How Can I Generate Blog and Email Subscribers?

The Shortest and Most Valuable Subscriber Post You’ll Read This Year

h/t to Matt Bertuzzi (@MattBertuzzi) at The Bridge Group for this gem.

We all want more blog and email subscribers. Building this type of owned reach gives you the ability to:

• Deliver messages, promotions and information to a pre-qualified audience already familiar with who you are and what you do.
• Stay top of mind with subscribers should a need for your products or services eventually arise.
• Further educate and motivate potential buyers, moving them further through the sales cycle.

 But how does one motivate audiences to subscribe without: 

• Distracting them from the other calls to action on your site?
• Annoying them with pop-up windows?
• Forgoing all semblance of self-respect and begging?

The answer is easier than you’d think.

Insert a checkbox in your online forms that reads, “I’d like to receive periodic blog updates” (or something along those lines). 

Depending on your audience, industry and business, you may be surprised at how many form submissions you generate with a checked subscribe box. We were when we first started doing this for clients.

Using this tactic, one client went from no blog or email newsletter subscribers to more than 200 in about a year’s time. Another client that started with more than 160 blog subscribers saw a 117% increase in less than 1 month.

One last bit of advice: Leave the checkbox unchecked so as not to subscribe someone unknowingly, and inadvertently anger him or her. You may end up doing more harm than good. 

Ultimately, it’s worth a try. What do you have to lose? Please let us know how things work out in the comments below.