4 Ways to Build Your List of Subscribers

How to Use Opt-ins To Build Your List

If you want to do business online, you know the importance of growing a list of subscribers who look to you for valuable, useful content. Most of the time, you will offer something that is useful and valuable to someone who doesn’t know you in return for their name and email address. This lead generation strategy is called an opt-in. Someone who doesn’t yet know much about you and what you have to offer opts in to your subscriber list in return for something you offer at no charge, that is useful and valuable to them.

You might be offering an opt-in that isn’t getting much action. In the online world, when this happens, we say that the opt-in isn’t converting well. That means that people who are looking at your opt-in are saying, “Meh” and passing it up. So you aren’t converting those people into new subscribers to your list. When this happens, you’ve got a problem. It’s your responsibility to always be adding new potential clients (or customers) to your list. If you don’t, you will have a hard time generating the income you need.

So here you are, staring at your opt-in, and wondering why it isn’t working very well for you. You’ve got one (or more) of these problems:

• What you are offering is not valuable enough that people want it (see TIP below)
• You have a valuable offer but you are not offering it to the right audience
• The design of your opt-in page (often called a landing page or a squeeze page) is poor and doesn’t work for you.

TIP: Keep in mind that what you offer may seem valuable and useful to YOU, but that doesn’t matter. Your offer has to be valuable and useful to the people you most want to work with (your target market).

 4 Simple Ways to Build Your List with Opt-in Pages Designed to Work

Let’s talk about the third problem – the design of your opt-in page. In Russell Brunson’s newest book, The Funnel Hacker’s Cookbook, he shows 4 different designs for an opt-in page and when to use each one. While I do not use Click Funnels, I am a fan of Russell’s, and think he does a brilliant job in his books of simplifying and teaching how to set up opt-in pages, sales pages, thank you pages, and more. You can get a copy of Brunson’s book for yourself by clicking here:  https://funnelhackerscookbook.com/the-elements.

Russell’s designs for opt-in pages start on page 64 of the book. He points out that there are 4 specific ways to use an opt-in page.

1. Squeeze page
2. Reverse squeeze page
3. Lead magnet page
4. Coupon page

Squeeze page. As Russell points out, the one and only thing you want a squeeze page to do is to get someone who isn’t on your subscriber list to get onto your subscriber list. That’s it. Your squeeze page, to work best, should not focus on anything else. You don’t need to impress the person with your vast knowledge, you don’t need to worry about showcasing your brand or your fancy logo. In fact, those things are distractions. When do you use a simple squeeze page? Russell advises these are best used with a cold market – a new audience. What works best on a simple squeeze page? He says to use a curiosity-based headline. Ask a question, and to get the answer to the question the person has to opt-in.

Reverse squeeze page. A reverse squeeze page does not use a curiosity-based headline. Instead, a reverse squeeze page offers a short video that teaches the person a new idea or concept. When the training video is over, you offer more detailed information about the topic in return for the person opting-in. When do you use a reverse squeeze page? When you need to teach your potential new client or customer why they need what you are offering – you’ve got to train or tell them what good it will do them. Russell points out that your conversion rate will be lower than from a simple squeeze page, because you’re asking a person to stay with you long enough to watch your video and fewer people will do that. But the good part is, those who DO watch have shown themselves to be truly interested in what you have to offer, so the quality of that person is higher to you – they are more likely to make a purchase later on.

Lead magnet page. This type of opt-in page offers a gift (sometimes called an ethical bribe) to someone in return for their name and email address. It’s called a magnet because you are drawing people in based on the offer of your gift. It’s not based on curiosity or on teaching the person something. It’s based on “I will give you this if you give me your name and email.” It’s a pure trade. Your lead magnet has to be of high value, or this will not work for you. When do you use a lead magnet page? If you don’t need to teach a concept, and you have something very strong in value (a book, a free training course) you can use a lead magnet page.

Coupon page. A coupon opt-in page works similar to a lead magnet page, but instead of offering a free gift of high value, you are offering a coupon to discount your product or service. If you decide to do this, I advise (and Russell says this, too) doing these things:

• Use urgency (the coupon will expire soon)
• Use scarcity (there are only so many coupons)
• Use a countdown clock to emphasize the sense of urgency (I use and recommend the Outtatimr Plug In offered by Ryan Deiss)

When do you use a coupon page? These pages work best with people who already know you. Use them to re-engage people already on your list, or people who know you but are not yet on your list.

You will have better luck with your opt-in pages if you are clear about the purpose of each one, and you design it to include certain elements. You can look in Russell’s book from pages 64 to 79 and see examples of the layouts for each of these 4 types of opt-in pages. I think it’s really smart to simplify and categorizing your opt-in pages in this way. I need to do a better job myself, and I plan to start following these formats even though I am not a Click Funnels user.

Besides Russell’s book, if you want to know more about building your subscriber list you can check out my complete e-course, List Building for Success and Impact. I talk about the first two problems I mentioned above and how to avoid these in the e-course.

• What you are offering is not valuable enough that people want it (see TIP above)
• You have a valuable offer but you are not offering it to the right audience

Keep in mind that one of the core pieces of your online business is to always work on building your list. These two resources will help you do it right.