By now, we all know the importance of building up an email list for our blogs. It helps you to bring people back, build the relationship, mobilize your audience and, yes, make money.
The problem is that most bloggers are dropping the ball on actually growing their email list. It comes down to some real basics of making the offer. These are basics that, quite frankly, have been stated time and time again, but few bloggers apply.
Last week, I did a Q&A call with my Blog Masters Club students. In addition to answering questions, they watched me record a couple of videos in real-time. One of them was this video which discusses the typical list building mistakes.
NOTE: One of the sample opt-in forms mentioned in this video has since been changed – based on my advice. 
Feel free to check out his site, too, because he’s doing a much better job with his opt-in forms now.
In Summary
As I covered in this video, the most common mistakes are:
- Not enticing them into the list with a free giveaway tailored for your target audience.
- Using pre-formatted opt-in forms which are either too plain or completely wrong for your theme.
- Not “selling the giveway”. In other words, not using copy to overcome their objections to wanting the giveaway. It isn’t enough to just offer something for free. People have a natural distrust at first. You have to overcome their objections to the freebie by “selling” it, almost the same way as if you were collecting money for it.
These are the primary takeaways you should get from this:
- Provide a targeted free offer in exchange for them giving you their email address.
- SHOW them the giveaway using imagery. Provide a visual representation of the giveaway. If it is an ebook, show a cover. If it is a video, show a video thumbnail with a nice big play button on it. The image should be as enticing as you can deliver. Strongly consider hiring a graphics designer to do this for you. It is very cheap.
- Don’t use stock opt-in forms. Instead, use the basic HTML opt-in form provided by your email list provider (I recommend Aweber), then take the HTML into an editor and customize it to fit the look and feel of your site.
- “Sell” the giveaway. In addition to an image, have some basic copy next to it which illustrates the highlights or main benefits of the giveaway. One way is to tap into the sense of mystery by rephrasing a few highlights into statements which are designed to tap into that sense of mystery. You want the visitor to really WANT the giveaway.
My last piece of advice is this…
DO NOT skimp on your email list.
I see WAY too many bloggers downplaying the importance of their list by using solutions like Feedburner, or using boring-ass opt-in forms with absolutely no reason to subscribe. I’m sure the two biggest barriers are:
- Lack of funds to get a real email list provider.
- Lack of funds (or skills) to get a decent image designed.
My advice: Don’t skimp. You’re shooting yourself in the foot to downplay your email list. Building your list should be your #1 goal of your entire blog. Aweber offers a $1 trial and I recommend you use it.
If you think small with your email list, that’s exactly where you’ll stay: small.
Your Next Actions
- If you’re not yet using Aweber, I highly encourage you to sign up for their $1 trial account and try list building right.
- Subscribe to my Youtube channel so you can keep track of my videos. I don’t post all of them here on the blog, so there’s content happening over there you might not see if you don’t subscribe.
- Stay cool.
David has been blogging for 15 years, and generating a six-figure income at it for the last 12. He is the founder of Blog Marketing Academy. 
David Risley has been building and operating authority blogs for 15 years, and operating a six-figure business doing it for a decade.
Those are certainly three crucial things to do; and things you hear about all the time. If you do those , you're pretty much guaranteed to get a pretty good list; depending on your traffic, of course.
I'm currently working on developing an e-mail list. Those are definitely things I'm working on.
There are a lot of great point made in this post.
I've done many of the things you recommend in the video with the exception of a few, that I admittedly need to do, such as 3d cover design. I'm a web designer and took the time to customize my blog design and opt-in form to match.
One thing that you do that I like is include an opt-in form after each of your blog posts. This provides another way for you to gain subscribers in addition to including an opt-in in your sidebar.
One questions, what do you think about using a lightbox popup opt-in form on your blog?
I say do it. They work. Just be respectful and limit the display for repeat visitors.
Hi Dave, Great points. I actually have all your tips in place except for the “Submit” button. I can go to Aweber and change it to say “send it to me” or something else enticing. Thanks for sharing these tips!
When you said “not giving them anything”, I completely agree! If you aren't going to offer anything to your readers, they won't pursue in trying to gather information that doesn't exist. Great post, David!
David
Nice Post. Some great points. I've already done many of the things you mention in the post. Thanks for sharing this great Post and video.
~Dev
I'm just now starting to catch some momentum with my list building which I thought all on its own was a small victory. I loved how appropriate this post and video was for me. I can admit that I don't have an opt in that's too flash yet but we are a work in progress over at Financially Digital. You have some interesting points on selling the giveaway and peoples natural reflex to distrusting someone when they are trying to give you something for “free”. I can't wait to implement
I want to add a subscription form on my blog but honestly i havent because of the fear of screwing it up, i see what i dont like on other blogs and dont want to do that to mine, THANK YOU, now where is that bloody dreamweaver and aweber time to sort this out once and for all
James
I wouldn't be to concerned about screwing it up. Having an opt-in form whether it meets the criteria David has laid out in his video or not, is better than not having one at all. If you use Aweber, they make it very easy to publish your opt-in form to your website.
As far as customization goes, I find it best to publish a basic form from Aweber or whomever your autoresponder provider is and then take the time to either customize the raw html yourself or have a designer do it for you. You can have one in an hour or two if you just put the effort into doing it.
The reward is well worth the effort!
Yeah, I agree with Sean. I mean, what's the harm in “screwing it up”? It isn't as if anything bad is going to happen. So, just get something up there and then perfect it as you go.
Yeah, it is all about the benefit to the reader. You don't want your reader to “submit” to you.
James, the hardest thing for me to understand is that what I like is almost irrelevant. What matters is how prospect and customers respond. If you have a small list and screw it up, you haven't lost much. Advice I should take for myself.
enhancing the visual elements of the free product and adding a sense of mystery are the two main points I will take from these list building tips. Thanks
Well – I finally did it and all I can say is “Why did I wait so long?”
I downloaded David’s e-book 5 months ago. In it, he very is very adamant about using Aweber for building the email list and managing the back-end of the blog. I didn’t listen until now.
I added Aweber a week ago and the results are amazing. At this point all I can say is – GET IT!
Here is how it looks on my blog – http://www.fitnessover50.org
I actually feared screwing it up myself but then just went for it. I designed the whole opt-in form for my blog and ended up with the Mailchimp plugin for WordPress instead but it works. I don't have big numbers yet and after reading this and with some ideas coming into action very soon I see those numbers increasing as the value I'll be adding will be massive.
Thanks for the tip here David!
I definitely have a strong opinion on not going with a quality email autoresponder provider like Aweber. My opinion is DON’T skimp on it – it’s a foundation of your business.
If you don’t get this one right, you’ll pay for it later one way or another.
List building has always been hard for me
Who else wants to put list building with blog on ? That is why I made this big list.