Building an email list isn’t something that can be rushed, which I guess is why I failed the challenge (in the sense that I didn’t make 100). It takes time to find the people that want what you’re are offering. It also takes time to figure out exactly what you’re offering. It takes time to build trust and the motivation for someone to sign up, this can’t be rushed or forced either. Here’s what I learned during the challenge.

Quality Not Quantity

Quality in the longterm will pay off, all the ‘recruiting’ I did during the challenge was targeted. I may only have 24 on my list, but I have a 97.4% open rate on my newsletters and no unsubscribes. If I can steadily build my list whilst keeping these stats high that would be an excellent result.

Have a dedicated page

Chris Garret taught me the value of having a dedicated sign-up page. I have left the link to my newsletter in my signature on forums, which continues to bring a trickle of new sign-ups.

Just because you built it doesn’t mean they’ll come

If you start an email list don’t expect people to fall over themselves to sign up, unless you have a five figure readership. Email list building takes time. It’s my hope that each time I have a giveaway a few more people will sign up, building my list slowly with highly targeted subscribers.

The power of friends

I’ve learned that friends and networks are more important than I first thought. During the challenge friends helped to spread the word and retweeted my posts. I plan to spend more of my time building my network and helping others.

If you’d like to join the British Parent Blogger network, please contact me.

List building is fun

I was surprised to find how much I enjoyed producing the newsletters and checking open rates and which links were the most popular.

You can learn a lot in 7 days

I read a lot on email list building and took on a lot of tips and information in a short space of time. Many of the ideas I can’t implement in a week. Others I couldn’t implement while doing the challenge, like offering a prize for the 100th subscriber, as I had the counter on saying how many I was up to.

Challenges produce juice, juice produces new ideas

Stepping outside my comfort zone, doing something I wouldn’t usually do creates quite a bit of energy and ‘juice’ (inspiration). I have outlined five or six blog post ideas that I definitely wouldn’t have had if I hadn’t done the challenge. I’ll definitely be pushing myself in 2009 to step outside my comfort zone more often.

Providing value is the ultimate aim

You have to keep giving if you ever want to receive. I have plenty of giveaways planned for 2009, as well as a 25GBP Amazon Voucher giveaway, I’ll also be giving away information in 2009 about what works and what doesn’t as I try to make an income from home. Join my newsletter!

What did I achieve?

I doubled my email list. I increased my RSS/Email subscribers by over 10%.

This is a week long challenge to learn as much about email list building as possible, and build my own list to 100 subscribers. Join my VIP list to automatically be entered into all future prize draws.

Forums

I’m a member of one fairly large forum in the UK so I’ve added my newsletter link as my signature and have started posting more regularly. I’ve also written my own post inviting people to sign up. I think this will bring subscribers but I think it may be a slow burner. Only time will tell.

Other ‘Lists’

I have a list of friends, British Parent Bloggers. I put a note out to them and received plenty of support. Thanks folks.

I’ve reached 22 subscribers. Don’t think I’ll come anywhere near the target but will keep going

Video update of how the list building is going. As you can see subscribers are sloooowly creeping up.

This is a week long challenge to learn as much about email list building as possible, and build my own list to 100 subscribers. Join my VIP list to automatically be entered into all future prize draws.

Quality not Quantity

From Chris Garret’s blog;

Size is not the main goal.

Aim to build a good quality relationship with people who want to hear from you rather than just focus on quantity.

Always target the best sources of motivated, interested subscribers, not just where you can grab handfuls of names.

Ah! Seems my whole challenge is flawed. Well, not really, my intention was always to find people who want what I have to offer (free gifts, over the next couple of months – cookery ebooks, vouchers to publish your own book, bottles of coffee baileys, as well as voucher codes and exclusive content – Free!).

The one hundred figure ensures I stay focussed

Sign-up Form

I had already put a sign-up form in the sidebar but Chris also recommends that you include a seperate page, so, at the top you can see I have put a ‘newsletter’ page which describes in more detail what you get when you sign up, and of course the sign-up form.

RSS Subscriber Success

The surprise by-product of this experiment has been a (somewhat unexpected) rise in RSS subscribers. Up by 10% in four days. If I could keep that level up over the next while it would certainly be nice. I don’t know what’s caused the increase, the publicity drive for the challenge? The introduction of video? (surely not…!) or perhaps the slight change of focus of the content? Will keep an eye on this and report back.

Resources

Aweber
Chris Garret’s Blog
Entrepreneur’s-Journey

This is a week long challenge to learn as much about email list building as possible, and build my own list to 100 subscribers. Join my VIP list to automatically be entered into all future prize draws.

Changing the Sign Up Form

My first step this morning, after making this horrendous video, was to adjust the sign-up form to advertise the fact that if you sign-up you’ll be automatically entered into all future prize draws. I’ve also added a second selling point of ‘receiving exclusive offers and ideas’, I did this because after sending my first newsletter yesterday I was surprised to find that the most popular article was about Bukisa.

Tracking Progress

I’ve added a counter to the sign-up form, as you can see it’s at 12 at the moment This is where I ask you to spread the word and let anyone know about the list if you think they will be genuinely interested in receiving free gifts and other ideas.

Searching Google

My third task was searching google for ‘email list building tips’. Chris Garret’s blog was the first to catch my eye. He seems to have a whole series on Email Marketing for Bloggers. I’ll dig into that resource more later….for now we have a playdate

Resources

Aweber
Chris Garret’s Blog