Heeeeyyyy there!

How are things on your end? (really, you can email me and let me know). What are you struggling with most as a striving entrepreneur? Email me and let me know. I might be able to help. How about I go first…

Let me share with you one of the biggest struggles I had when I was starting out. Building an engaged audience. For me, this was a very painful struggle. Getting visitors and getting them to subscribe to my email list seemed impossible. It was even more painful because I knew that growing my email list was essential to a great business. I just couldn’t get any traction.

Luckily, I got over that struggle with a simple change in my business and today, I’m going show you exactly how you can get 2,500 subscribers or more each month as we have. Let’s begin, shall we?

This whole strategy is based on a simple mindset -Treat subscription to your website as if  it were a product. A hot product. A product you love selling. A product that runs your business…because..hey, it does.

If you consider a subscription to your site as a sale, then you need to sell. You need to sell your potential subscribers on why they should subscribe. Selling the benefits to joining your community and answering the question “Why should I?” is critical to converting visitors to members of your community.

Here are a few tactics I have used to help us get over 2,5000 subscribers a month:

1. If you’re getting started (your site is actively younger than a year) you can’t really expect tons of subscribers if your only offer in exchange for their email is getting your newsletter every week. You need to offer something compelling enough for visitors to give you their email address.

Take a look at our current landing page to gain subscribers. You might have seen it. We offer a complete video course & workbook from The $100 MBA about idea validation in exchange for the visitor’s name and email. Nailing your business idea is the most asked about topic in our market so our free gift to them is relevant and useful. It’s also compelling. Most don’t offer so much value for free. We have sold this course to other learning institutions for $35 per student.

Long story short, your gift needs to be compelling. We found “compelling” = something you could easily charge $30 or more for. This can be an ebook or a set of ebooks or a 7 day email course. Whatever works best for you but it has to be, again, something you could sell if you chose to.

2. Your landing page where you are asking for subscribers should be written and designed just like a sales page. Sell you visitor on why they should give you their email. Why should you have access to their inbox? Outline the pain your gift or offer will alleviate. Then show how by signing up, their life will be different. Take a look at our landing page again with this in mind.

This is EXTREMELY IMPORTANT! “Sign up and get X” is not enough. WHY should I sign up needs to be answered. What will I get? Why should I care?

3. Let others know. Guest blog, social media, write a post about your free offer, get interviewed. We did a little slick thing where we went to iTunes and searched for all the new business podcasts (you search in your niche) in the new and noteworthy section. We then reached out to them to asked if they were looking for guests for their show. We didn’t get a single “no”. We got 11 interviews and in the interview we got to share a free gift with the audience. You guessed it! We directed them to our landing page!

4. Add a link to your landing page where you are selling your gift at the end of your blog posts. Include a captivating headline to why they should click and check it out.

5. Once your visitor does subscribe, ask them to do you a solid and share your site with their friends so you can get more subscribers. We do this on our confirmation page and confirmation email.

There are countless ways to promote but what matters most is to treat your optin like a product. Sell that product, build relationships and help your audience and the money will always follow. Super cheesy, but true 🙂