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    Tag: List Building

    Is Your Website Annoying To Your Visitors?

    So many websites in 2022 are highly annoying to visit due to all the popups, cookie notices and more. Is your site one of them?
    David Risley June 20, 2022
    0 Comments

    How To Clean Your Email List And Ensure Good Delivery Rates From A New Sender

    Here's how to clean your email list and begin sending from a new email platform in order to ensure good email deliverability.
    David Risley October 25, 2021
    2 Comments

    Blog Categories Done Smartly: How To Define Your Blog Category Structure To Make More Leads And Sales

    There's the usual way to define blog categories... then there's the SMART way which will help you with your online marketing. A simple change in how y…
    David Risley September 21, 2021
    23 Comments

    Building Your Email List Via A Free Membership: Why You Might Want To (And How)

    A look at using a free membership level in order to build your email list rather than simply giving PDF downloads. How well does it work... and how do…
    David Risley May 11, 2021
    2 Comments

    Why 2021 Is The Year A Membership Site Becomes More Important Than Ever (And It Has Nothing To Do With Monetization)

    The increase of censorship and deplatforming is not just political noise. It should serve as a wakeup call to revisit the structure of your online pre…
    David Risley January 21, 2021
    5 Comments

    FluentCRM Review: A Look At Marketing Email Automation Inside WordPress

    Let's take an inside look at FluentCRM, a marketing automation CRM for Wordpress. This review will take a look at whether it is ready for primetime ye…
    David Risley December 14, 2020
    5 Comments

    ConvertBox Review: 15 Pro Strategies Using ConvertBox To Grow Your Business And Make More Money

    ConvertBox is far more than opt-in software. Here are 15 pro-level strategies and real-world examples of using ConvertBox to increase conversions and …
    David Risley November 2, 2020
    8 Comments

    Marketing Automation CRM… Inside Of WordPress? Would It Work?

    What if you could host your email list inside of Wordpress instead of using an expensive email list host? Can you do real marketing automation? Is it …
    David Risley October 7, 2020
    17 Comments

    Perfect About Page Formula: Create A Conversion-Focused About Page With This Template (UPDATED)

    Your blog about page is one of the most important pages of your site. This formula (w/ template) will guide you to creating a conversion-focused page.
    David Risley August 13, 2020
    7 Comments

    New RV Blog Stats! Update On My Email List Metrics, Blog Traffic, And Epic Bounce Rate Change [10XChallenge]

    2 weeks into my project to 10X my blog traffic, here's an update on the traffic stats, my email list metrics, and an epic reduction in my bounce rate …
    David Risley July 15, 2020
    4 Comments

    Why And How I Switched My Optins From Thrive Leads To ConvertBox

    I decided to officially switch away from Thrive Leads... into the arms of ConvertBox. In this post, I'll describe why I made this move, despite being …
    David Risley March 6, 2020
    6 Comments

    ConvertBox Review: The Good And Bad Points Of This Opt-In Software And How It Compares (UPDATED)

    ConvertBox is an up-and-coming opt-in form software currently available with lifetime pricing. But, is it any good? What are the bad parts? Let's take…
    David Risley November 26, 2019
    0 Comments

    RightMessage Versus ConvertFlow: Onsite Retargeting To Personalize The Marketing On Your Blog (UPDATED)

    What if your blog actually changed based on who was visiting it? You might get way more opt-ins and sales, right? It is called onsite retargeting. And…
    David Risley August 15, 2019
    2 Comments

    Thrive Leads Vs OptinMonster: A Non-Biased Comparison Based On Real World Use

    Let's move beyond the usual feature comparisons... and look at the real-world use cases for these two popular list building solutions.
    David Risley May 30, 2019
    0 Comments

    Blog Traffic: The Ultimate Guide To Increasing Your Blog Traffic (2021 Framework)

    How do you get blog traffic? How do you generate traffic when you're first starting out? Which strategies are more effective than others? This guide g…
    David Risley April 2, 2018
    1 Comment

    What If You Emailed Your List Every Day? (A Different Look At Email Frequency)

    If somebody recommended to you that you email you list every day, what would you say? If you're like most, you would say they're insane. Is that true?
    David Risley October 16, 2017
    0 Comments

    Case Study: How This Mental Health Blog Can Make More Money (By Removing Banner Ads)

    An in-depth look at a mental health blog called the Radical Transformation Project and how she can improve her site - and increase revenue by dropping…
    David Risley October 5, 2017
    0 Comments

    Ultimate Guide To Building An Email List: List Building That Works And Makes You Money

    The complete guide to how to build your email list from your blog, including opt-in and lead magnet strategy that is working today.
    David Risley August 14, 2017
    15 Comments

    7 Things You Can Do In Less Than A Few Hours to Grow Your List More Effectively

    You can grow your email list effectively without taking a ton of time to do it. Here are 7 strategies you can use to grow your list in just a few hour…
    David Risley May 16, 2017
    0 Comments

    How To Create 2-Step Opt-ins In Your Blog Posts Using Thrive Leads

    I recently set up a 2-step optin on one of my blog posts which is converting at 11%. Here's exactly how to set it up.
    David Risley April 20, 2017
    8 Comments

    An Update On My Hobby RV Camping Blog. Full Stat Breakdown. (RV Blog Report #4)

    After a long delay, here's an update on my story of starting up a brand new blog, in a new niche, from scratch. An update on how things are going.
    David Risley December 14, 2016
    3 Comments

    How To Increase Your Blog’s Optin Rate Without Creating Any New Content

    What if you could double your email list signups simply by rearranging some of the content you already have - and not have to actually take the time t…
    David Risley November 17, 2015
    1 Comment

    7 Tips For The Perfect Opt-In Confirmation Page

    Your opt-in confirmation page is the very first page your subscriber will see after joining your email list. So, it is a highly important page and you…
    academy-staff May 2, 2015
    0 Comments

    The Top Tools For Creating Highly Effective Squeeze Pages

    The landing page software space has gotten extremely competitive in the last couple years - and it is now a much more complicated affair to choose whi…
    academy-staff April 29, 2015
    0 Comments

    The Top Tools for Creating Blog Opt-In Forms

    It is really easy to go nuts trying to figure out how to include nice looking opt-in forms into your blog. And, shopping for plug-ins is frustrating b…
    academy-staff April 25, 2015
    0 Comments

    How To Create A Squeeze Page – And What Is It?

    In the last installment, we talked about how your blog content itself will be the area where you can get the highest opt-ins to your list - IF you use…
    academy-staff April 22, 2015
    0 Comments

    How To Easily Insert Opt-In Forms Inside Blog Posts

    In the last installment, we talked about how your blog content itself will be the area where you can get the highest opt-ins to your list - IF you use…
    academy-staff April 18, 2015
    0 Comments

    7 Strategies For Getting More Opt-Ins To Your Email List

    Now that we've talked about how to create the perfect lead magnet in episodes 70 and 71, it is time to talk about your general opt-in strategy on your…
    academy-staff April 15, 2015
    0 Comments

    How To Create A Perfect Lead Magnet – Part 2

    This is part 2 of how to create a perfect lead magnet. In this part, we take the 7-point checklist from episode #70 and apply it to the "real world". …
    academy-staff April 11, 2015
    0 Comments

    How To Create A Perfect Lead Magnet – Part 1

    What is a lead magnet? Well, it is just something to give away to get people onto your email list. Right?Well, there's more to it. In this part 1 of…
    academy-staff April 8, 2015
    0 Comments

    Content Upgrades And How To Use Them For List Building

    The most effective opt-in strategy I've ever used on my blog was the content upgrade strategy. It out-performs every other list building strategy out …
    academy-staff February 25, 2015
    2 Comments

    7 Effective Lead Magnet Ideas To Build Your List (That Aren’t “Ebooks”)

    I personally hate the word “ebook”. It is just SUCH an overused word. It could literally mean anything from a one-page PDF, to a several…

    David Risley September 8, 2014
    0 Comments
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    Forum Description

    I personally hate the word "ebook". It is just SUCH an overused word. It could literally mean anything from a one-page PDF, to a several hundred page digital novel, to a Kindle book.But, there is another thing I hate about it...It is that little word "book" in there. That word immediately brings to mind real, physical books. And books need to justify themselves by being thick. We all go into a bookstore and see shelves of big, thick books. And so...When we're told we need to write an "ebook" in order to simply give it away to build up our email list, we think what?What the HELL?! I have to write a damn book just to get people to opt into my list? And then... GIVE IT AWAY? FOR FREE?Well, I hate to break it to ya, but...That's just stupid.But, you know what else is stupid?Having "naked" opt-in forms on your blog. And by "naked", I mean having opt-in forms which don't offer any kind of lead magnet.If "Subscribe to my Free Newsletter" is the name of the game when they get to your blog, then stop everything and read this post.Or, if you already know you need to create a bribe, but it has been put on pause because of a lack of time... stop and read this post.

    What is a Lead Magnet?

    Basically, it is fancy marketing talk for an irresistible bribe which offers something the person wants in exchange for their email address.You give them something of value, and they give you something of value. In this case, their email address.And here's a pretty important point about a good lead magnet...It is specific.Meaning throw all illusions of an "ebook" out the window. We don't need anything with multiple chapters, big pictures, and tons of pages. In fact, doing that kind of thing can actually work against you in the form of lower conversion rates.
    That's right, you can actually get LESS subscribers by putting more work into your lead magnets!
    Who woulda thunk. ;)In this article, I'm going to toss some ideas your way of lead magnets you could create. Some ideas to get your mental gears chewing on some ideas.And let me say one last thing before I dive into the list...I tell you this because I have screwed it up so badly. Trust me, I've written my share of big-ass ebooks. They used to convert fairly well. They simply don't anymore. In fact, the last big "ebook" I wrote was 31 pages long and ended up having a, shall we say... less than stellar conversion rate.[contentblock id=21 img=gcb.png]Here we go...

    1 - The Guide or Report

    Ah, yes. You see these things all over the place. An example would be my own Six Figure Blogger Blueprint.Screen Shot 2014-09-07 at 4.19.26 PMIt is a killer report, but it honestly worked better then than it does now. It could easily violate the rules of an effective lead magnet. So you need to be careful.

    2 - Resource List or "Cheat Sheet"

    Essentially, these are "ebooks" in the sense that they are often in PDF format. But, the way that you're phrasing it just lends itself to brevity.They have a different "feel" to them, and you can get away with keeping them short and to the point.Screen Shot 2014-09-07 at 4.24.11 PM

    3 - Templates or Toolkits

    The idea here is that instead of giving them something they can read, you give them something they can USE.If you look in the sidebar of this blog, you'll see that I offer several checklists. These aren't meant to be read, but to be used as a reference.The whole idea is to give them an exact result and remove all the noise from it and just peel it back to basics. These kinds of things often have a higher perceived value than just something that they read.

    4 - Videos

    If video makes sense for what you're doing and you've got the skill and willpower to do it, then videos can be a very effective lead magnet.The same principles apply as any other lead magnet, but you're using the format of video to deliver it.

    5 - Free Trials

    If you run a software business or some kind of membership site, you could offer a free trial as an incentive to subscribe.In fact, in this case, you don't even need to position it as a "subscription". I mean, in almost all cases, people are pretty used to entering their email addresses as part of creating an account or registering a piece of software. So, that's all you're doing.Here's an example of how HelpScout does it. To get a 15-day free trial, you are creating an account (obviously). But, you better believe you're on a list and you'll be hearing from them. :)Screen Shot 2014-09-07 at 4.31.00 PM

    6 - Discounts

    It might not be appropriate for many blog owners, but if you're running any kind of ecommerce business, it can be perfect.Offer to send them exclusive discounts, special offers. Perhaps a catalog.Hey, it works for Groupon. :)groupon

    7 - Quiz, Survey, Free Analysis

    This one takes more work to set up, but can be quite effective.Allow people to take a test which analyzes something they're interested in and gives them a custom result. Or have them take a quiz to test their knowledge and send them their score via email.... which, of course, means, you have to ask for their email. :)Look how Hubspot does it on their Marketing Grader:hubspot

    But, my lead magnet doesn't work if I don't have traffic, right?

    That's the wrong question. And if you're not getting your lead magnets nailed down because you think your traffic is too low, then you're focusing on the wrong thing.Truth is, traffic is everywhere. It can be had. Just write a little check to Facebook, for instance, and you can send targeted traffic to anything you want.If you had an EFFECTIVE lead magnet, then you could be building your list predictably every single day of the week.Instead of worrying about how you're going to get traffic to your lead magnet, you should be thinking about things like:
    • How will I make a lead magnet which will be most attractive to my incoming traffic?
    • How much is each new lead worth to you?
    • How are you going to effectively followup with each new lead so that you can actually profit from each new subscriber?
    It all begins with having an effective lead magnet.Or better yet, an ARMY of solid lead magnets to choose from, allowing you to select the best lead magnet for each situation and drastically increase your subscription rates.[contentblock id=21 img=gcb.png]