Today we’re going to dive into another great list building technique. I encourage you to give it a try right away and get familiar with it. Then start to do more of the same in the coming days, weeks and months to continue to grow your list.
If I had to guess, I’d say you probably have an opt-in form in the sidebar of your website or blog. Hopefully you also have a dedicated opt-in page set up. But that’s probably it. What if I told you there was another much more valuable piece of property on your website that’s perfect for opt-in forms?
The problem with anything in your website’s sidebar is that we’ve all gotten very blind to anything in there. It’s just noise that we tune out while we focus on what we’re there for – the content of your posts or webpages. It only makes sense than that an opt-in form within your content… ideally toward the end of it works. And it does.
The basic strategy is simple. You wow new readers with awesome content and instead of leaving them hanging at the end you invite them to join your list for more. It’s a natural transition that works well no matter what.
If you want to, you could edit your blogging template or webpage template so the same CTA (call to action) and opt-in form appear at the end of all posts and pages. It’s a quick and easy way to get a lot of exposure for your list.
The only problem with that is that you have to keep the call to action and the invitation to join your list fairly generic. What works even better is setting up a fairly minimal and plain signup form, and then writing custom invitations to join your list at the end of each post. This allows you to transition from your main content to the opt-in offer, highlighting whatever benefits and features may be of interest to someone reading each post in particular. You’ll get a lot better results doing it this way.
It’s also a little more work, particularly when you go back and update all old blog posts. Start using this technique going forward while also going back as time permits and adding it to those posts and pages that get a lot of traffic.
Give it a try and get a personalized invitation to join your list on a few different pages. Put up a different opt-in form for this so you can track how many new subscribers you get using this method. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised how well it works.
