There’s a fortune that lays hidden in your mailing list.  The bigger your list, chances are the bigger fortune for you to tap.

That’s why these 10 ideas or tips for getting more mailing list subscribers are almost as good as money in the bank!

1. Include a call to action (CTA) at the end of your blog posts

Let your visitors know that if they like your blog posts, they’ll love your newsletter content.  That’s because you save some of your best niche tips, tricks and secrets for your loyal subscribers.

To get more subscribers, include a link to your landing page at the bottom of your posts, along with a reason to click on that link.

Example:  “Discover 101 more weight loss tricks for free – click here!”

2. Encourage a viral effect

You can get more subscribers simply by including a note at the bottom of every newsletter where you encourage your existing subscribers to forward your email (or newsletter) to their friends, family and colleagues who could benefit from the information.

Example:  “Do you know someone else who could benefit from these dog training secrets?  Please forward this email to them – they’ll thank you for it!”

3. Use your forum signature file to get new subscribers

If you’re visiting busy niche forums, include an ad and a call to action in your forum signature.

Example:  “Free report reveals the health secrets your doctor doesn’t want you to know!  Click here to claim your copy now…”

4. Point your Twitter followers to a free report

You can use Twitter.com as well as other social media sites (like Facebook.com) to grow your list.  Simply point your fans and followers towards your squeeze page to pick up a free and valuable niche report.  Include this link on your profile page as well as in some of your posts (“tweets”).

5. Embed your links in your products

Sometimes people share your digital products with their friends.  Sometimes they give away or sell pirated copies of your product.  Either way, you can benefit from this if you include links to your squeeze page in your paid products.

6. Drive traffic to your landing page using videos

You can create YouTube.com videos for the sole purpose of driving traffic to your newsletter sign up page.  To get the best results, include a call to action at the end of your video where you promise viewers they can get the second part of the video – for free – when they join your list.

7. Tap into Quora to get new subscribers

Make relevant content contributions around niche topics with the purpose of driving visitors to your landing page or web site.  In other words, all your content and social media links should point to your landing or squeeze page (depending upon your purpose).

8. Co-promote with others in your niche

Here you can swap endorsements with your partners.  You can post your endorsements on your respective blogs as well as in your newsletters and subscriber emails.

9. Unleash the power of content marketing

This is one of my strongest suggestions:  create a multi-part article or report series around your niche topic.  Then upload Part 1 to the article directories (such as EzineArticles.com, GoArticles.com and IdeaMarketers.com) and upload the rest of the series to your autoresponder.  Use your article byline to encourage people to get Part 2 of the article by clicking through to your squeeze page.

10. Form a newsletter co-op

Do a co-registration deal with one or more authoritative people in your niche.  That is, when a prospect is joining your partner’s newsletter, they also get the option of joining your newsletter at the same time (simply by checking a checkbox).

Summary:  You can use each of these ten ideas to get dozens, hundreds or even thousands of new subscribers.  Just imagine how big your list will be once you apply all these methods and do it consistently over time!

To your online business success,

Steve Browne

www.SteveBrowneDirect.com

Autoresponders are the unpaid employees of your solo business.  Be sure to take advantage of the leverage they can give you in your daily business execution!

The ways an autoresponder can be employed to automate your business tasks are many. Here are just a few of the typical business uses of an autoresponder:

– if an email address is no longer valid, a message can be sent from the mail server that the email is now “undeliverable,”

– if the business changes its email address or URL, a new forwarding address can be sent to those that send mail to the old address,

– if you go on vacation or are otherwise unavailable for a time, your autoresponder can alert customers to your absence and when you’ll return,

– you can have an autoresponder confirm registrations at your site, sign-ups or requests for removals from your mailing list or your newsletter, or customer requests for web site help or support,

– you can have your autoresponder actually deliver your newsletter or “tip of the day” or other marketing message at a set time,

– you can have a direct sales letter sent to anyone that requests further information, or you can send out freebies, bonuses, or other incentives without you having to physically mail the items,

– autoresponders will collect names, email addresses, and other information from potential customers, confirm their information, and forward your pre-made message or “bonus for joining” without your intervention (web site subscribers to your mailing list),

– autoresponders can even be your product delivery means if you sell a digital product (be sure you understand the security protocols of this strategy because it’s easy for a customer to share your product with others in most cases.)

What a wonderful time saver they are!  Autoresponders (sometimes referred to as “sequential” autoresponders) can be set to do follow-up emailing so that your messages are delivered in order or sequence and on either specified dates or at specified intervals (like every 7th day).

Emails can be pre-formatted in either plain text or HTML and your autoresponder can “recognize” and deliver whichever form a particular email address can read.

Emails can have active links embedded so that in one simple click your reader can open up and be transferred to a particular web page.

The work involved (other than installing the software) in setting up your autoresponder is largely a matter of preparing and formatting your messages, in advance, as you want them to appear in the email. Then you “load” the messages into the system and specify your preferences and the timing or sequence of delivery (your scheduling).

Make no mistake about it – there is a fair amount of work involved in writing and preparing your responses. But the payoff is that you only have to do it once . . . the system handles sending out your messages to the proper person at the pre-appointed time.

By the way, you can have custom “fields” included in your messages so that they appear to be personalized to each recipient if you gather such details as part of your mailing list subscriber-volunteered information.

Autoresponder scripts range from the very simple to very complex. You can find some online for free or at modest cost . . . others are very pricey (like $750 per month) depending upon the features and emailing speed and capacity you decide you need.  (And by the way, free autoresponders often carry messages or advertising that you may not want – hence, the reason that they can be given away.)

There are also many online application providers that will take care of all the mailing and set up for you for a fee (generally around $20/month for a limited number of email messages.)

There are some advantages to this alternative since the cost to get started is reasonable and you don’t have to worry about your ISP getting upset with your heavy mailing schedule that hogs his bandwidth resources.

The uses and creative applications of autoresponders are many and quite varied. But in every case, the result is that you are able to perform otherwise laborious and time-consuming tasks by setting up a system that does most of the work for you.

It’s as if you hired some full time customer service employees that never expect to be paid. What a great business automation tool!

To your online business success,

Steve Browne

www.SteveBrowneDirect.com

Have you ever considered developing a private area web site?

Depending upon the type of solo business you operate, and the needs that your business has to communicate with the “outside” world, you may want to consider setting up a private area on your company or business web site.

I’m not talking about creating a forum, chat room, or discussion board as is commonly done among niche community web sites.

Also, I’m not talking about a private membership site. In both these models, your web site is open to the public and you attempt to recruit members (paying or otherwise) that have to identify themselves before entering by submitting a user name and password.

The idea I’m suggesting here is to control access to only those who you specifically target. You want to know information about every one of your clients (members) so that you can target them for niche advertising, specialty products, or services that will generate an income for your business.

A private area web site refers to a site that has a “locked” section or special controlled access area that you limit to special support vendors, partners, and suppliers. The idea is to give these support personnel a way to communicate and transact business with you online, right at your web site; but at the same time, keep customers or the public visitors coming to your site locked out of this area.

The private area can be reserved for anyone you want, but typically would be set up for sharing information with your business partners about your business operation, announcements, policies, financial terms, exact product specs, and anything else you don’t want to share on your public web site but want your business support partners to see and gain access.

Having such a private area is almost like having an “extra” Internet site that is not a part of your main company site. These “extranets” as they are sometimes called, can serve to offer convenience and streamlining to your suppliers allowing them to more easily conduct business with you.

Depending upon the solution chosen, you may be able to offer your partners document sharing, project development sharing, calendaring opportunities, online contracts, sales activity and commission tracking, inventory tracking, and other related management functions.

This strategy doesn’t make sense for every business, so don’t run out and implement this option based solely on the idea that you’ve got to have the latest technologies and comprehensive solutions in your business to be viewed as being real and legitimate.

You may have no reason whatsoever to employ an extranet. Especially if you don’t have a business model that involves work groups, vendors, partners, or suppliers. If you run some type of B2B operation, you would do well to at least consider how such a private area web site could automate and simplify contact with your partners.

Most often this service is offered as an ASP (application service provider) and is hosted on a remote web server rather than on your business server. There are literally hundreds of such applications being advertised online that you might choose from. Most will cost you around $30-60 per month for a small business set-up; however, large companies will pay several thousand dollars a month for a robust hosted solution.

I have also seen a few free applications online if you don’t mind some “in your face” advertising on your net suite.

Realize too that security of your business database and records is of critical importance. Make sure the ASP solution backs up its servers every night to avoid potential catastrophic breakdowns of your business.

Depending upon the type of solo business you operate, and the needs that your business has to communicate with the “outside” world, you may want to consider setting up a private area on your company site.

To your online business,

Steve Browne

www.SteveBrowneDirect.com