One way really great way to grow your optin list quickly is to hold a contest. 

Here’s why it works:

In order for people to participate in the contest and have a shot at winning a prize, they need to optin to your newsletter list. And because everyone loves to enter contests, it’s one of those things where people tend to tell their friends.

Example: Don’t count on people to think of telling their friends. Instead, you should actually encourage them to do so! Using a Tell-A-Friend (TAF) form can also help with the viral effect.

But there’s also a potential problem…

If you think back to what we talked about on Day 4 (how to avoid freebie seekers from flooding your list), you can see that this is one of those tactics that has the potential to attract people who are unwilling or unable to buy your product.

You can get around that potential problem by following these tips…

Make sure your contest prizes appeal to your target market.

One way to bring freebie seekers out of the woodwork is to offer “general interest” prizes. If you do that, then you’ll end up with a list of people who aren’t all that interested in your niche products and services.

Example: Let’s suppose you’re running a dog training site. If you decide to run a contest, then ideally you should offer dog-training related prizes. Whatever you do, don’t offer things like cash, iPods, gift certificates to restaurants and similar.

So what, exactly, should you offer up for prizes?

• Ideally, offer your own products and services as prizes.

Makes sense, right? That way the only people who enter your contest are those that are interested in your niche-specific products.

Of course, a freebie seeker who’s interested in your niche is likely to still enter your contest. But that’s better than having a list full of freebie seekers who aren’t even interested in your niche.

And besides, having freebie seekers who are interested in your niche can actually be beneficial. Even though they might not buy your product, they can still participate in the viral effect by telling OTHERS about your contest.

• Post your contest offer selectively.

You’ll want to advertise your contest on niche-specific forums, blogs and other sites. Try to avoid the general “contest” sites, as those types of forums are brimming with freebie seekers.

• Everyone should “win” your contest.

You’ve likely set up your contest so that you have a grand-prize winner and several “runners up” who win lesser prizes. But if you’d like to make some fast sales, everyone who participates in the contest should get a “prize.” And that prize, specifically, should be a limited-time but very generous discount on your products.

A Tip to Make More Sales After the Contest

You may be tempted to run a regular “random drawing” contest. However, you’re likely to make a lot more money if you create a contest that centers around contestant participation and, in particular, getting the contestants to “sell” themselves on your product.

After all, much of our marketing activities center around persuasion. We spend hours of our time and thousands of dollars creating sales letters, follow up emails, and squeeze pages, upsells and other sales pieces.

• So what better way to sell something to someone than to have them persuade themselves to buy?

And that’s exactly what you can do if you set up your contest right.

Example: Your contestants may be required to write a one or two page “essay” on why your product is right for them, what are the best benefits of your product and so on.

When the contest ends, you’ll have many people on your hands who are ready to buy because they’ve convinced themselves that your product absolutely rocks.

And that’s when you offer them the “consolation prize” of a limited-time discount… and then sit back to watch the sales roll in!

Just look at the popularity and success of video sites like YouTube. And if you spend any time on these video uploading sites, you’ll notice they’re not all videos of cats and dogs doing funny things.

Indeed, many marketers are taking advantage of this medium to sell their products and grow their optin list.

Can you get in on a piece of this action? You bet.

Note: Again, these tactics falls under the broader category of “article marketing.” While you can use create and distribute article videos to grow your list, you can also create videos without the use of articles. If you choose that route, follow the tips below while disregarding references to articles.

First off, however, you need to consider your market. Are they on high speed connections that can easily handle video?

Example: If you’re catering to a rural market, they simply may not be capable of a true broadband connection.

If you’re certain that your market is capable of watching videos, then you’ll want to start experimenting with them to see how they can help your business.

There are a few different ways to use videos with respects to growing your list.

One way is to offer a free video or two as your freebie for anyone who signs up for your optin list.

Another way is to use your videos as “bait” to attract prospects to your site. This works much the same way as article marketing – you create impressive content with a call to action at the end that asks people to visit your site. People click through to your site and land on your compelling squeeze page.

Quick Tip: If people want to join your list after watching one of your videos, then offering “more of the same” is a good tactic to increase your subscriber opt-in rate. In other words, you can offer a video as your bonus freebie for joining your newsletter list.

Let’s talk about creating videos that get buzz… and new subscribers.

Here are the three steps to creating and launching a buzz-worthy video…

BUY good video and audio equipment.

Some people say – and it might be true – that prospects who are hungry for a particular piece of information wouldn’t care if you wrote it down on a piece of toilet paper.

Quick Tip: Let’s suppose I gave you the winning lottery numbers for tomorrow’s lottery. Would you care whether I scratched it on the back of a napkin or engraved it on a bar of gold? Probably not.

But of course we’re not all creating products that are the equivalent to a set of winning lottery numbers. So for the rest of us, presentation counts. That means you should buy the best video, audio and lighting equipment you can afford in order to create the most professional, polished videos you can muster.

BE creative… and controversial!

Prospects may appreciate plain, straightforward information – but they’ll rarely pass those sorts of videos along to their friends, post links to your video in forums, or blog about them.

If you want to create videos that get talked about, then they need to be centered around content that pushes the envelope. Be creative. Be controversial. Maybe even be a little offensive. After all, polarizing people and creating controversy results in plenty of niche buzz!

Quick Tip: Remember, your video has purpose. Namely, you’re using it to bring people to your site to join your newsletter. Always keep that over-riding purpose in mind as you produce your video.

Also, be sure to include your link multiple times throughout the video in both text and verbal form… especially at the end of the video. And as always, be sure to give those who view your video a compelling reason to go to your site!

BEGIN your video launch with a BANG!

Once you’ve completed your video, it’s time to get it in front of as many people as possible. If you can launch it with a “bang” – and if it truly is a viral video – then you can expect it to soon take on a life of it’s own.

For starters, post your video on the following sites and places:

• Upload your video to , , and as many other video sites as you can.

• Post links to your video on your lens and .

• Post links to your video on your blog, website, and forum.

• Post links to your video on other niche forums. (If nothing else, post it in your sig line.)

• Announce your video to your list, and encourage them to pass it along to their friends.

• Ask your friends and colleagues to blog about your video as well as adding it to their lenses, , forums, newsletter and similar.

• Submit articles to article directories and include a link to your video at the end of the article.

• And finally: If your video is considered controversial or even offensive, then be sure to get it into the hands of the people who will be the most offended by the content. These people WILL talk about it, post links on forums, and blog about it too!

OptinPop gives you the flexibility needed to show your video with an optin listbuilding optin form all within your popup window. This is a exactly how we use OptinPop on OptinPop.com.

If you do use articles, then there are two approaches you can use:

POST articles outright on forums, being sure to include your signature link at the bottom of your post.

If you’re interested in this method, read the terms of service of the forum first and spend some time lurking to find out if this is allowed.

Some forums have place right on the forum where you can post articles. Others allow you to post articles for discussion. But others frown on members posting articles and will delete your post since articles can easily look “spammy” on a discussion forum.

 PREPARE articles based on frequently asked questions (FAQs) and post these articles whenever someone asks one of these FAQs.

This is similar to the method discussed on Day 18 where you create articles based on questions you often see asked. Basically, it just saves you time to create these articles as opposed to creating a new post every time someone asks that same question.

So how do you make the most of your forum participation and promotions?

 The idea is to:

• Participate thoughtfully, first…

• And ONLY THEN drop your signature link (a small ad and link back to your site) at the end of your post.

Here are a few tips to get you started…

• SEEK forums in your niche. One of the easiest ways to find forums in your niche is to use Google or your favorite search engine. Simply enter your niche’s keywords alongside the word “forum” or “discussion” or “message board.”

Also, be sure to check out the well-known marketers’ sites in your niche, as many of them have busy forums.

SIFT THROUGH the terms of service and policies. Before you do anything, sift through and read the terms of service on the forums you’re interested in. Some forums, for example, do not allow signature links (also known as “sig links”). That’s the type of forum you’ll likely want to pass on in favor of forums that encourage sig links.

SIGN UP for an account. When you find forums whose terms of service are agreeable to your philosophy on forum participation, sign up immediately for an account. That’s because you want to start “aging” your account immediately. Many people look favorably upon people who have been members of a forum for quite some time.

SPEND some time lurking. Don’t start posting immediately. Instead, spend some time “lurking” (reading but not posting) to get a feel for the “flavor” of the community. You’ll get a sense of the unwritten rules of the forum, the rhythm of the forum and you’ll be able to get to know some of the key players on the forum.

START posting thoughtfully. Once you have a good handle on how this particular forum works, you can start posting thoughtfully. You may want to start with an introduction post. Then move on to answering questions.

Spend about a week posting good answers to build your credibility and establish yourself as an expert in the niche. Then, once you have a few good posts under your belt…

• SLIP your signature link at the end of your posts. Once you’ve started building your reputation on the forum (and people don’t think you’re just blowing through to drop a signature link), then you can, indeed, start leaving your signature link at the end of your posts.

How do you create a good signature link?

Some people just leave a link at the end of their posts, with a title along the lines of “my website” or “my newsletter.”

Sure, a few people might click through to view the website or sign up for the newsletter. But that number is going to be small. And that’s because the signature line provides absolutely no reason for the forum visitor to click through.

Your signature line is like your article resource box – it’s a small ad and a link that’s ALL about the reader.

It’s NOT about you.

It’s about the reader’s problems and how you can solve them. As such, the signature line should always give the reader a good, compelling reason why she should click on the link. It’s a powerful optin listbuilding strategy.

At this point many marketers ask the question:

How long should the article be?

The length you ultimately choose for blog posts should be as unique as your blog.

• Some people tend to post 200 or 300 word articles – just tips and snippets of information… but they post regularly.

• Others post full-length “average” size articles around 400 to 600 words.

• Still others post long articles (even as long as 1000 words or so).

Experiment a little to find out what works for you in order to grow your optin list.

Chances are, you’ll find that posting a mix of articles will serve you well.

Now let’s look at some of the amazing ways you can benefit by posting articles on your blog…

Search engine traffic: Keyword-optimized articles placed on your blogs can attract search engine traffic.

And since we’ve talked about search engine traffic so much throughout this ebook, you know how powerful this traffic is. Many of these visitors are looking for information – and so it’s often easy to convert these visitors to subscribers… and buyers.

Stickiness: A regularly updated blog makes your site “sticky.” 

That means visitors tend to return again and again to see what’s new on your site. You may find this particularly true when you allow comments on your site, which allows your growing community to enjoy interactive discussions on your blog.

Secure backlinks: If you run a good blog with thoughtful posts, you’ll find other bloggers giving you backlinks. 

Experiment a little to find out what sorts of posts get you the most buzz or the most links. For example, if you’re the first to report on some bit of news in your niche – and you report thoughtfully – you can expect others to link to your original article and post their own comments.

Another way to get people talking is to make controversial posts from time to time. Other bloggers will take sides – and whether they take your side of the issue or not, they’ll link to your blog to discuss your post.

Secret blog posts build optin lists! Some regular visitors will appreciate if you notify them every time you make a new post on your blog.

In other words, you can build a list solely from those wanting to be notified of new blog posts.

But here’s an even better inside tip…

From time to time, you should post “top secret” articles on your site that are only accessible using a password. Those who are on your notify list will automatically receive the password. Those who find the post through other means are told they need to join your newsletter list in order to get access to the secret posts!

People love secrets… and so that means loads of new subscribers to your newsletter!

Quick Tip: Of course in order to grow your optin list, you need to “tease” them a bit with the secret blog posts. Give them a taste of the post to build their curiosity and anticipation – then leave them with the option to join the newsletter optin list to get the password.

 Example #1: If you’re looking for product creation help, then a JV partner with name recognition in the niche would serve you well. You can borrow that person’s credibility through association.

Example #2: On the other hand, if you’re looking for marketing help, then you’ll want to seek out partners that obviously know what they’re doing in the market. Perhaps they control the search engine traffic, perhaps they have a high-ranking product, or perhaps they have a busy forum.

Here’s where to find these potential partners:

SEARCH for partners:

• Search for your niche keywords in the search engines. Who controls the organic search engine traffic for the most competitive words?

• While you’re searching the organic results, look at the sponsored pay per click listing to see who’s paying top dollar for top spots on competitive words.

Let’s define what is a “JV Partner” and “Affiliate Partner”

Although some people use the terms “JV partner” and “affiliate partner” interchangeably, there are differences.

An affiliate partner promotes your product for a commission.

A JV partner works with you on product creation, promotion, or other aspects of your business for mutual benefit. It may be for a commission… or it could be for some other benefit such as publicity and exposure, backlinks, and similar.

While an affiliate can be a JV partner, not every JV partner is an affiliate.

The reason we’re starting here is because there are no up front out-of-pocket costs (only commissions on sales) and the traffic tends to be highly targeted and VERY responsive.

Now you’ll notice we’re including “affiliate marketing” as part of this strategy, which of course involves affiliates recommending your paid product.

Maybe you’re wondering how that works since you’re offering a free newsletter, right?

Think about this for a moment: The point of your free newsletter is to build a list of likely buyers, right? So if someone comes to your site to view a paid product – even an inexpensive one – and they then join your newsletter, chances are they’re interested in being buyers.

As such, some of the most responsive newsletter subscribers you can get are those that come from affiliates or JV partners pitching your paid products.

Indeed, you may even want to give your partners 100% commissions just so you can enjoy building a big, responsive list from these likely buyers!

Do you have Optin Pop installed on your WordPress blog yet?

Turning your website visitors into red hot subscribers and long-term customers is the ultimate goal of any money making website. OptinPop is designed to grab the attention of every visitor to your site, make them an optin offer and help you build a massive optin list.

All of that results in you having a MASSIVE OPTIN LIST.

But just as important as the size of your list is the RESPONSIVENESS of your list.

After all, a list of 100,000 people doesn’t mean a thing if no one ever responds to your offers. On the flip side, you can lead a decent living simply from the income coming from a small, highly responsive list. (Just imagine the kind of life you’ll lead with a big, responsive list!)

The responsiveness of your list is dependent on a combination of several factors, including but not necessarily limited to:

• How well you’ve attracted a niche market (rather than a general mass market group of subscribers). The more focused your niche, the better your response.

Example: If you’re running a dog training site, then you need to attract dog owners (whose dogs need training) to your site. Simply attracting “pet lovers” won’t do. Nor will attracting dog lovers who don’t have dogs that need training.

• How targeted your mailings are. If you’ve attracted a niche market and you’re sending out niche-oriented offers and emails, then you can expect a good response.

• How well you’ve built a relationship with your readers. People buy from those they know, like and trust.
• How well you write your offers (e.g., your copywriting skills). If you write good copy, you can expect a better response.

There is one important (yet sometimes overlooked) subcategory that’s related to focusing on your target market.

You need to be sure that you’re attracting actual buyers as opposed to freebie seekers.

Think of it this way:

When you’re targeting your market, part of your pre-qualification should be that your buyers are able, willing and even eager to buy products that solve their problems.

Otherwise you’ll have a list of freebie seekers who drag down your conversion rate. And the true freebie seekers (those who want something for nothing) will even waste your time peppering you with questions (though they don’t intend to buy) or they’ll buy with the full intention of refunding instantly.

So how do you avoid freebie seekers?

Here are a few suggestions:

• PULL in buyers, not tire-kickers. If you’re pulling in search engine traffic based on search terms with the word “free” in them, and if it seems like the whole focus of your site revolves around “free stuff,” then your visitors will expect freebies.

While it’s OK to offer freebies for your prospects, just make sure the emphasis of your site is on the solutions you offer, rather than just the FREE solutions.

• PUT the emphasis of your squeeze page on your newsletter and less so on the freebie. If your emphasis is on the freebie itself, the freebie seekers may be tempted to give a “throw away” or temporary email address just to get the freebie.

Instead, put the focus of your squeeze page on the benefits they’ll receive from the newsletter. That way your subscribers will actually be eager to open and read each issue – and of course that increases your conversion rate.

• PREPARE your prospects and set expectations. Let potential subscribers know that your newsletter offers things like product reviews and comparisons, discounts coupons on products and similar. That gives potential subscribers a “heads up” that your newsletter isn’t all about the freebies – and it gives buyers a huge incentive (benefit) to join your list!

• PITCH paid products in the very first email you send out. You don’t have to hard sell in your emails. Instead, weave product recommendations into your content as described previously.

Bottom line: You don’t have to “fear” freebie seekers as most of them are harmless. But neither should you go out of your way to attract them – especially if you’re doing any postal mailings (which of course require a cash outlay in order to contact your prospects).

One of the most effective ways of getting more people to subscribe to your optin list newsletter without having to get more traffic is to use popup windows.

The reason for creating a series of messages is two fold:

1. It helps you start building trust and a relationship (automatically) with your subscribers. People buy from those they know, like, and trust.
2. It also creates a stream of income for you, as you can start pitching products immediately in your autoresponder series.

As mentioned, you’ll want to start with at least 7-12 messages. However, each week you should commit to adding a few more messages to your series.

That way you can have months of content – or even a year or more of content – all sent out AUTOMATICALLY to your optin subscribers.

Indeed, you can get to the point of having a nearly hands-free optin list (save for a live broadcasts that you send from time to time).

Because you are sending out content that may not be seen by your optin subscribers for months or even a year or more from now, your content needs to be “evergreen.”

That means –

It needs to be just as relevant a year from now as it is right this month.

Example: Talking about the latest “fad diet” or about specific diet pills are NOT evergreen topics. However, talking in general terms about fad diets and diet pills – without mentioning any specific fads by name – would qualify as evergreen content.

Of course you can mention specific products (and link to them using your affiliate link) if they’re time tested and likely to be around for a while. In other words, if the product themselves are evergreen.

Example: A good example of that is a copywriting book that goes over the basics of how to write a sales letter. While copywriters are always coming up with new ideas and spins on old ideas, the basics have stood the test of time and will be evergreen for as far into the future as you can see.

What Should You Include in Your Autoresponder Email Follow-up Series?

The first thing you should include in your series is whatever you promised subscribers on your squeeze page.

That’s your most important consideration initially – because if your subscribers don’t get what they expect and what they were promised, they won’t be subscribers for long.

Beyond that, your autoresponder series should be used to solve your market’s most pressing problems.

1. Some of the problems you can solve for free via the content in your newsletter.
2. Other problems you can solve by recommending paid products.

In many cases you’ll do both right in the same article.

Example #1: Let’s suppose you have an article about how to correctly use diet pills to lose weight. The article itself is informational and in-demand by your market. But the article could also pitch a specific brand of diet pills, vitamins, or supplements through your affiliate link.

Example #2: Let’s suppose you’re writing an article on how to optimize a website for the search engines. The article could go through the basics of how to do it and yet it could include links to SEO (search engine optimization) tools like a paid subscription to WordTracker.

 Here’s the take away point:

You don’t have to “hard sell” in every email. Instead, weave recommendations and links for paid products into some of your free content.

A “Common Sense” Tip: NEVER recommend a product or service that you wouldn’t recommend to your mother or your best friend.

It doesn’t matter how high the commission rate is, how amazing the conversion rate is, or how much money you can stuff in your pockets recommending it.

If the product stinks, do NOT recommend it. Your reputation – and your future sales and income – depends on this.

is one of the best autoresponder autoresponder email systems out there, we’ve been using it ourselves since 2004 and have had great success. If you don’t yet have an autoresponder system Aweber is defintely the best way to go. 

OptinPop compliments Aweber perfectly as one of the best WordPress plugins available for getting  your message in front of every single visitor to your website. .

Naturally, the newsletter you’re offering should be a big incentive (and thus you should concentrate on the benefits of getting the newsletter). Ideally you should provide some kind of reward – a freebie – to make deciding to subscribe a real “no brainer.”

What kind of freebie might you offer?

Only your target audience knows the answer to this:

So What do THEY want?

What kind of problem do they have that you can solve?
What kind of information are they wanting to get their hands on?

You see, just because you are providing a freebie does not mean the value of what you’re offering should be low.

Quite the reverse.

Instead, you should be providing top quality content – something you could provide for at least $50. That way people will say, “look at what he’s providing totally free – just think about what his paid products must be like!”

Here a few recommendations for free stuff you can produce instantly when someone subscribes to your optin list:

A free e-book or review.
A free multi-day ecourse.
Valuable software.
An audio interview.
A useful video.
Tools like hand calculators or excel spreadsheets.
Useful items like blog themes or screensavers.
A free teleseminar or webinar.
Free access to a “private member site.”
A free 10 or 15 instant assessment (be cautious with providing services, unless you have a good compensated upsell in place).
There are two quick ways to put together a quality freebie:

Brandable reports
PLR content

You might also consider asking for your subscribers postal address together with their email address. In order to easily get a physical address, your freebie may be something like a CD or DVD shipped in the mail.

Insider Tip: One of the best ways to create a more responsive list is by knowing as much as you can about your list members. If you know, specifically, what each of your subscribers prefer, then you can easily segment your list and send out highly targeted offers.

One way to segment your optin list is to make a short checklist as part of the newsletter sign up. Simply ask your subscribers to check their interests from a drop down list or check list.

Example: Let’s suppose you run a travel site. Your instructions might say, “What type of vacations interest you most? Please select all that apply from the following list:”

Seaside vacations
Mountain vacations
Ski vacations
Luxury vacations
European vacations
US vacations
Asian vacations
Volunteer vacations
Green vacations
Cruise vacations

…and so on.

Now you have the ability to write highly targeted emails. For example, if you’re offering a discount vacation package on a choice of ski vacations or cruise vacations, you can use your segmented list to speak directly to your ski fans and your cruise fans.

You send one email to ski fans offering them a discounted ski vacation and you send another email to the cruise fans offering them a discounted cruise. Then you send a general offer to the rest of your optin list.

End result?

Higher optin list conversion rates!

Test it for yourself and see how segmenting your optin list can increase your income.

Your first step with creating a big optin subscriber list is to create a compelling optin list building popup window.

Here’s what you’ll need…

1. A topic with a big advantage that also is one that arouses the reader’s interest.
2. Body text and a series of advantage bullet points that gives people a powerful promise why they should subscribe to your optin list.
3. A powerful call to action, telling people exactly what you want them to do.

Let’s look at each one separately…

1) A Convincing Headline

Your headline is the key to the success of your optin list building popup window. This is because if the headline you’ve used  does not do its job – which is to get the readers attention and read the remained of your text – then you might as well not have bothered. Seriously!

Too many times, web marketers make the error of trying to do everything in the headline. Do not even attempt it… you lack enough room to do that anyway.

Instead, lure your potential new readers with a gripping advantage and excite fascination in an attempt to get the to read on. If your headline “pulls” them into your offer, you are going to have the time needed to persuade them to susbcribe.

Example: “Discover FOR FREE How a 45 Year Old Air Hostess Dropped 30 Pounds Without Dieting… And How YOU Can Too!”

This example makes the advantage clear and uses the phrase “free” (which is an important trigger word  that grabs attention).

2) Reason-Why Copy and Benefit List

Once you have drawn your reader into your text, then you need to provide them with an extra incentive. That means providing them powerful reasons why they should join your optin list.

Think of your bulleted advantages like mini-headlines: Each of them should guarantee an advantage and, usually, grab interest.
For example: “* Turn to web page 12 and discover the common plant that wards off the common cold!”

In this area of your optin popup window you are going to want to include confirmation of your statements as well as social confirmation such as recommendations from your other readers.

3) A Powerful Call to Action

Finally, your optin listbuilding popup window should end with a powerful call to action. This is where you  tell your leads exactly what you want them to do.

Common sense tell us that if you have a powerful headline and powerful, benefit-laden text, then your potential optin subscribers would be willing to subscribe to your optin list – and they would know exactly what to do. But testing has proven time and time again you git to tell people what you want them to do.

Example: “Fill in your first name and email below and press “submit” to subscribe to The Weight Loss Secrets news letter”