In order to build your list you need to drive traffic to your blog – you can not do one without the other. Below are 7 list building techniques that will drive traffic to your blog and are all fairly easy to get started with. They will help you build a list of subscribers who are all interested in the information you have to offer and who will stay interested for as long as you continue to provide quality content.

The easiest way to get started with these list building techniques is to focus on using one or two of them first and then adding new ones as your blog begins to develop.

I will start with one of the more popular ways to drive traffic to a blog for list building purposes:

Social Media Marketing

There are a number of social media sites you can use to drive visitors to your blog who sign up to join your list. Read our blog post on social media marketing for more information.

The purpose of social media is not only to hang out and join in the conversation but also to entice people off the social media site and on to your blog so they can take a look at what you offer. When you provide value on these networks it makes it easier for that to happen.

Articles

Distributing articles to article directories has been a very established list building technique for years and is still widely used. The idea is to have a link back to your website where people sign up to receive more information from you. If you are in a rush and don’t have time to write articles you can take a blog post you have written and simply write a few more paragraphs and change the content round a little to create an article.

You must ensure that your articles have eye-catching titles and that the articles themselves provide useful information. Then, in your resource box, include information about signing up for your newsletter. This will allow you to build a loyal readership as well as get addresses from people who are interested in what you’re offering.

eBooks / Reports

People will happily sign up to receive a free ebook or report because it is something of high value. They can take a little time to write but are well worth the effort because when written well your subscribers will talk about you and think highly of you. Anything between 10-20 pages is long enough (although it can be much bigger) and you can include links to affiliate products inside your ebook or report, which makes it an income earner for you should anyone buy the product you recommend.

Newsletters

Offering to supply a newsletter is one of the more popular list building techniques known to bloggers. If you decide to write a newsletter you have to decide how often you will send it out to your subscribers and what it will cover. Your newsletter will provide quality information about your niche. You don’t have to write a newsletter every week or even every two weeks. Once a month is perfect and people will actually appreciate that you’re not blasting them with too many emails in such a short period of time.

eCourses

eCourses are a great way to build quality lists and are a little easier than a newsletter because you write your eCourse to run for a few weeks and then it stops. You can teach people to do all sorts of things and you don’t even have to be an expert. You can research the information online and then write a course teaching certain techniques. Some bloggers will add up to 52 weeks of content as their eCourse and then just let it run. Once you have set it up you will be able to use it over and over again without having to sit down and think about what to write like you do with newsletters.

Start Your Own Forum

This is a great list building technique although a little more difficult to set up if you are a new blogger. You use blog plugins like Mingle to start a forum on your blog and invite people to sign up for a free membership. Let your blog readers know that you offer valuable information for free, but only to members who register. Then, you can upsell to those members or you can even offer various levels of membership where you’ll offer more products and more resources when they pay. This can build even more value to your brand, your products and services because your prospects will come to believe that they are part of an exclusive club.

Tell A Friend

You may offer a free gift for anyone who signs up to your list as a way to get one subscriber and once signed up you can then offer them more free gifts if they tell their friends. You can search the internet for “tell a friend” scripts – they work really well to help you build your list although it takes a little effort to set it all up.

Free Press Release

Press releases are a powerful way to drive traffic to your blog and there are loads of free press release sites available. You need to come up with a great story and make it interesting to ensure the people who subscribe to your list are potential buyers – not just freebie seekers.