The Reasons Your List Building Isn’t Working

As an online entrepreneur, most business models that you pursue will benefit from you building a list of targeted subscribers. Although it is possible to earn some money without building a list, all successful marketers will tell you the importance and financial benefits of having a list.

For some reason, list building is something that newbies either stay away from because they’re intimidated, or feel so relaxed about that they take the easy way out, which causes them to fail because of a lack of understanding.

The list building process has to be both strategic and consistent. You cannot take a shortcut and expect to build a viable list that will help you earn profits over the years. Likewise, it’s not so complicated that you should avoid it out of fear that you will do something wrong.

You Expect People to Just Show Up

Sadly, one of the most common problems people have with list building is that their effort is so minimal in recruiting subscribers, that it’s almost as if they expect people to show up out of thin air.

Just because you create a lead magnet page and offer does not mean that Google and other search engines will send a flood of targeted visitors to your website. You have to pull and push traffic to your site so that people are exposed to your lead magnet offer and can sign up to your list.

There are many different ways that you can get traffic to your offer. First and foremost, you will want to start blogging using relevant keywords that your target audience would use to search online.

Second, you can use social networking sites to your advantage to send the right people to your list building offer. You can use a variety of text, image, audio, and video social media sites to recruit your subscribers.

Make sure that whenever you create a piece of content for these sites, you are branding the URL of your lead magnet page. You should always be able to mention the freebie offer that you have in place to entice people to visit your site.

Start by finding out where your target audience is most likely to be. It might be Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, TikTok, Pinterest, or somewhere else. Create a profile and be consistent with your uploads so that you become a common presence on that site.

You’re Attracting the Wrong People

One thing you don’t want to do when you are building a list is focus on numbers alone. It’s not the quantity of subscribers that you get, but rather the quality that matters. You could have a list of 100,000 people who buy nothing from you, or a list of 3,000 people who buy almost everything you recommend.

Many people who are desperate to build their list fail because they attract the wrong kinds of people. They will do things like scrape email addresses and names, buy lists from marketers who are willing to sell the contact information of their subscribers, and purchase cheap solo ads just to get their offer in front of people, no matter who it goes out to.

You don’t want to waste time or money attracting the wrong people to your offer. Even if they sign up to your list, it will do nothing for your financial gain if they are not the right ones for your leadership.

Another thing you don’t want to attract are the tire kickers and freebie seekers who have no genuine interest in finding someone who can guide them in the niche. These are the people who won’t even buy a $7 report, much less anything else.

It’s okay to entice people with a freebie, and it even makes sense from a consumer point of view to test the content of someone before spending money with them. But if your emphasis is on everything being cheap or free all the time, don’t be disappointed when you fail to convert on an offer that costs a little more.

You’re a 1 Trick Pony When It Comes to Forms

When it comes to your email autoresponder form, you have to know more than just the very basics. It’s okay to start with a simple form for your landing page, but you also want to grow your subscriber list by presenting visitors with additional opportunities to get on your list.

There are many different opportunities for you to present your forms to your visitors. Having a dedicated lead magnet page is just one way. Another way you can add people is by having a form in the sidebar of your blog.

This is easy to create inside your email autoresponder system, and can fit whatever width and match whatever color pattern you wish to have so that it blends in with the rest of your blog design.

Another good place to showcase your opt in form is below each blog post. If someone becomes immersed in your content, they will continue scrolling down until they have devoured every word.

By this point, your opt in form may have disappeared in the sidebar because they have scrolled past it. By putting an opt in form below the blog post, you can ensure that those who are genuinely interested in what you have to say will have the chance to become a loyal subscriber.

Another thing you want to do is consider pop up forms. Some people say they don’t like this, but the fact is, pop up forms are effective at reminding people to sign up for your list.

You can have popups that appear shortly after someone has landed on your page, or when they are about to click out, for example. Some float along with the reader, but this might be intrusive, so pick one that works for you.

You’re Not Split Testing Your Opt In Page

Another thing you want to do in terms of building a successful landing page is to split test certain elements against one another. There is no way for you to initially create a perfect lead magnet page the first time around.

You need to be split testing a variety of different offers to see which one performs best with your target audience. Sometimes that may be a case study, a free course, a series, etc.

Not only do you want to split test the offers themselves, but you also want to split test strategic elements of the landing page. Pit different color patterns against one another and see which one catches the eye of your prospective subscriber.

Use a variety of different fonts and see if one type performs better than another. Look at the placement of the image versus text, as well as the size of the image and see if that makes a difference when you split test it.

You may also want to split test different media formats, such as a text and image based landing page versus a video that you put together to explain your free offer and what they can expect being on your list to those who visit the page.

You can also split test how much is in your offer. For example, receiving a short preview or teaser may actually perform better than an entire course in some instances. Or, the reverse may be true.

You may find that more people sign up when you offer multiple items, such as a free report, a video course, and some templates. You may be able to grow your offer over time as you complete more content and learn the needs of your audience better.

You’re Asking for Too Much

One mistake that can cause your list building efforts to fail quickly is when you start asking for too much from your visitor. Many people want to stay behind the scenes anonymously when they are learning information from someone.

Just because your email autoresponder allows you to ask for their full name, email address, physical address, phone number, etc., doesn’t mean you always should. You want to keep the signup process as simple as possible, limiting it to their first name and email address only.

Another thing you don’t want to do is tell them on the lead magnet page that you will be contacting them for additional feedback. It’s one thing to offer to have am optional two way communication with them, but it’s another to tell them they will have homework of some sort up front.

Your Offer Is Weak or Nonexistent

Some people fail to build a list because they don’t even have anything to offer. It’s true that you can create an email autoresponder form and lead magnet page that merely tells people to sign up for notifications.

But that doesn’t mean it’s the right way to go. Why would anyone want to risk getting spammed in their email inbox just to be notified when there is a new blog post on your site?

Instead, they can simply bookmark your link if it’s that important to them and revisit the site at a later date to see if there’s anything new. You want to have an offer that is strong and competitive in the marketplace.

Ideally, it should be something so enticing that people would be willing to spend money on it if you were charging for it. You want your lead magnet offer to have ample value because your subscriber is exchanging their personal contact information for it.

Many people want to rush the process, and in some ways, they should. On day one of building your blog and getting into online marketing, you should put a form up that captures the name and email address of all of your site visitors.

However, you should immediately begin working on a freebie offer that your targeted visitors can’t resist. Don’t get lazy about the process and think that just because you have an opt in form up, your work is done.

You Haven’t Given Them a Strong Enough Reason to Trust You

Even if you are a new marketer, you have to build trust with people in order to get them to feel confident and secure in handing over their contact information to you. Many people are very picky about who gets their name and email address.

Regardless of how long you have been an online entrepreneur, you want to work on your brand and reputation so that when someone is given the opportunity to sign up to your list, they don’t hesitate.

You can do this in several different ways. Start by always operating in an ethical manner. Everything you do online in regards to interacting with fellow entrepreneurs or customers will create a trail that others can follow if it is discussed on social media or in forums.

This can work for or against you. If you prove yourself to be a very giving marketer who helps people, then it will allow others to trust that they can sign up to your list without fear of being spammed or having their information sold to someone else.

But if you are always causing trouble, or involved in chaos online, you can bet that will follow you around as well. Even if you are simply stating your opinion about someone else’s dispute, this can haunt you when it comes to building a list.

Another way that you can prove that you are trustworthy to prospective subscribers is by creating content that shows your value as a niche leader. You can do this on your blog and also on social networking sites.

People will be looking to see what kind of information you share, whether or not it is unique or original by you as opposed to being copied from someone else, and how well you engage with those who interact with you.

Your Subscribers Keep Abandoning You

For some people, the list building process is two steps forward and one step back, if they’re lucky. Others take one step forward, and two steps back. There’s a very real possibility that you can initially convince people to sign up to your list, only to see them drop off in a flash.

Part of having the list building process be considered successful, is for you to keep people subscribed for the long term. If the turnover rate is too high, too fast, then you will constantly be struggling to increase your income because you are always looking for new customers that you haven’t let down.

The first thing you want to do when you get a new subscriber is have a welcome email that goes out to them automatically. This email should welcome them to the list, explain how you do things – such as the frequency of your emails – and deliver the freebie gift that they signed up for.

What you do after that depends on what they were promised as well as what your goals are. You don’t want to send them the welcome email that sounds very giving, only to spam their inbox with endless offers and no other value.

You want to continue giving value to them on a daily basis, or however frequently you email them. Even if you are promoting something in your email, you can find ways to add value to the promotion or in a different section of the email newsletter.

Another thing that will cause people to jump ship is if you abandoned them first. There are many marketers who get the courage up to create a lead magnet and landing page, but who suffer from a lack of confidence in leading their list of subscribers after that point.

You can’t expect to disappear for weeks at a time, only to pop back into their email inbox and expect them to remember who you are. Anyone who is online looking for information knows that there are thousands of competitors who will do a better job of staying connected to those individuals.

Therefore, you need to show up consistently. This might mean daily, bi weekly, or even once a week. If you email less than that, you run the risk of being seen as an intruder and spammer, even though they initially volunteered to sign up to your list.

You Keep Putting It Off

Perhaps the worst list building failure that can occur is caused by you unnecessarily. Many of you have good intentions to build a list of subscribers…someday. You have been thinking about this process and perhaps even working on a lead magnet offer or landing page for weeks or even months.

But the longer you keep putting it off, the bigger the failure in this area of business. When you take on the responsibility of becoming an online entrepreneur, you have to shoulder the burden of garnering repeat business.

That means, being able to contact customers after an initial sale or interaction with you. This is not like the offline world, where a simple billboard or business sign might remind people to pop in and buy something.

Your website is one of millions in your niche that is buried in the World Wide Web. If you have no way to connect with these people after their first encounter with you, the chance of them remembering to revisit you is slim to none.

A list gives you this opportunity, and it should be built from day one. Start with the simple promise to stay in touch and send notifications, and quickly replace that with a formidable freebie they can’t resist.

You will have many different tasks to handle each day. But there’s still no excuse for delaying the list building process. Even if you need to outsource the technical process and use content such as private label rights as your free gift in a PDF format, that at least allows you to get the ball rolling until you free up more time to create something unique.