Wordpress Business Articles SEO Blog

When you are marketing a website, business, or product online, perhaps your biggest secret weapon is your “list”.

This list is a list of newsletter subscribers–people who have decided to give you their email address so that you can send them information on a certain topic on a regular basis.

When someone signs up for your newsletter, it’s a huge deal. Normally people guard their email addresses, and justifiably so. An email address is like the key to their online communication hub–their inbox. If you have that key, then it’s like the person has said, “I trust you–come on in whenever you like.”

Your relationship with your list subscribers is much closer than what you have with your website visitors. With website visitors, they initiate the visits. With newsletter subscribers, you are given permission to initiate contact. It’s a huge privilege!

But newsletter lists don’t grow on their own. You need to develop a strategy for building your list, and submitting articles is key. It’s very effective at drawing a reader to take the next step in your online relationship.

But how? That’s what this article is about. Here are some article marketing strategies to build your newsletter list…

Use Your Resource Box Strategically

Your resource box is the one place in your article submission where you can try to persuade the reader to go to your website. What can you say that would specifically inspire someone to sign up for your list?

First, think about all the times when you have signed up for someone else’s newsletter. What did they do to motivate you?

I have signed up for a few newsletter lists recently. Here’s how they made me eager to hand over my email:

1 – One business offered me a monetary reward for signing up to their list (a $10 gift certificate).

2 – Another business gave me a 20% coupon to use in their store. I was going to be shopping there anyway, so the coupon was a big draw.

3 – The third business had a frequent customer card, and they offered bonus points for anyone who signed up to their email list.

Notice a common denominator in all of these situations–the business offered me a meaningful incentive to hand over my email address. In your resource box, you need to do the same thing.

Here are the step-by-step instructions for using article marketing to build your email list:

1 – First you’ll write your article. This should be an informational article on a topic related to your niche. Ideally you’ll be teaching your readers how to do something useful.

2 – Next, think of some sort of incentive that you can offer your readers that will motivate them to want to sign up to your email list. Remember, the incentive has to be compelling enough that your reader will be willing to surrender his email address.

Here are some ideas:

*A coupon

*A gift certificate for use in your business

*A free report

*An e-book

*Or something else–each business is different, so just think about the type of things that would be meaningful to your potential customers.

3 – Then, you need to set up your website so that you can capture the email addresses. You’ve probably seen websites that have a sign up box on them–give your name and email and press “submit” and you’re sent a confirmation email that has a link you click to confirm that you want to be on the person’s list.

Your would put this email captures form on the page that you’ll be linking to from your resource box. Make sure that it’s clear on the page that in order to get the free gift you’re offering all the reader has to do is give his or her name and email and press the “submit” button.

4 – On your article submission you’ll create a resource box. Your resource box should be well thought out and include your name, a little about yourself and your business or product, your incentive for visiting your website (the free gift), and then a link to your website. The link should go to the page on your website that has the email sign up box.

The idea is, people will read your article and find it helpful. Then they’ll look at your resource box to find out more about the author. In the resource box they’ll be intrigued by the offer of a free gift that means something to them, so they’ll click the link going to your website. At your website it will be clear to them that they by giving their name and email in your form, then they’ll be sent their free gift. Et voila–that’s how you build your newsletter list!

—————————————————-