You can use it to cultivate relationships with your readers, build brand loyalty, promote your products or services, and grow your affiliate and ad revenue. Just like with any other aspect of growing your blog, targeted marketing efforts are required for effectively growing your opt-in e-mail list. Here are 5 easy ways to help you grow your list quickly:

Provide Multiple Options for Sign-Up

Not every visitor will come to your blog on the home page or another designated landing page. Perhaps they will find you through a link to a specific post, or by searching for terms that lead to another page on your blog.

Make it easy for these new readers to sign up for your e-mail list by including a pop-up option that appears on each page at first visit. If you don’t like the pop-up option, you can include a permalink on your sidebar, header, or footer. The key is to make sure the option is accessible to readers no matter how they arrive at your blog.

Include Link in E-mails

Promote your e-mail list among your own contacts by including a link to it in your e-mail signature line. It provides an easy, low-pressure way for your contacts to sign up for the list or to share it with their own contacts.

Be sure to also include the link in your e-mail newsletter so that your subscribers can forward it to others for easy sign up. The more options you make available to people to sign up for the list, the more likely you are to get new subscribers.

Promote It on Social Networks

Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other social networks offer effective ways to connect with new customers and subscribers. Be sure to include a link to both your blog and your e-mail list in your profiles on every social-networking site to which you belong.

Then promote the link in your tweets, posts, and other shares. Be sure to share the link regularly, but not to share it so much that your connections start to view it as spam.

Offer Special Incentives

Providing added value for your readers will give them a reason to sign up for your e-mail list.

There are many ways to offer this, depending on the types of goods or services your blog offers, including free shipping, discounts on products or services, or other special promotions.

The key is to make sure these offers are exclusive to your e-mail subscribers and are not offered to just any reader of your blog. Otherwise, there is no incentive to sign up for the e-mail list to get them.

Offer Exclusive Content

Another great way to offer your customers added value for joining your e-mail list is to provide exclusive content. A free e-book or e-learning course is a great way to encourage your readers to sign up for your e-mail list. Be sure to offer new content or to rotate content so that your readers will be encouraged to remain subscribers.

Once they have finished the e-book or the course, they may no longer find a reason to remain subscribers. Keep providing exclusive content to maintain that relationship.

Growing your opt-in e-mail list should be a key part of your overall marketing strategy for your blog. It allows you to build relationships with your readers and to grow a list of customer contacts to promote your services and products.

Following these steps will help you grow your list more quickly.

So why can’t you use the same principle when you think about delegating or outsourcing tasks to someone else? For example if you want to hire a marketing consultant to put a marketing plan together you will need to provide them with a brief of what you want. It would be the same if you wanted to hire a Virtual Assistant (VA) to help you manage some part of your administration.

Here’s my thoughts on how using SMART can help you think about developing your outsourcing brief in a structured way. You can even use the principle to check whether the work is completed to your specifications.

SPECIFIC

We all know a brief that is concise is much easier for a person to read and comprehend. However it can mean much more than simply being concise. When looking at what to write in your brief also think in terms of the specific audience who will be reading it.

Ask yourself what is your specific purpose in writing the brief. Exactly what is it you want? A logo, an article, someone to monitor your emails?

Thinking about these things before you begin writing your brief will enable you to be structured in your approach, and concise in your use of words.

Once you have written the first draft, consider whether it really does meet your intended purpose.

MEASURABLE

Whilst you are developing your brief think about how are you going to measure the quotes against each other. The lowest quote will not always be the best quote.

One way is to create a spreadsheet and on the left hand side list all the key points that you will measure the replies by. This should be made easier if your brief is specific as you can copy and paste parts into your document.

Across the top of the document list all outsourcers and then once you’ve received the quotes you can work through each of their quotes and mark off against your list. This could be as easy as a tick or cross or if there isn’t too much difference you might want to give them a mark out of five.

A small amount of work up front will save you a lot of time and potential costly mistakes later.

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ACHIEVABLE

When you develop the specifics of the brief think about whether what you are asking for can be done.

Is it technically possible?
Is your delivery timeframe too short?
Is what you want too big to be one project. Is it better broken down into more manageable tasks.
If you are new to outsourcing it would be prudent to start small at the beginning. Once you feel more comfortable with the process and the people you are using then you can outsource larger tasks.

REALISTIC

We all have our own standards and expectations on work quality. However you need to be realistic in your expectations of what will finally be delivered to you.

I’m not saying you should lower your standards. If you have specific standards such as fonts, page size, word usage or count, be very clear in your brief.

Just don’t expect the work to be exactly how you would do it – after all the person is not you. I know when I had someone write some articles for me it took me a while to become used to their writing style and for them to understand mine.

TIMEFRAME

A common mistake when developing a brief is to forget to say exactly when you want the work completed and back to you. Be clear in your mind when you need it, take off a few days just in case it doesn’t arrive in your inbox in time and put this in the brief. This is extremely important if you are going to be charged by the hour for the work.

If you want it by a certain date, say so. If you want different tasks delivered at different times, put it in your brief.

By applying the SMART principle to your outsourcing you will be able to effectively structure and critique your brief and improve your success rate in the market place.

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