Imagine that you are surfing the Net.

Maybe you’re searching for something in particular, or you’re just trawling the Net to see what you find.

At some point, you hit upon a blog and read an interesting post. Would you immediately subscribe to the blog?

Most likely, the answer is no.

Unless …

Unless the blogger offers something you really want in return for your email address. Not only is it what you really want – it’s free!

How creating an incentive for subscribers made a small blog grow

The first six months of my blog Goodlife ZEN were agonizing. I just couldn’t figure out how to make my blog grow. I inched up to over 100 subscribers, then slowly limped toward 400 subscribers. And then growth stalled.

What to do?

In those first months I wrote an ebook about how to start over, I called it From Tragedy to Triumph – which was a terrible title as nobody wants to be associated with the word tragedy. I put it up for sale on Goodlife Zen and sold only 7 copies. It was depressing …

I then happened to read an article about creating an incentive for subscribers. So I decided to give my ebook away for free in return for subscriptions.

In the following chart you can see what happened. My subscriber numbers between April and July stagnate, but from August onwards – after I started the incentive for subscribing – the subscriber count takes off. (The blue arrow shows the start of the strategy.)

Since then, I’ve continued to offer an incentive for subscribing. These days, I offer a free chapter of a paid ebook as a reward.

There are two different ways to set up this strategy. In this article – which is Part 1 – you’ll learn how to set up the strategy with Feedburner (which is free). In Part 2, you’ll learn how to set up a subscription incentive with an email responder such as Aweber or Mailchimp.

Step 1: Create an incentive worth having.

Whatever you create must have real value. Make sure that your give-away is in line with your blog niche. For example, if you run a blog for car enthusiasts, offering a report on how to care for cats isn’t going to cut it. So make sure that your gift is tailored to your readers.

Here is what you could create:

• You can write something – a short report, a blueprint, a manifesto, or an ebook.
• You can create a video.
• You can record a podcast.
• You can create software.
• You can offer a service.
• You can create an audio with a workbook.

Step 2: Use good graphics to make your gift look valuable and attractive.

If you’ve written an ebook, report or workbook, get a designer to create an attractive design for the layout and cover. If you are on a budget, you might be able to find an inexpensive designer at Fiverr.com.

Step 3: Create a signup page for your give-away.

Make sure that you list the benefits of your give-away on your signup page. Just treat it like a sales page and add a signup box at the bottom of the page.

In addition, make sure you place an image of the book in the sidebar with a small Feedburner signup form beneath it.

Step 4: Create a signup box with Feedburner.

You learned how to do this in the previous module.

Step 5: Create a download page on your blog.

Now you need to create a download page to which you can direct new subscribers. Make sure you check ‘no-index’ so that this page is not indexed by search engines.

You need to place a link to your digital product on your download page. If your file is big, you may need to upload it to your blog by FTP, or use Amazon S3 in order to easily store and retrieve your files.

Step 5: Deliver the give-away.

(The following steps apply to Feedburner only. If you are using Aweber or Mailchimp as a subscriber service, go on to Part 2).

This is a tricky step because you want to deliver the give-away only to those who have subscribed. There is a plugin which does the trick. It’s called RSS Footer. This plugin allows you to add a few lines to your emails (and the RSS feed) that go out via Feedburner.

Once you’ve installed the plugin, you’ll need to customize the settings.

Click on RSS Footer in the left-hand sidebar of your Dashboard:

This brings up the plugin settings. There are two settings you need to get right.

1. The content

Here is the code I use on Goodlife ZEN. You can copy it, but make sure you insert the URL of your download page, and also your own copy and title, since your subscribers will not be downloading the first chapter of the Goodlife Zen book.

This is what it looks like at the bottom of a Feedburner email:

The same link also appears for RSS subscribers, so this method also allows your RSS subscribers to get access to the download page.

2. The placement

Select after so that the download link shows up at the bottom of your Feedburner emails.

Conclusion

This strategy rocks! If you’re just starting out on your blogging journey, give some thought to what you could give away as a subscription incentive.

Even though it takes work to create a subscription incentive and then set it up, it’s a worthwhile endeavor. You only need to do it once, and then the system can run on autopilot for years to come.

Author: Mary Jaksch