Build Your Email List With Distraction-Free Landing Pages and 3 Other Techniques

Are you generating more email subscribers from your blog?

Email is 40 times more effective than Facebook and Twitter combined for customer acquisition, according to a study by McKinsey & Company. The number of email users is expected to rise from 2.5 billion to 2.76 billion by 2017.

This post appeared on Entrepreneur.

Currently, worldwide revenue for the email market is nearly $10 billion and is expected to reach $20 billion by the end of 2017 for an average annual growth rate of 20 percent.

Email can also lead to a positive path of traffic generation and build online relationships with your subscribers. Instead of exclusively placing the spotlight on the biggest social media or the latest one to watch, blogs need to leverage traditional digital mediums such as email to promote themselves.

Here are some tips on building your email list through landing pages, feature boxes and other techniques:

1. Create distraction-free landing pages. Derek Halpern of Social Triggers discovered his newsletter's landing pages convert between 50 and 70 percent of readers. This is immensely higher than his overall blog conversion rate of 10 percent. He recommends landing pages with no distractions, including no navigation, home button and sidebars.

Use a landing page to entice your audience to sign up for your newsletter or free gated content such as an expert ebook, guide, report or tutorial. Along with eliminating distractions, write persuasive sales copy to convince your audience to give their personal details.

Remind your audience you’ll be sending out monthly, weekly or daily newsletters to keep them informed and your unsubscription rate will remain low.

Include one or more convenient and intuitive opt-in forms. AWeber uses two opt-ins on its landing page to help quadruple conversions. See how they did it here.

Bryan Eisenberg created a distraction-free landing page for his ebook, The Website Testing and Optimization Buyer’s Guide. Notice the compelling headline and image alongside it. It’s easy to look at and use and keeps your focus on opting-in. Use services such as Unbounce and LeadPages to create your own distraction-free and compelling headlines.

2. Add a feature box. An efficient approach to getting more blog subscribers, Thesis discovered that adding a feature box can increase blog subscription rates by 51.7 percent. Its location at the top makes it hard to miss, and it offers a valuable resource to entice people to sign up.

Your feature box should include a commanding headline, short paragraph or keypoints that alert the reader on the benefits of signing up, an image and intuitive sign-up field. Offer something unique in exchange for signing up that isn’t already available from your popup, sidebar or landing pages.

3. Create a content library. Copyblogger used a series of ebooks to increase its email sign-ups by 400 percent, as reported by Marketing Sherpa. To enhance its blog conversion rate, Copyblogger launched MyCopyblogger in May 2013 with a content library of 15 ebooks on subjects ranging from copywriting, content marketing and email marketing with a 20-part email course on smarter online marketing. The content is free by creating a login and giving your email.

How did it perform? The first seven weeks alone averaged a conversion rate of 67 percent. The sign-up page also shows more than 130,000 people have already signed up since it launched, giving it more credibility to anyone on the fence about diving in. Copyblogger leveraged sales of $300,000 from its paid training program, Authority, attracting thousands of users in less than two months.

4. Use a content-syndication service. Copyblogger rapidly boosted its list with a high-trafficked authority blog. How can startups or brand new blogs with low traffic hammer in a similar impression? Look to the power of content-syndication services, which host your free ebooks or white papers and generate leads in exchange for a fee.

However, each lead can set you back at least $20 to $30, which can be well worth the expense if your site is designed to convert. Before seeking out a service, give your leads a reason to convert. Create an exceptional white paper or ebook with expert tips that can’t be found elsewhere complete with your company’s branding and contact info.

What techniques do you use to attract and convert leads? Tell us in the comments section below.