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Do you have an opt-in on your blog?
If you have a blog online and are still determining what an opt-in is or where to place one, Then an opt-in is where your readers can become subscribers to your blog and be kept up to date with all the most recent events and blog posts. By having an opt-in on your blog, you can start building your mailing list, and by building your mailing list, you have the following advantages:
- Alerting your readers of new recent blog posts — By alerting your subscribers to your latest blog post, they don’t forget about your blog and the information you are supplying. By alerting the subscribers to your latest blog posts, they will continue to read and comment on your blog. Direct emailing has a much higher success rate than simply publishing your blog and hoping that your RSS feed, Facebook, and Twitter pages update to notify people of your new post. Email is much more direct.
- Sending out an autoresponder sequence: Most email collection services allow you to have a follow-up sequence of emails. For example, if a reader opts into your email list for updates, you can first send a welcome email and then use the follow-up email sequence to provide your new reader with a further series of emails, which are all automated. Some of the emails in your automation sequence could point the reader to some of your more informative posts or an information-loaded email newsletter. Once you have plugged in the autoresponder emails, it’s’ set and forget ‘; all subscribers will get the same sequence of emails. It’s a hands-off approach once you have set up the email sequence. It gives you more time to concentrate on other developments.
- Sending out affiliate offers: Now that you have readers on your email list, you can send out offers and updates for new, existing, and affiliated products. These offers allow you to earn a further income stream. Please remember, if you promote offers and affiliated products, treat your mailing list respectfully. You will sell far more products and make more commissions if the people on your mailing list trust you. Keep your blog up to date and provide information in your autoresponder. Don’t jump right into offers! Earn trust.
- Communication with your subscribers: An email list allows you to interact more with your readers. By utilizing the autoresponder feature mentioned above, you can ask your subscriber questions, e.g., are you enjoying the content? Is there anything you can do to help your list of subscribers? What about opinions? Do you have any specific questions you want to ask your readers?
What is Aweber’s opt-in email facility?
My opt-in of choice has always been Aweber. They are the best of the bunch. Others include Get Response, MailChimp, iContact, and Constant Contact, to name but a few. I have always used Aweber; they have a great reputation and many tools to help you along the way. Please feel free to check out the Warrior forum for reviews and recommendations.
Using an opt-in facility such as Aweber, you are open to many more options than RSS FeedBurner, another subscription I will discuss later. Here are some benefits of using an Aweber opt-in subscription on your blog:
- Contact via email
- The Auto Responder Service
- Unique email templates
- Subscriber Management
- Custom opt-in templates
- Webform Plugin for WordPress
With Aweber, you are not just tied into a single broadcast every time you update your blog; you can control what you do with your subscribers, as I have already mentioned. In addition, with Aweber, you have the power to pick and choose what to do rather than send out a feed, as RSS FeedBurner does.
I have compiled a fairly comprehensive video tutorial to show you how to add the Aweber plugin to your WordPress blog.
As you can see, by using Aweber opt-in forms, you increase your chances of subscribers and cover all the bases for increasing your subscriber levels.
I hope you enjoyed the tutorial today. You can also check them out on my YouTube channel, which I intend to be building like crazy this year. I have more video tutorials planned for opt-in over the coming weeks. Next, we will look at pop-up opt-in and alternative opt-in plugins.
Driving Incentives
I want to add to the post-Dee Dawber raised regarding opt-in incentives. Looking at the right-hand side of my blog, you will see two ways to subscribe. The first is the ‘Connect with me’ button, which is completely incentive-free. The second is the “eBook Cycle,” incentive-driven as it’s a free eBook. The subscriber stats are noticeably different.
It shows that giving away a free incentive for readers to subscribe will dramatically increase your mailing list. OK, I hear you saying, “What if I have nothing to give away? There are a lot of things you can use as an incentive:
- Write a free report about something related to your niche, e.g., something you did to influence your business, a traffic tip, changes to your website, or a business that made it better.
- How about giving away a brandable eBook linking to an affiliated product? You could use an alternative if you still need to get your product.
- You can promote the eBook cycle via your affiliate link.
Rather than simply placing the subscription box on the site, offer an incentive to sign-up. Again, free reports are usually the best.
Discussion
Do you have an opt-in on your blog? Do you do anything differently? Do you have any suggestions? Let me know your thoughts and questions. I would love to hear your opinions.
Also, if you have any other tutorials in mind that I can help you with, just let me know.
