How to Build a Profitable Subscriber List (Part 1)

Everyone is talking about money being in the list, and the thing is, they are right. There’s a lot of money to be made from a well built and nurtured email list. However, in order to make money from the list you have to build one. And all lists starts with getting people to optin to them. In this, the first of a series of articles, I’m going to teach you the essentials you need to know to in order to build a targeted, responsive and profitable list.   

Offer Your Subscribers Value

The first and most important step is strategy. You need to understand who your visitors are and why they would want to sign up to your “newsletter”.

Signing up to a newsletter is very similar to making a small purchase. It has to be an exchange of value. In other words, for someone to sign up to your email list, they need to know it’s going to be worth their while doing so.

See, on the internet – a person’s email address is like virtual currency. If they sign up, they will need to spend their precious time filtering your emails, reading them, and perhaps be interrupted from other things they want to do because of them.

Bottom line is time = money.

So be smart, and offer your subscribers value that is worth their time.

The other commodity in this internet world is attention. It is utterly short and very valuable. Do you have something to say that is worth your readers’ attention and time? If you bore them, they will leave.

So if you do have good stuff (which you should), be direct and cut to the chase. Don’t make them guess. Tell them what it is you have for them.

Because…

Nobody wants to sign up for your newsletter!

See, a “newsletter” is probably most boring thing you can offer when trying to get somebody to sign up to your email list. To most people, a newsletter is equal to spam.

There is however, a simple solution. It’s called a “lead magnet”.

This is something of value (re-read the section above if you’ve already forgotten why you need to offer something of value), that your visitor will want it so badly they will be willing to give their name and email address to get it.

A typical offer is something like an ebook, training video, report, podcast, guide, software trial, or membership access etc. that is easy to consume and again (this is incredibly important so I’m going to keep saying it), holds value to your visitors.

However, don’t assume that ‘value’ means something big. At this important stage, you want to give an easy to consume lead magnet, not something that is huge and will take days or weeks to consume and understand. The more complex it is the less likely your customers are to actually use it.

So don’t offer them a 387 page ebook or an hour and a half long welcome video.

It has to be short and sweet. This way you can keep their attention and also segment your visitors better.

You also need to be SUPER specific. Don’t be generic. Generic = Bad.

In two words: short and specific.

For example, instead of this massive long book no one is ever going to read completely:

“350 page guide on bodybuilding”

Offer something a lot easier to consume and with clear value, such as:

“7 page report reveals How to add inches to your biceps in 6 weeks”

This ticks all the boxes. It’s short (7 pages), offers a clear benefit (add inches to your biceps), and (bonus) sets a time frame in which it can be done. Excellent!

What Happens Next?

So what happens now is, people who are interested in training their biceps are the ones most likely to sign up. This way they have told you what they are interested in and have pre-qualified themselves.

This is where the real magic happens.

Now you know exactly what they want!

Now you can tailor your content (excuse me, the “newsletter”), towards their specific problem.

In fact, what you have is no longer a “newsletter”. It is a highly targeted list you have there.

Now you can provide content on and about the topic of training biceps and you know your subscribers will love it!

Sticking with the biceps training, here are a few more ideas you could use for your for emails:

• How to correctly measure your biceps
• Best training methods for biceps
• Pumping exercises
• Strength exercises for biceps
• The most common bicep training mistakes
• And so on…

 

This should get your ideas flowing…

Next time we will talk about sign up forms for your email list and how you should present and deliver your “bribe” (lead magnet) to your subscriber.