industry and whenever relevant, include a link to your landing page.

For getting more subscribers from Quora, you will have to work hard. Always make sure your answers are detailed and helpful.

Don’t just write 2-3 sentences and add a link to your landing page.

Your answer should be detailed enough to provide value to people. I have a complete guide on Quora Marketing. Read it here to become a power user on Quora.

Difficulty Level – Hard

Podcasting is something you must jump on if you want to grow your website and brand.

If you want to grow your email list, start podcasting and promoting your email list in your podcast.

If you have already started podcasting and want to use it to get more email subscribers, promote your free offer at the beginning and ending of the podcast.

Just like you promote content upgrades in your blog posts, promote your email list in your podcasts.

Pat Flynn does it the right way. Check out his podcasts to learn more on how to promote your stuff in podcasts.

Difficulty Level – Hard

Try to get yourself in a podcast in your industry.

If you succeed in doing this, talk about your free eBook or offer in the podcast.

This is a great way to grow your email list because you are promoting your stuff to someone else’s audience.

If you are good in persuading others, you will be able to turn that audience into your website audience.

Difficulty Level – Medium

Medium is a great content marketing platform and you must start republishing your content on medium. Benjamin Brandall got huge traffic by just republishing his content on Medium. Take a look at his stats:

You can also get the same results. Start republishing on Medium and promote it like a mad-man.

Don’t forget to include a strong call-to-action. You can design an image and put it at the end of your content to get more people sign up for your website.

Difficulty Level – Easy

If your email list is not big enough, you can do a list swap with other bloggers and marketers with the similar list size.

This is an effective way of getting more subscribers fast. But not everyone likes to exchange their email lists.

And to make this happen, you must have good relationships with people in your industry.

Then only they will swap email lists. You will have to prove them that you provide value to people and doing a list swap will help both of you.

Difficulty Level – Easy

This amazing technique was shared by my friend Michael Pozdnev. Instead of reaching out to influencers in your industry, reach out to the people who comment on their blogs. This way you don’t have to build relationships with influencers when you can directly tap into their audience and make them your BFFs. It’s one of the best networking techniques out there. You can use it to grow your email list too. Find blog posts that are related to the offers/eBooks you provide. Reach out to the blog commenters of those blog posts.

Offer them your friendship and tell them that you’ve got a free bonus material that could help them. Most of them will reply you positively and will sign up for your email list. I implemented this technique to network with other bloggers in my industry. This is one of many positive responses I received:

Difficulty Level – Medium

SnapChat is growing fast. Many businesses and brands have moved to SnapChat. And you must too. You can leverage SnapChat by sharing inside stories of what you’re working on.

A great way of list building is by snapping your bonus page or material on SnapChat and asking users to sign up.

You can follow different brands to find out how they are doing this. Take a look at how I promote my bonus and landing page before they are ready. This makes people on SnapChat excited to get what you’re making for them.

Difficulty Level – Easy

Include an opt-in radio button in your comments section and contact form. This way, anyone who comments on your website and reaches out to you gets signed up for your website.

This is an effective to turn your website commenters into subscribers. And your blog posts get so many comments, then you must give this technique a try. You can also include a sign up box at the end of your contact forms.

There are many plugins available that will help you do this. Check some of the best ones here.

Difficulty Level – Medium

Do you have a business card? Or are you going to get new cards printed?

Well, you can get fancy by adding a QR code to your business cards. When someone scans your QR code, they will be redirected to your landing page. This works great if you attend different meetups and summits in your industry. You can network with people and give them your card.

Once they scan the card, they reach your landing page. And since you know them personally, they will most likely sign up. You can generate QR codes using online tools like QR Code Generator.

Difficulty Level – Hard

Leveraging your current subscribers is also important. You can make them happy by sending over a physical gift. This can be a book, calendar or a poster.

Then you can ask them to take a photo of with the physical gift and send it to you. Also ask them to write a few words about you.

You can then use those photos and their testimonial as a social proof. This is the best way to use your current subscribers to get new subscribers.

Doing this will also help you build relationships with your subscribers and turn them into your loyal fans.

Difficulty Level – Easy

Giveaways a are great way to attract people to your website.

You can run a giveaway and offer something interesting. What you’re offering depends on the industry you are in.

You can either give away online products or physical products.

Moreover, you can partner with someone and give away their product. This way they will get brand exposure and you in return will get email subscribers.

You can run giveaways on your website using tools like Gleam.

Difficulty Level – Easy

Do not ask for too much information during the signup process. Keep it simple.

At most, you can ask for the person’s First Name and Email Address while he/she is signing up.

Don’t ask for information like Phone Number, Address, Website URL etc.

This reduces the number of signups because not everyone will give away all their information to you unless you are a big brand/company.

Difficulty Level – Medium

Gary Vaynerchuk says that Facebook ads give the best ROI. And he is right.

If you’re ready to invest money on growing your email list, Facebook ads is the right choice.

But don’t just create an ad like “Sign Up for my Newsletter”. You must offer something irresistible that people can’t help but click on the ad and sign up.

You can create a course and promote it using Facebook ads.

Difficulty Level – Easy

Instead of linking to your website directly on Instagram and Twitter, link out to your landing page.

So anyone who wants to visit your website will first visit your landing page. This increases the number of signups.

Difficulty Level – Hard I already discussed about creating courses in this eBook many times. But I never talked about using influencers in your course. You can get influencers to share your course on social media. If this happens, your email list will be flooded with people quickly. You can get an influencer share your course by mentioning them in your course. So if I am creating a video course on Content Marketing, I’ll create a videos like:  Neil Patel’s best content marketing tactics that work  How CoSchedule creates epic content  Pat Flynn’s secret to creating truly engaging content Now to do this, you must know what they follow and implement. Don’t just create a course that just shares everything that is totally out there. If possible, reach out to these influencers and ask them a few questions. You can later use those questions and answers in your videos. One more way to get influencers share your course is by doing a 10-minute video interview with them. This way you can interview at least 5 influencers and make a 50-minute long video of your course. Then email these 5 influencers and tell them about the course and the 50-minute interview. They will be happy to share it with their followers on social media.

Difficulty Level – Easy

Just like SnapChat, share your landing page or bonus page on Instagram stories.

And if you share the bonus content section where people can see all the resources available, they will most likely signup. But when you share a story like this, don’t forget to update the link of your Instagram bio to the landing page.

Here is an example of how you can promote your landing page/bonus page on Instagram stories:

Difficulty Level – Easy

Twitter is still a great place to find people who might be interested in what you’re offering. You just need to find such people. To do this, search for terms related to your free offers and bonus materials. You will find sharing articles related to what you’re offering. Then you can simply reply to their tweet saying: “Thanks for sharing this! I myself created a free eBook on [your topic name]. You can download it here.” Now don’t do this with people who have a big following on Twitter. Marketers know when you’re marketing. ;)

Find small accounts and reply to their tweets and offer them your incentive. This way you can get at least 5 subscribers daily.

Difficulty Level – Easy

Using share buttons will make it easier for people to share your newsletter. This will get you more exposure and help you grow your email list.

Many email marketing software’s like Mailchimp, Aweber, ConstantContact provide the facility to add share buttons in your newsletter.

Difficulty Level – Hard

You can reach out to your blog readers and email subscribers on Twitter and ask them to leave a feedback.

Not only this, you can also ask other people in your industry to check out your website and leave feedback.

This works in collecting testimonials. You can then use these testimonials below your opt-in forms.

Difficulty Level – Hard

If you have courses on Udemy, you can ask your course students to sign up for your newsletter.

And if don’t have any course on Udemy, you can start creating one. It doesn’t have to be a paid one. You can simply create a short video course for beginners.

Once your students complete the course, ask them to sign up for your email list.

One benefit of creating a course on Udemy is that it gets more exposure and people can find it by just searching.

Whereas if you provide a course on your website, you will have to do a lot of promotion work.

/ Difficulty Level – Hard

Have you seen those “I will give you my eBook on how to lose weight for 5$” gigs on Fiverr.

Well, people buy those gigs. But how do you get people subscribe from such gigs? There are two ways: 1. Once the buyer orders your gig, ask him to sign up here to get access the course or eBook. Now not many people will like this and they might cancel your order. Or you can get negative reviews on your gig. To avoid this from happening, you can try this method:

2. Offer the course/eBook to the buyer. Once he/she completes the order and gives your gig a rating, message him/her saying that you have another eBook to offer and that too for free. And once the buyer accepts to get another eBook, ask him to sign up and get access. The buyer will be very happy to get more from you without paying anything. This way you will get positive ratings for your gigs, make some money and also get email subscribers. 3 big wins!

Difficulty Level – Easy

Using CTA’s between your content can help you get more email subscribers.

It can be a content upgrade or an opt-in form. And to test things out, you can put your CTA as a text link, button, big opt-in box or an image.

If your email list is not big and want to grow your email list fast, you must use this tactic.

Difficulty Level – Easy

Which one do you think is more attractive: “Download this SEO checklist to make your content perfectly optimized” Or “Download Brian Dean’s SEO checklist to perfect optimize your content”

The second one, right? It’s because you know Brian Dean is an expert and you would love to follow what he does.

This is why, using an influencer’s name in your CTA’s can boost your conversion rate.

But don’t just use anyone’s name without purpose. Make sure it’s relevant to your content.

Difficulty Level – Easy

Remove unnecessary elements from your landing page that distract the user.

Because such distractions can make the user leave your landing page without signing up.

Here are essential elements of a good landing page that converts: 1. Killer headline 2. Sub-headline 3. Images of your content 4. Benefits you’re offering 5. Social proof/testimonials 6. A very strong call-to-action (CTA)

Don’t include unnecessary elements like your best blog posts, contact form, sidebar.

Difficulty Level – Easy

This is something which is quite obvious but nobody seems to follow it.

You must regularly share your landing page and offers on social media. Use Buffer to schedule tweets and updates to share your landing page and offers.

Here are some ways you can do this without being spammy on social media:

1. Don’t always use the headline of the page in your tweets and updates. Write different copy for your social media shares. 2. Include images while sharing updates. Also try using different images every time you share your landing page. 3. Outline the benefits of signing up. Then only, people will sign up. 4. Use relevant hashtags while sharing your landing page.

These are some helpful tips when promoting your landing page on social media.

So these were 49 advanced strategies and methods that will surely boost your conversion rate and help you grow your email list fast.

If you enjoyed this eBook and found it helpful, share it with others. I would appreciate if you take the effort to share these strategies with others who are struggling to grow their email list.

Now I want to you do two things:

1. Email me at [email protected] and tell me how was this eBook. Any questions, suggestions or anything. I am waiting for your email. 2. Share this eBook on Twitter and help others who are struggling to grow their email list.

Oh, and one more thing. Let’s become friends on SnapChat. Add me @iamahfaz on SnapChat and I promise I’ll add you back.