Generally, website owners make use of their own websites to bring together various Email addresses to enlarge their email list.

Moreover, some of the website owners create different websites just to fetch more email addresses to gear up their email marketing drive.

Nevertheless, professionals have come out with some valuable methods to add more addresses on the subscribers list.

Here are some of the ways to get more subscribers to your email list.

Keep Up with Online Social Groups

Today, most of the people are inclined towards social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus and MySpace.

If you create such a community just about with the subscription list, you can easily encourage email addresses of the people.

Visitors will join your community which will directly enhance your subscribers list. Even, you can showcase them the benefits that they can acquire by joining your community.

Integrate with social communities and get integrated by more visitors.

Make Call to Action More Valuable

By and large, people tend to choose the services in which they get benefitted as well. If there lays a swap over offer in your service, you will definitely fetch more subscribers.

Based on your services, you can add diverse value offers such as add-on coupons, membership advantages and the like.

This enhanced call to action will ultimately lead to more signups on your link.

This will not only bring in more subscribers but also bring positive feedback from all your subscribers about the services offered by you.

A Uniquely Designed Submit Button

Not only has the services, but the layout of your website also plays a big role in welcoming more subscribers.

So, make sure that your website is designed by an experienced professional who not only makes it appealing but functional as well.

What really matters on your website is the submit button. The submit button should be flashy, glittery and all the more spontaneous in the working.

A colorful Submit button will definitely compel the visitors to get on your services by unlocking the key.

Offer Honest and Trustworthy Services

Try to engulf your subscribers through value services.

Basically, people opine that the words said by the owners are never fulfilled. You can easily negate this thinking by offering true services to all your customers.

This will eventually lead to more subscribers on your email list. This way, you will certainly gain their trust and they will become your regular visitors.

In fact, these regular subscribers will even recommend their friends or relatives about your services. Through their recommendations, you will undeniably get in more subscribers.

All these methods are not only cost-effective but time saving as well.

So, follow these steps and boost up your website performance and get more subscribers on your email list that too without incurring much expense.

You can also send updates about latest offers, latest news, and latest guides to your subscribers. Having a lot of subscribers is one of the reasons why blogs like Social Media Examiner and Content Marketing Institute have had a lot of success. So it’s absolutely necessary to have subscribers for your blog too.

Below are 5 tips which can help you get more newsletter subscribers

1. Have a sign up form on the header

One of the quickest ways to get someone to subscribe is by placing the sign up form on your header. If you place it on your header it will be the first thing your readers will see. So they will be more likely to sign up as soon as they visit your website.

An e.g. is Chris Brogan’s website where you have a sign up form on the header. If you visit the website you will see that it is first thing anyone who visits the home page will see.

2. Use Pop-overs

Some people avoid using pop-overs, because they feel that it might disturb their readers, but before you decline this option, keep in mind that a pop-over can increase sign-ups. There is a study which proves that pop-overs can increase sign ups to up to 300%.

The best thing to do would be to try it out for your website and see how it works. Check if you get more sign ups and if it affects the bounce rate or browsing time of your blog. If everything seems fine you can continue using it, but if you have some problems you can get rid of it.

I have used them for both my blogs and found them to be very effective in increasing sign-ups without causing any problems for my readers (as the browsing metrics are almost the same).

3. Give a free gift

This is probably the best way to get more people to sign up to your newsletter. Usually convincing people to sign up to your newsletter to receive updates can be hard.

But if you give away a free gift like a white paper or a guide or a video, you can convince more people to sign up to your newsletter as people will want to get hold of the guide as it will more likely contain better information than the blog posts as its access is gated.

4. Have a call to action at the end of the post

Many people make the mistake of not having a call to action at the end of blog posts. At the end of every blog post you need to have a persuasive call to action which leads to a landing page where readers can download your free documents.

In the call to action let the reader know that they can get better tips by reading the free gift and then include the link to the landing page on which this free gift can be downloaded. This will increase the traffic to your landing page.

5. Place sign up forms everywhere you can

This is another important point to keep in mind. People will more likely sign up to your newsletter if you make it easy for them to find the sign up forms.

Usually the best place for a sign up form is the landing page, but along with this, you need to have sign up forms at the end of blog posts, on the side bars and in the blog posts itself (wherever possible).

These are five ways to get more newsletter subscribers. If you follow them strictly and try out all these techniques you should see a rise in the number of newsletter subscribers.

Have I missed out any other important points? Have you got any tips you would like to share with us? Please leave your comments in the comments box below.

Savvy marketers are doing it. Even the next internet guy would have something to do with email list. I’m yet to see any marketing tactics that works so efficiently, like email.

If you can get your message to sit at your prospect’s inbox, you’ll have increased the chances of building a deeper relationship and increasing sales by 203%.

Enough of the ranting, I want to show you how to build a profitable email list from scratch. We shall be looking at 12 steps to get you started. There are three things you must do when you’re done with this post. Catch it:

Read – Understand – Implement

That’s sounds like a rule of thumb. Now let’s take it 12 steps further and satisfy your quest for success via emails. Let’s dive in.

12 Action Steps To Build A Profitable Email List

1.    Set A Long-Term Goal

Well, who says you’ve to be in BIG business to do BIG business? Don’t believe some of the lies out there – with a concise goal, email marketing can grow your business. Before you start collecting leads, you’ve to know that email marketing isn’t a short term project.

Of course you can build a list to market your product or host a webinar, which is a short-term project. But ideally, setting up a long-term goal that builds a strong business relationship with target audience is where the profit lies.

From the outset, don’t use free email marketing software or a mediocre tool. Invest in a reliable email marketing software and service. Don’t even capture your first email except you’ve written down a set goal for this formidable business. There is more to writing a clear goal – see next line…

2.    Get Ready To Strike

Are you ready to press the right buttons? I don’t think so. Don’t forget that several people have failed woefully because they didn’t prepare. As he right quoted, “Proper preparations prevents poor performance” – Matthew Ashimolowo.

If truly you want to build an email list that can generate income and business ideas for you, there should be a shift in your thoughts. Once you’ve a clear goal, the next step is to think like an entrepreneur. You’ll no longer be dealing with strangers, but with real people who have problems and requires urgent attention.

Email marketing is not for hit-and-run marketers. It’s for those who have made up their minds to connect and engage the right audience. Yes, everyone is not meant to be on your list – but the right people. The competition out there is fierce, are you prepared to trounce every hurdle and excel?

Note: The aim of building a list isn’t to compete with others. That would be a fight in futility. Rather, you should complement what other marketers have done and put a new meaning into a common idea. No matter your niche or business model, don’t compete. Complement instead!

3.    Define Your Platform

The third piece of our email marketing puzzle is to define your platform. How do you intend to capture leads? Will you be using a blog or a separate landing page? The beauty of blogging is that you can create unique landing pages that can work like a typical squeeze page.

Most successful bloggers have turned their homepages into a landing page. The sole aim is to collect leads before redirecting the reader to the posts. And I think this is the best way to go if you’re a blogger. A well-designed squeeze page can work efficiently for other entrepreneurs who run e-commerce and corporate websites.

In all, the platform you’ve chosen must offer value to the prospect. No one is going to give you their email address if you can’t satisfy their taste for exclusive information. Do you know what makes a list building platform enticing? Step 4 has the answer…

4.    Get A Powerful List-bait

What do I mean by a list-bait? Before you could catch a fish, you need a hook, a line and bait. The fish definitely is hungry and needs to satisfy this feeling. The moment you throw the hook into the water, the fish would run toward the bait – not the line.

If you want to capture and build a profitable list, from the outset, you need a powerful list-bait. This can be a valuable short report (7 – 15 pages), an e-book, a software, membership access, WordPress plugin or themes, packaged graphics (buttons, headers, e-covers, vector photos) and so on.

Whatever list-bait you’ve in mind, make sure it’s valuable and would assist the subscriber to achieve his or her goals. The impression you create with your bait would determine how much success it brings.

Don’t give away free stuffs that wouldn’t help someone. Even though the product you’re giving away is free, make it valuable with professional packaging.

5.    Craft Quality Contents

Quality contents that offers something valuable to blog readers and potential customers is the only ‘spice’ that can inspire them. You need people to op-tin? Then stop pushing them. Your focus should be on crafting exceptional contents that cannot be found elsewhere.

We call this “exclusive.” If you’ve this on your blog or landing page, your subscription-rate would go through the roof. Yes, a list-bait has its place in persuading people to subscribe, but insightful content is still King.

But what exactly is quality content? If a 2-year old should ask you the question, what would your response be?

The truth is, every article topic or subject has been written by someone, somewhere. If your article, your review, your press release or blog post offers a practical and authentic solution, then it’ll be regarded as quality content.

And a thorough market research can help you know your audience so that you can write for them. A blog or landing page that offers helpful answers need a roof over its head. Want to know how?

6.    Choose A Reliable Autoresponder

The autoresponder service you choose will either make or mar your success. When I started marketing online, promoting affiliate offers was my first business model. Yes, I did well at it but the email service I was using hindered me from making more money.

It’s important that you choose the right one – streamline your campaigns and have separate email letters for customers and subscribers. In order words, a service that allows you to track clicks, manage campaigns and import contacts from another campaign is important.

There are free email marketing services out there – but don’t fall into using any of them. Invest in a good service (aweber, getresponse, icontact, constantcontact, mailchimp and so on). Remember: Email marketing goal is long-term, not a get-rich-quick tactics.

7.    Attract Targeted Traffic Only

Web traffic is the lifeblood of your online business. But all traffic is not created equal – some are juicier than others. Your list would be more responsive if the right people subscribes to your newsletter.

It boils down to the traffic generation strategy you’re using. Some people use social media to drive traffic to the landing or squeeze page – but ideally, using content marketing could produce better results.

I’ve built a responsive list of 736 people, earlier, who are desperate to buy whatever product I would recommend for them – valuable products, actually. I only used guest posting strategy to drive traffic to my squeeze page and it worked out fine.

If someone can read your guest post or article without skimming through, it shows the person is searching for the right answers to her needs. Write relevant contents and submit to relevant blogs in your niche, you’ll attract targeted traffic consistently.

8.    Set up and Schedule Follow-Up Messages

Gradually, we’re building a credible business. If you’ve read this far, I would like to say a BIG thank you. You’ve done a fantastic job.

But I’m not done with you yet. We need to set up follow-up messages to further strengthen the bond. In fact, this is the first email your subscriber will receive after downloading the list-bait you exchanged for their email address and name.

A lot of people argue that you don’t have to capture names. It’s true that email address it what matters, but now we need to personalize the follow-up messages. Personalization creates an aura for both parties (you and subscriber).

The first email to your subscriber is usually a WELCOME message. It’s a shout out email. In this email letter, you’ll set the interval to “0” so that the message can be sent immediately, after confirmation. I’ll show you how to make this work – a single tweak will do. It’s about your obedience to the 7-rule concept.

9.    Obey the 7-rule Concept

A successful email marketer is someone who’s obeying the 7-rule concept. It’s a simple rule that works to build rapport first, before pushing sales offer to your subscribers.

According to marketing elites, psychologists and behavioral research studies, selling to a stranger would lower your conversion rate. In order words, everyone who subscribes to your email list is a stranger. How do you connect with a stranger in the offline world? You need to introduce yourself, your business, and family and so on.

On the internet, we do similar things. But we use emails to make introductions and showcase our expertise. Therefore, schedule 7 emails to go out to your subscribers starting from the first day.

Some folks like to send emails daily, while others send twice weekly. All in all, don’t bore your subscribers with too many emails. And remember, these 7 emails must be aimed at building relationships – no selling whatsoever. Focus on establishing rapport. I’ll show you how.

10. Educate Your Subscribers

The 7-rule concept is about educating your subscribers. Yes, these people may be Lawyers, Medical practitioners and from different fields, well trained and sophisticated, but we’re all students at every point in our lives – we all need to learn.

Subscribers have given you an open check to educate them. If you do it creatively, without pushing sales down their throat, you’ll make more money and build a thriving business.

Education doesn’t end at your blog alone; you’ve to give away e-books, short reports and any other product or service that can help your subscribers achieve tremendous success.

And don’t be stereotyped to one form of content – use videos, podcasts, slideshows and photos to convey your message.

The goal is to build your credibility and self-esteem needed to market your products later on. Educating your subscribers is a continuous thing, but the first 7 emails will be the foundation. Have you thought about branding?

11. Build Your Email-Brand

Standing out from the crowd is the secret spice in your email marketing arsenal. How do you grow your email list and convince people to buy from you when there are millions of marketers sailing against you?

It’s a tough world out there. The email marketing world is overcrowded and every step you take would enhance or demean your chances of attaining success. Brand building is important. Your brand is your identity – that thing that makes you exceptional and the go-to-person for a specific need in your field.

Your emails should have a format each time you send it. Interestingly, sending emails on a specific day of the week can help you build a memorable brand, provided your emails are worthwhile, well-crafted and easy to use.

Build your email brand by offering subscribers what they can’t get elsewhere. Invite them to your inner circle (membership site) and unveil your underground marketing secrets – that’s a sure way to begin your journey. We’re yet to make any money, why?

12. Profit From Your List Creatively

It takes time to build a huge list of responsive subscribers. But the time spent is never a waste. An email list has the potential to generate five or six figures for you if you’ve been following the above steps.

But making money from your subscribers is the first equation. There are many benefits of having a responsive list of people who enjoy listening to you. You could get product ideas when you throw a poll open. You could get better business connections and deals from your loyal subscribers.

And besides, blasting the hottest affiliate offer to your list isn’t the only way to earn extra income online – in fact; it’s not a good way. The best way is to refer these people to a subscription-based service.

That way, you could earn monthly recurring income without lifting a finger. Refer subscribers to a reliable web hosting company and earn decent income every single month.

Your turn to talk

Phew!

We’ve come to the end of the post – the 12 action steps to build a profitable email list from scratch.

Did you enjoy it? Leave a comment and let me know what you think. Have you started building your email list yet?

Basing on my almost five years of experience as an online entrepreneur, I’ll show you 10 ways to make money online – 9 established and very useful and one very “hot” and new – Google Affiliate Ads for bloggers.

Each of these points may be implemented successfully by you – it’s not black magic or something for “selected”.  Of course there is a lot of work with all of them, and at these days your online activities needs a lot of time and consistency (for example my first website about financial products needed almost 2 years to become profitable).

So, read carefully

10 points, how to make money online:

1. Showing Ads On Your Site

The easiest way for monetizing your blog or site is by advertising. There are a lot of possibilities of it, in almost every possible category and topic.

There is a lot of types of online advertisement. Some of them are mixture or different types.

Below you can find most common types of advertisement:

1. PPC (Pay Per Click) advertisement

This method is very simple – you earn money, when someone click on ads on your site. Firstly of course you must sign in into one or more of ads networks. Most popular service provider for this type of ads is Google AdSense. It’s accessible for everyone, it’s easy to set up and start earning a lot of money. But in some business areas, there is to less of advertisers, and your earnings may be very little. In this case, you may choose, for example, Chitika instead.

2. CPM, CPT (Cost Per Mille, Cost Per Thousand) advertisement

This type of advertisement is paid per impression. That means that the advert is paid pro thousand of impressions. Simplifying it – when CPM for ads on your site is 2$, and this ad will be shown on your website 50 000 times, you will earn 100$ (because 2$*50=100$)

3. Banners (graphical) ads, text (or intext) links, video ads

Some ads networks are specialized in one type of medium. For example Google Adsense is contextual network, with almost all types of ads (at this time without intext ads). If you want to use intext ads on your side, Kontera is for you.

4. Selling ad space directly to advertisers

When your site or blog has a big traffic, is in specific niche, or has great content, you may try to sell ad space by your own. Of course looking for someone, who want to advert directly on your site isn’t easy and quick job. It’s more engaging and time consuming. But on the other hand – it’s more profitable than participating in ads networks. See my advertising page here.

 2. Participating In Affiliate Marketing

This type of making money is accounted in CPA (Cost per Action) model. And action, in most cases, is defined as a sell.

That means you will earn money, when someone will buy product or order a service via your referral link or recommendation

Commissions may be very various, but most common is a percentage of the sale price. Standard is 5-10%, but for some products, commission is as high as 20-50%

Most profitable online niches are:

1. Financial products (mortgages, loans, bank accounts, bank deposits, Forex accounts)
2. Products related with making money online. It’s very wide niche. We can find here hosting providers (for example Hostgator or  Bluehost), tools for keyword research, like Market Samurai or Traffic Travis, or other plugins and tools related with this topic
3. Products and services for health and beauty (tutorials, diets, exercises, pills etc.)
4. Products and services in tourism branch (hotel and fly reservations, trips, car rental services)
5. XXX branch

Below you can find 4 services, with a lot of affiliates programs for you:

ShareASale

Clickbank

Commision Junction

Amazon Associates

3. Selling Online Your Own Product

Instead of marketing someone else’s products, services or websites, you can earn money selling your own product. In most cases it’s more profitable for you, than showing advertises or even selling someone’s products. But of course there is also the other side of the coin – you must spend time not only on promoting, but also on preparing, updating and supporting your product or service.

If you have no ideas, what could be your product, below you can find some most popular “self-made” product ideas:

1. Books and ebooks
2. Photos, graphics and videos (you can sell them for example on Fotolia or on Istockphoto)
3. Tutorials and guides about specific topics
4. Applications for PCs, iPhones, tablets, etc.
5. Tools, plugins and themes for WordPress

4. Mini Sites (also called Niche Sites)

For some money makers this is the most important stream of their incomes. They set up tens or hundreds of mini sites, advertise them, and are earning a lot of money from them. Earnings from single site are very small – it may be for example one dollar a day. But if you have for example 200 of minisites, you earn about 200 $ a day. Monthly it’s 6 000$ – it’s not to be sneezed at!

And some of niche sites may grow big and earn alone hundreds of dollars. If you are interested in this topic, please visit this site (owned by Pat Flynn) about Niche Site Duel

 5. Making Paid Reviews Of Other Products Or Websites

If you are a good writer and like preparing reviews of products or other things, you may try to make it for money!

In most cases, amount of money you will get in exchange for your review, depends on 4 factors:

-areas of interest of your blog

-reviewed product or service

-traffic on your blog (more the better)

-your possibility to write interesting and reliable reviews

There is a lot of websites, where you can find as well advertisers as bloggers, some of them you can find below:

SeedingUp

SponsoredReviews

LinkVehicle

PayPerPost.com

 6. Be Online Consultant

If you have an established opinion as an Expert in your field, you can stay Online Consultant. Of course you must have very good reputation in your area, and have some teaching skills. You will be paid for consultation, which means people will pay you for your extraordinary knowledge and creative ideas. Most often online consultants are paid per hours (between 10$ and 100$), but most recognized experts will charge you even 1 000$ pro one hour!

I don’t recommend this method, if you are a beginner blogger, specialist or entrepreneur. But if you want to try it, you must start building your credibility and reputation as soon as possible!

7. Preparing Paid Membership Site

It’s very similar way of earning money online to being online consultant – it’s basing on your (or someone else, who prepaid excellent material for your site) reputation and knowledge.

But as opposed to be online consultant, you share your knowledge and experience with more than one man at one time. What’s more, you produce almost all material for your members before starting this type of website.

Of course there are a lot of other differences – most important of them is price! Fees for accessing membership site are almost always fewer, than fees for hiring online consultant. And for this reason, membership sites must have many more customers, than online consultants

8. Selling Websites Or Domains

Some online entrepreneurs make a lot of money only by buying and selling websites or domains. They are looking for expired domains or underestimated websites, they are buying them, looking for someone who needs it, and they are selling it with profit. Most popular marketplace for doing it for existing websites is Flippa. For expired domains you can visit for example GoDaddy.com or Domains.com

9. Monetizing Your Email List

If you have thousands (or well-targeted hundreds) of subscribers on your email list, you can try to monetize it. Lot of companies, small businesses and even bloggers live basing on their email list.

How you can make money with it? You can for example:

1. send sponsored email or newsletter
2. send paid review of some products or websites to your subscribers
3. prepare your own article with affiliate links and send it to your readers
4. send info about your new, hot product

There is a lot of other ways of monetizing your email list, but there is also one, and only one thing, you should never send to your subscribers – SPAM!

 10. Google Affiliate Ads for bloggers

Some days ago appeared new way of earning money for bloggers – it’s Google Affiliate ads for bloggers. This possibility at this time is only for US bloggers, which are blogging on Blogger.com

To get started earning money with this program, you need only active AdSense account, and active blog on Blogger. If your blog category is adequate for advertisers, a new widget “Advertiser Products” will appear on your Earning Tab, where you can choose proper affiliate ad.

It can be text link, banner or even product image. More about it you can read here.

Unfortunatelly I’m not US blogger, so I couldn’t tell you, if it’s profitable or not.

There is only one more thing, which you must know before putting some points from the list into live – there is no passive income at all, and earning money without a lot of work is, in most cases, impossible. So, don’t be lazy and go blogging!

And what are your favorite ways to make money online? Please share them with us!

Disclosure – please note, that some of the links above are affiliate links and I earn a commission, when you buy something via them.