Joan writes,

This is a great question Joan,

You are correct in thinking that phone number might decrease your opt-in rates.

I’ve had phone number decrease opt-in rates by up to 50% in some offers.

Here is the deal

You need to measure the metric that makes the most sense to your business goals.

If your goal is to build a large audience that knows likes and trusts you by providing exceptional content, you might want to go with email only.

But if you want to convert as many possible leads into sales as quickly as possible, and you are going to be calling every lead, I think getting phone number is important.

The other option is to do a hybrid where you make phone number (optional).

This allows you to call all of the people who want to receive a call without losing anyone who just wants to join your email list.

At the end of the day each business is different so you just need to try all three to see which one delivers the best result for your business goals.

I suggest that you create 3 capture pages that have that same offer to try each of these methods for your business to see what works best

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The customer magnet page that you use to capture emails must clearly define a problem or pose a question that the prospect is seeking a solution or answer for. Your product or offer is the solution that you are going to be driving them to using your email follow up sequence. If you don’t clearly define this problem – solution connection to your prospect, they may have no clue what they are signing up for and your conversion can be easily lost to confusion. By getting your prospect to understand the problem and fill out your capture email form in hopes of a solution, you are setting them up with an expectation for an offer.

Prospects who are expecting a solution will be more open to your offer or product and are more likely to convert to sales. When you collect emails for your list, it is vital that you also clearly state on the landing page (thank you page) a clear idea of your offer and the solutions you are going to send them via email. This will strengthen their expectations and get them looking forward to your emails. By the time your email arrives with the solution, they will be ready to click on the purchase button.

The form you use to capture emails should have a headline that defines the problem, a sub headline that offers a solution and an easy way for them to give you their information, including the ability to fill out the form using Facebook’s easy integrated button. If possible, you should even give a short teaser video about the problem to help grab their attention. Response Magic has all these features built right into their form generator, and you can give it a try for free.

With the right form and approach, the way you collect emails for your list will increase your overall prospect to sales conversion rates.

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Here are 5 great email list building strategies that work:

1. Make it simple to sign up. You should make your email list or newsletter sign-up form ask as few questions as possible – usually just email is best. Asking for a bunch of personal information from a person is a sure-fire way to get them to not put in their email address. Once you have captured their email address, you can lead into gathering more information about them via emails that send them to more inquisitive forms, surveys and offers. 
2. Make it easy to find. Your email list building sign up box should be in a very obvious place on your website, such as the top right-hand corner of the header. Having a bright colored box and an arrow doesn’t hurt either. You should also make sure you let them know what they are signing up for.
3. Put it everywhere. Once you make your email sign up easy to find and simple to join, include it everywhere you can. This means including your form on your blog, on every page of your website and as a link in every email you send. You can link to your main website, since you have made it obvious where the sign-up  is, with a simple “Get more great news by joining my mailing list!” link. You can even put it on your business cards. Use the blank space on the back of the card to advertise that you have a mailing list and why they should join.
4. Give them a good reason to join. Yes, they are signing up for an email list, newsletter or offers list – but why exactly should they? What kind of awesome information are you going to be giving them? Do you have secrets on how to build a business? Do you have coupons on great products you can give? Are you going to provide advice on a topic that they simply need to know?
5. Respect their email address. They are giving you a piece of their personal information when they sign up on your list building form. You need to assure them that you will respect their privacy, only send them the information they are signing up for and that you will not be sharing their contact information with any third party service. This is just part of email list best practices. Then, of course, follow through with those promises. Be sure you don’t spam the people who give you their info. If you provide the value-content to them that you have promised, chances are high they will recommend your mailing list to others.

Following these 5 simple list building strategies can help increase your signups significantly. Building an effective form doesn’t require a lot of work, either. Response Magic has a built in email capture form templates that you can use to effectively promote your email list sign-up.

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Show Notes:
-> How to Create a Customer Magnet

Video Transcript:

Hey guys Ryan Haché here. And in this video I’m going to show you how to get email addresses that actually make you money. A lot of people think that, you know, if I only had so much traffic or if I only had so many email addresses to contact, that I would have the answer to all of my business problems.

Well, that’s not the case. And the reason why that IS, is because you can only monetize your email list at the rate in which you have a relationship with that email address.

And it’s a very simple formula. It goes:

Size of the e-mail address multiplied by relationship equals money

Okay? Now I’m going to show you how to create the relationship and how to create a targeted email list that is going to have a bunch of raving fans on it and it’s going to be a list that you can actually see as an asset and use to make money in your target market or to sell your product.

I’ve got a free course that I’m going to give you. How to create a customer magnet If you click on this link that’s right here I don’t know if you’ll be able to click on it but if you visit this website, you’ll be able to download it as well as right below this video there should be a link right at the bottom.

If you click on that link, you’ll get instant access to the video that I created on how to create a customer magnet and you’re going to learn exactly how to build one of those email lists.  I’m also going to give you a free piece of software that’s going to actually allow you to properly manage your email list using today’s best practices. So go ahead and click on that link or go to www.responsemagic.com and tell me a couple ideas in the comments on how YOU created customer magnets, and tell me what your customer magnets that you just created after you watched my video. Post the comments here on this video so I can give my feedback. I hope you enjoy the video. Thank you very much!

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Email newsletters offer visitors to your website or blog the ability to subscribe as a way to receive updates and information from you by email. These emails typically contain announcements about what you are writing on your blog, changes to your website content and exclusive content that they can only receive if they subscribe. By promoting your newsletter as a way for your visitors to receive exclusive content, you will increase your subscribership. Increasing the number of people who subscribe to your newsletter is your ultimate goal of the newsletter.

Why? This automatically builds an email list of qualified and interested prospects for you. Building a qualified list is one of the most important keys to growing your business.

But why a subscription instead of simply offering an RSS feed? The simple answer is that RSS feeds do not capture email addresses / qualified prospects. A person doesn’t need to give you their email address in order to subscribe to your RSS feed. The more complicated answer is that you can’t track your RSS feed readers and you are limited to what you can offer to them as far as content goes. You could have hundreds or thousands of people subscribed to and reading your RSS feed, and you would never know it. Your RSS feed also limits what you can send. Some RSS feed readers are text only, while some RSS feed readers will strip out URLs and other key content for your readers.

You should offer an RSS feed for those who are more comfortable with receiving their content through this method, but you should also promote your subscription service and newsletter both on your website and through your postings that are read via the RSS feed. Let your RSS feed readers know that they may miss valuable content and exclusive offers and promotions that are only available via the newsletter subscription.

If anything, you should encourage your readers to sign up for both your newsletter and your RSS feed to be sure they don’t miss out on any of your great content. Just remember to always offer value to your readers before trying to gain value from them. If you provide worthwhile content and offers, there is no reason a person wouldn’t subscribe to both methods of receiving your content.

In addition to offering a Newsletter signup on your website, you can also build your list by doing the following:

• Importing an existing list of contacts from your email program (like Outlook or Gmail ) or another contact manager
• Creating a simple and effective customer magnet
• Capturing leads on Facebook using the Like / Fanpage options
• Capture leads from your website using Facebook’s “Connect with Facebook” plugin

So you have a list – now what?

One of the key questions I receive is “Okay, I have this list of email addresses… what do I send to them, and how often?”

This can be a tricky question and can depend greatly on a few factors such as your industry, the type of readers you have and the type of emails you are sending to them. In most cases, it is good to send emails to your list at least once a week, but no more than twice a week. I know some marketers believe that heavy email sending (an email a day) is the way to go. I have to politely disagree. An email a day for the first few days is okay, as it will familiarize your readers with who you are, and these can be simple autoresponders that go out automatically for you to remind your reader what they have subscribed to and where they can get more content.

After the initial “break-in” period, you should cut back on emailing the person or they (or their email service provider) is likely to get annoyed with you and send you to the spam box. This is an honest truth that many marketers choose to ignore until it’s too late and they are left with a list of opt-outs. You should have confidence that your readers want to get your emails, but you shouldn’t be over confident that they will want you filling up their inbox on a daily basis.

Don’t, however, disappear off the radar. A weekly update (or newsletter) is the perfect way to keep your readers interested and remind them of who you are and the type of content you provide. Although you should always try to provide valuable content to your readers, I know that writing a weekly newsletter can sometimes feel overwhelming. Don’t be afraid to pull in content and guest authors from other blogs or websites (they will scratch your back too!), and don’t neglect sending your weekly email even if you only have a paragraph of things to say. You should try to send your newsletter on the same day each week so the reader starts to expect it and gets into a routine.

Setting up this email routine has a hidden agenda as well – if you send an email outside of this routine (such as a promotional offer), your reader automatically has a mental reaction to the break in routine and will see that email as something special. I am sure that if you are subscribed to any current newsletters that send on every Friday, for example, and you suddenly get an email from the person on a Tuesday, you mentally say “Oh! What could this be?” and open the email out of simple curiosity.

So, to recap – you will be sending your qualified email list three types of emails:

1. Autoresponders – these are an unlimited amount of automated emails you set up in your list campaign that go out automatically over time.  These can be the “break-in” email series that you send every day for the first 3 to 14 days that thank the person for subscribing and then deliver them value content or deliver on the promise you give in your customer magnet. (this is your first impression, make it count!)
2. Newsletters/Broadcasts – these are the weekly emails you compose and send out to your qualified list. They can be in full newsletter format, or they can simply be a paragraph with an update. Don’t be afraid to pull in guest authors to beef up your content-value. Remember to send this email on a routine – same day and time each week if possible.
3. Promotional offers. These are the broadcasts that you can send separately from your newsletters, and you should send them outside of your newsletter routine. Don’t flood your reader’s inboxes with these; these emails should be treated like “golden tickets” – rare events that will get your reader’s excited and their curiosity to open the email without them thinking about it too much.  Many advanced marketers never send promotional emails. Each time they promote a product or service they simple write an article or email educating their readers on how to achieve a result, they just happen to be using the product or service to achieve that result. This is a very effective way to introduce products or services without bombarding your following with offers.

Okay – you have a list, and you understand what to send and how often… Now how do you get started?
It’s actually much easier than you think!

Step One: Signup For a FreeResponse Magic Account

Yes, I said Free.

Response Magic is a fully featured autoresponder system that lets you create lists, send autoresponder emails, create and schedule broadcasts and newsletters and even track your sending statistics – all for free. No strings, no gimmicks, and no credit card required either.

The free account will let you save up to 100 names / contacts, but that is enough to get you set up and started on building your list. Once your list is established and you’ve gotten yourself into a routine, you can easily upgrade your Response Magic account to a larger contact package. Don’t worry, they are the most affordable system on the market today.

Click Here to set up your free account and get started.

Step 2: Setup Your First Autoresponder

Your Response Magic account will come with a campaign list already set up for you. All you need to do is add an email or two to this list and create a capture form so people can subscribe to it.

We’ll start with the capture form. Once you log into your Response Magic account, click the Attract button.

This will take you to the Customer Magnet creation page where you can customize your capture form. There is a video on that page which I recommend you watch. It gives some additional tips on the how and why behind an effective lead magnet.

You are able to choose what questions to ask your readers, and we recommend that you stick to the basics – Name and Email. People have become very used to providing their name and email online on a daily basis to access content on websites, so most will do it without a second thought. Adding additional questions may deter people from subscribing.

Don’t forget the Thank You page! Many people forget this step. This should be a URL to the page you wish your subscribers to be taken to after they fill out the form. Response Magic has a built in Thank You page, so you may choose to leave this option blank. However, a Thank You page is a great way to give your subscribers additional content / bonus content and offers after they subscribe. A Thank You page can simply be a page on your blog or your Facebook Fan-page.

Once you have selected your options, you click the “Submit and Get Code” button that is at the bottom of the page. This will take you to a secondary page that will give you a few options on how to place your created customer magnet form online. These methods include WordPress, Facebook or an HTML website you have created.  Depending on where and how you are posting your form, follow the provided instructions on that page.

Once you have your form online, we recommend that you fill out your form to test it.

Next, you should add some autoresponder emails for your subscribers to receive.

These autoresponder emails are the “break-in” emails that are intended to thank the reader for subscribing to your list, remind them of who you are and give them a preview of the type of emails they will be receiving.

Go back to the Home page of your Response Magic account and click the Convert Button. This will take you to the “Email Management” area for your list.

There are two types of emails in Email Management:

1. 1.       Autoresponse – this is the email that goes out immediately (within five minutes of filling out your form) to the person. This email is great for thanking the person for subscribing and reminding them what they just signed up for.
2. 2.      Sequence Emails – these are the emails you add to the list after the autoresponder. They will go out on a timed sequence that you set up, such as one email per day for the next four days.

We recommend that you add an Autoresponse and then four or fourteen emails to get your list started. There is a video on the Email Management page that will show you how to add both types of emails.

Step 3: Sending Your First Newsletter / Broadcast

With Response Magic, you are able to create your weekly newsletter / broadcast emails in advance and schedule them to go at a specific day and time. This means you don’t have to set aside a specific time each week to sit down and write your email. You can choose when to write the email when the idea hits you and schedule it to go out later. It is important, however, to keep your content relevant and not dated.

To get started, go to the Home page of your Response Magic account and hover your mouse over  , then  click Broadcast Email from the drop down menu that appears. This will take you to the Broadcast Options page. This is where you choose what list you want to send your email too and when you would like it to go out. There is a video on this page that will explain how the Broadcast system works.

When creating and scheduling your broadcast, remember the importance of keeping your content relevant to what the reader subscribed too and creating a routine.

After you have created your capture form, added some of autoresponders, and have sent out your first broadcast, you will be able to start tracking the effectiveness of your campaign using Response Magic’s built in analytics. This is found under the Review menu in your account.

Thank you for reading this post, and as always, I hope you have found it informative and helpful!

*Email image icon provided by iconfinder

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Now at this point, you should have created your irresistible offer or your “customer magnet”, and you are now ready to start building your email list. If you haven’t created your customer magnet yet, either login to your Response Magic account and click “Create a Customer Magnet” on the dashboard, or learn more about how to create a customer magnet here.

I have listed these steps in order of what I think is most important starting with number one.

1. Get your opt-in code on your website. This small change will add the power of your irresistible offer to anyone visiting your website. If you have some html editing experience, it’s easy to add this form code to your website. If you are not familiar with html editing or you use a web designer / webmaster to manager your website, just send the code Response Magic gives you to the designer or programmer. We recommend copying and pasting the code to a Notepad file and sending it as an email attachment.

2. Leverage your existing contacts by:
-Customize your confirmation email to include your customer magnet headline
-Export your contacts from your existing mail program
-Import your contacts into Response Magic so they get your customer magnet offer.

3. Use the “backdoor” Facebook method to get your contacts confirmed on your email list. How?
-create a facebook fan page
-Import your contacts to your fan page and get them say yes to friendship.
-After they have friended you, ask them to check it out by posting it on your wall and ask for them to share it.
-Post your customer magnet on Facebook and remember to lead with the headline you created.

4. Contact any of your friends or contacts with the same target audience.
-Tell them about your irresistible offer. Remember you now have a free gift to give the world, use it!
-Ask them if they would mind sharing it with their email list, in store card, Facebook, word of mouth, twitter etc… whichever is best for them.

5. If you have a store, put up in-store posters showing the headline of your irresistible offer with a url to your squeeze page.
(I recommend that if you are going to do this, you should register a domain name specifically to point them to your squeeze page.)

6. Put your irresistible offer on your business cards.
This way anyone you meet has a good chance of ending up on your email list. It also makes it easy for someone with your card to send you a few referrals while at the same time adding value to the people they are referring. Be sure to repay the favor in kind by giving their referred customers great deals and not spamming them with unrelated materials. It’s simple: make the people who are referring your offer into heroes to their contacts, and you will get referrals from them for life!

7. Add your irresistible offer to your other media channels.
Post it on twitter, use it in your radio spot, post it on LinkedIn and post it anywhere you have a following or new customers can find you. Create a video and post it on YouTube that highlights all the benefits of your irresistible offer.

Because of the very small barrier to entry that the prospect has, your customer magnet is a great way to stand out from the crowd and for all potential prospects that might visit competitors to choose you instead.

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The first step is to define your target market. You need to ask yourself “who do I want to attract” and “what type of customer do I want to attract”. For example, we will use the Health and Fitness industry. So we are going to be targeting those customers who are interested in health and fitness. We will refine and narrow this broad target audience in the next few steps.

The next step is to define a problem that your target market has and offer a solution to this problem. For example, in the Health and Fitness industry, one problem may be finding exercises or equipment that offer results for keeping ab muscles toned. So the problem question would be “How do I keep my stomach abs toned?”

The next step is to create your headline based on the question and the solution. In our example, where we are going to be offering a solution to the issue of getting toned abs, we could use the headline “Who else wants to know how I just got rock hard toned abs in just 3 weeks…” The headline presents the question of “how to get toned abs” as a solution “I just got rock hard toned abs”.

Step 4 is called the “Call to Action”. You need something that will make them want to take action right away in order to get the solution your are offering to provide to them. The call to action should be bold and visible on your page and is most often located at the top of your capture form. In our fitness example, we could use the following as a call to action: “Enter your name and email address below for instant access to the Free Easy Abs Video Boot-Camp”. The action is “enter your name and email” and the call to do this is “for instant access” to the video boot-camp.

Step 5 is to deliver what you have promised – deliver your solution to the prospect. After the prospect fills out the form, they have completed your call to action. You must reward them by providing what you promised in your call to action. If you do not deliver this to them, you break trust with the prospect – a trust that is extreamly hard to regain. Your reward should have value and thought put into it so the prospect fills like they are getting something worth-while.

Some of the best ways to deliver your solution is through a PDF eBook they can download from the “thank you” page, or with an audio or video recording they can play on the “thank you” page. You should also email them, best done with an autoresponder, a way to access this solution, such as a link to the thank you page, and to personally thank them for their request.

The delivery is the perfect opportunity to offer more solutions to other problems. You do this by creating a void that can be filled by your paid product or service. For example, our solution is a video bootcamp. This video bootcamp, however, contains excersies that require a certain peice of equipment to get the best results – that is the void. They know what they need to do to get toned abs, but they still need the equipment get the best results. You give them knowledge and the solution for free, but the tool is the product you are wanting them to purchase.

The final step is the follow up. Make sure you keep in touch with your prospects by using an autoresponder system like Response Magic. Continue to provide content that has value to them through exclusive videos and updates. You need to keep them coming back to the solution page again and again and continue to offer solutions to other questions, including the void and the tool that can fill that void.

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