Why You’re Not Building Your List

I think at many times I’ve asked myself “why am I not getting more subscribers to my list?” Or what am I doing wrong with list building? Well in this post I’m going to point out some things I’m doing and help explain “Why You’re Not Building Your List”.

I like to try to get everyone on the same page so before we dive into the “why”, let me start in with a brief explanation of what a “list” is. A list is simply an abbreviation of a “contact list” or some will call it a “leads list” or even a “customer list”. Actually, you should have each of those it just depends on where you are in the relationship with your website visitor.

When they first visit your site, many times they don’t know anything about you and they are looking for certain information that you are offering. At that point, they are a “lead” or a potential customer. Your task after that first initial point of contact is to follow up and build a relationship.

What I’ve determined about list building is generally:

• We’re Not Asking
• We’re Not Asking Enough
• They Can’t Find Where
• What Are They Getting

Let me explain each a bit more about these list building mistakes.

The biggest issue with not building your list is that we just aren’t asking.

There is no place on your website where you are asking your web visitor for their name and email. Many times people won’t buy on the first visit, so by asking for a name and email you are getting permission from them to earn their possibility of starting a relationship with them that could result in getting the sell.

The next issues are that we are not asking enough! Many times we have one spot on our site, maybe even one particular page that the visitor can “opt-in”. By doing this we are hoping that they find that one spot AND decide to opt-in.

One thing we don’t consider is that not everyone starts on our site on the home page. Think about all of the pages and posts you have on your website. Search engines such as Google finds all of those pages and indexes them to serve up the page your visitor is looking for. Keeping that in mind, we need to have multiple strategies in place to capture their information no matter where they enter our site.

A service I like to use is OptinMonster.

This service allows me to add a pre-themed sidebar widget. I don’t have to worry about the design, you simply fill in a few spots and add it to your site. They also have a cool feature for a pop in form, which you may have seen this when visiting this page. You can set this pop in, site wide, so no matter what page the visitor visits they will see that form.

So some suggested locations you could add an opt-in form are:

• Home Page
• Side Bar
• Footer
• Drop In
• After Blog Post
• Integrate With Comment Form

As you can see from this list there are probably a few places you are not asking. To us the site owner we see every spot and think to ourselves “Man, this seems like begging. It’s everywhere!” but to the visitor they most likely will not see but one or two of these during a visit.

As a Web Guy myself, something I notice a lot is that on many of these opt-in forms blend into the site so the visitor can’t see where they’re supposed to opt-in. What I’m meaning is, the text of the form isn’t boxed in and blends in with the site or the button looks like every other image or button on the site.

As you add opt-ins to your site be sure that the form stands out. Add instructions that tell them to insert their name and email address. Use a button color different that is different than your order button. For example, if your order button on the page is orange, use a green button on your opt-in.

Add text to the button that gives them instruction. You need more than just “submit”. Utilize action words such as Join Now; Click To Join Now; Claim Yours Now; Click To Subscribe. You will see an increase just from these suggestions alone.

On the form be sure to tell them briefly what they are going to get when they subscribe. Use the headline to grab their attention and then a brief description. The key is to be brief!

What they get can be as simple as updates to your information. Or, your monthly newsletter; A free report, checklist, or chapter. But be sure to give them what you say you are going to give them.

Final tip, as you build your list be sure to stay in touch with them. Don’t squander the relationship by not staying in touch!

I hope you found this post helpful and as always I’d love to hear your comments.