Email marketers are always on the lookout for new opt-in techniques that will help grow their list and over the years, there have been some great ideas. One of these is to actually get people to sign up for your emails offline! Why not? Here are three offline opt-in techniques that will help you grow your list and bring in brand new subscribers.

1. Hold a draw. Set up a draw box and offer some fabulous prizes. Get people to fill out a short form with name, phone number and email address. Most of them will give you their email happily in return for a chance to win something. You can offer free products or a free dinner out, etc. There are plenty of ideas to choose from. Set your draw for a specific date so people can be sure to get their entry in by then and have multiple prizes. This will help convince more people to sign up, there is a better chance of winning!

2. Offer a free gift. A real one, not an ebook. People really value physical gifts, so why not give out something small and brandable like a pen when they sign up for your email marketing newsletter? If you like, just get visitors to your business to write down their email address and then hand over their free gift.

3. Guest book. If you have a brick and mortar business, get visitors to sign the guest book and make sure they leave their email address. Anyone who has enjoyed their time with you will be more than happy to write it down so they can get updates.

Offline opt-in techniques can really help you grow your list, particularly if you frequent trade shows or have an offline business. Be sure to capture emails both online and off, for a bigger list and more potential clients.

You already have your own email list, but every email marketer knows that there is always room for growth! A super easy opt-in technique to grow your list is to simply advertise in other people´s email newsletters. There are two methods of going about this.

Paid Opt-In Technique

This calls for using proper ads. You´ll need to design a simple logo or write a text ad and publish it in an email newsletter. You will have a paid ad like any other advertiser. To make this work, you will need tight copywriting and a convincing reason for readers to sign up with your email newsletter.

Free Opt-In Technique

Not everyone has scads of money to spend on advertising, particularly in larger email newsletters. If this is the case with you, you may want to try this option. Just write a very interesting, informative article, designed for email newsletters and offer it free to a marketer. The trick here is to offer it to just one person. This will be an exclusive article that only they will have access to. This makes the deal very appealing. The catch? You´ll have a short one or two line bio at the bottom of the article with a link to your website!

Choosing the email newsletter to advertise in is fairly easy. You want email lists that are similar to yours or that cater to people who would be interested in what your newsletter has to offer. The opt-in technique won´t work if you are pitching cat food to dog lovers!

Check out ezine directories, subscribe to a handful of lists that interest you and then put your opt-in technique to work in the best ones. Depending on the effectiveness of your ad or article, you could bring in literally hundreds of new subscribers with this opt-in technique.

Many people want to know more about a business before they start handing over email addresses, so having a great About page is an excellent opt-in technique. You can mention it with a link under or above your sign up form. But for an About page to turn visitors into subscribers, you really have to make it a great one. A few ideas on that:

Make it interesting. Don´t just recite the boring details (”MyBiz began in 1999, as a startup . . .”), add some interest. Use anecdotes, but don´t ramble as that would defeat the purpose of this opt-in technique.

Include a testimonial. This adds interest and helps people trust you. A good way to use testimonials is to have them in a box or side note.

Make sure people can contact you. Add at least one form of contact info to the About page, email and possibly telephone. If you want, your mailing address can also be included. This really helps visitors trust you more and they will be more likely to give you their email address.

Let them know what you do. State your mission and business idea clearly on your About page so there is no question as to what it is that you do.

Study other About pages. Look at some successful websites and check out their About pages for ideas.

Have the sign up form on your About page. This makes it nice and easy for visitors to sign up once they´ve read about your company and is a valuable opt-in technique.

An About page is useful on your website anyway, but by including a link near your sign up form and another form on the actual page, you turn this into a very handy opt-in technique.

You have probably read about a lot of different opt-in techniques, how to attract people to your sign up form and encourage them to hand over their email. However, there are still plenty of websites out there that are missing one very important opt-in technique . . . easy sign ups.

The amount of time that you have to capture an email address isn´t much. Someone might be willing to type in their email address and even their name in order to receive your free ebook and daily tips, but they probably don´t feel like filling in 3 pages of opt-in forms! The majority of readers will just click away if your sign up process is longer than a couple of lines.

Just today, I came across a website that offered a free ebook prominently in their sidebar, a great opt-in technique. The sign up form required just an email address, another good opt-in technique. However, as soon as I clicked submit, I was taken to another page where I had to type in my email address again. Then yet another window opened asking for far more information than I was willing to give, including mailing address, phone number, fax, etc. Though only the name was required in order to continue on to the free ebook, simply the sight of a big form would send most people scurrying away to another website, if they had even bothered going on to the third page of the sign up process.

My point is this, you can use all the opt-in techniques you like, but if your sign up process is too long, no one will finish it. You´ll be driving potential clients away from your email newsletter and since the money is in the list, as they say, the most important thing is to capture that email address. It would be nice to have geographical info, but asking for that will limit the number of people who sign up. Keep is short and simple and you´ll build your list in no time.

Opt-in techniques abound, but one very effective way to get people to sign up for your email list is to place an opt-in form on your PPC landing page. Most small businesses are already using PPC in order to draw more attention to their webpage or product, but rarely do we think of combining opt-in techniques with paid advertising.

PPC can be a great way to draw targeted traffic, but if you can´t make them stick around, you´ll lose out on potential sales . . . unless you capture an email address. That´s where your handy opt-in technique comes in, place a sign up form above the fold, very prominent, on your PPC landing page.

If you have a special offer, make sure you state the benefits of joining your opt-in list. This will capture more subscribers than if you simply put a sign up form on your landing page. Offering a free ebook, e-course or membership should be enough to motivate visitors to give you their email address.

In today´s hectic, spam-filled internet world, you need to stand out from everyone else in your opt-in techniques. Grab people´s attention when they click on your PPC ads and get them to sign up right away, before they lose interest and wander off your website. Then you can be sure to follow up and establish a relationship which could lead to sales later on.

Every email marketer wants a bigger list, whether their list has 6 or 60,000 subscribers. A bigger list is always the goal and here are some opt-in techniques that can help explode your list, no matter what size it is at the moment.

Get offline sign ups. If you have contact with clients or potential clients off the internet, include a box on all forms for them to fill in their email address. Add them into your opt-in list to receive updates . . . they´ll still get the opt-in letter asking to confirm their email address, so you don´t have to worry about spam.

Explain the benefits. Why should someone subscribe to your email newsletter? Offering benefits is an age-old opt-in technique, but one I see a lot of marketers missing out on. Just a line or two, “Want daily business tips delivered to your inbox?” or “Learn proven money-saving techniques by subscribing today” lets readers know exactly why they need your email newsletter.

Limit information. You don´t have to know everything about your subscribers and the truth is, the fewer steps they need to take in order to subscribe, the more likely they are to finish the process. Just a name and an email address will capture the most subscribers. This opt-in technique is one that is very effective.

Using these extra little opt-in techniques can really help explode your list and net you more email addresses for your list. Email newsletters, as you know, are a great way to communicate with potential clients and remind them of your services and products, so start building your list today.

Your sign up form is one of the most important part of your opt-in technique. Without a good sign up form, very few subscribers will give you their email address, making it very difficult to grow your list. There are a few opt-in techniques that can help, however.

Make the form visible. Hiding the sign up form at the bottom of the screen is not a good opt-in technique, since many people will never make it that far. Instead, put it in the sidebar, above the fold.

Let them know what they will receive. If you have a special offer (get a free ebook, etc.), mention it up front. Make sure you tell your subscribers what to expect, too, daily tips, weekly news reports, etc.

Give an example. People like to know what they are signing up for, so a good opt-in technique is to have a sample of your newsletter on your website that they can check out before signing. Don´t forget to include a sign up form on that page!

Watch your wording. Asking people to “subscribe” implies they need to pay something, even if you are giving your email newsletter out for free. Try “sign up” instead and you´ll probably get better results.

Experiment. Try different placements and wording for your sign up form to see what works best with your readers. Switch them up every week or every couple of days for month or two and then go with the sign up form that works best.

The best opt-in techniques are basically to make your sign up form appealing and visible to your readers. Make them really want to sign up by offering them a reason to.

Giveaways are a great opt-in technique for growing your list drastically in a very short amount of time. If you haven’t tried a giveaway yet, it is well worth your time to find one and get into it.

What is a Giveaway?
This opt-in technique is one that has been around for quite some time. Basically, a large number of internet marketers get together and each one provides a free product. Visitors can download as many free products as they like, but they have to sign up for each marketer’s opt-in list before they will receive the chosen goodie. Most people are so enthralled with getting something for free that they are more than happy to hand over their email address.

How to Get Started
First of all, you will need a product. It is best if you have a new product, one you’ve developed yourself. This can be anything that is instantly available via download or online, instructional videos, ebooks and reports, audio files, etc. Though you can use PLR products, this opt-in technique works best if you have something that is brand new to the market.

You will also need to set up an opt-in page, especially for the giveaway, with an autoresponder form. Your autoresponder will also need to be set up to deliver the product or link once the subscriber has confirmed that they wish to be on the list.

There are giveaways going on constantly, but there are even more right now, close to Christmas. Simply do a Google search for JV giveaways and you will find quite a few. Sign up for one or two at first to get the hang of things and don’t be surprised if this opt-in technique nets you a good 3-10,000 new subscribers!

It happens to the best of us, you are checking your stats and realize that your opt-in list has dropped in number. While it´s not a good thing when people unsubscribe, that doesn´t mean that it has to be entirely negative, either. A very good opt-in technique is to learn from your unsubscribers.

You need to make sure that you are asking people why they are unsubscribing. This may seem simple, but it is a very valuable opt-in technique that not a lot of people take advantage of. Not everyone will give you a reason, but enough readers should tell you why they aren´t interested in staying on your opt-in list that you will have a fairly good idea of what is going on. Here are a few of the more common reasons for unsubscribing.

Irrelevant information: This could be because you didn´t deliver what you said you would on the sign up page. Or perhaps the reader didn´t get what they needed from your newsletter.

Too many emails: Are you sending out frequent emails? Some people don´t like to get three or four newsletters a week from one email marketer, so you might consider toning it down. You will automatically receive more unsubscribes when you write more often.

Too many newsletters: If someone is subscribed to twenty or thirty different internet marketers, they are bound to get the same email every time there is a new launch. You can help prevent this from being a problem by not using the standard sales letter and write one yourself. Change the subject line, too and people will feel that you have original email content.

Too much spam: Now, you may not consider your email to be spam, especially if you used legit opt-in techniques to grow your list, but some people will just count everything that isn´t from their aunt or brother as spam, so there isn´t much you can do about this except offer high quality content.

Learning from what people enter in the box when you ask them why they are unsubscribing is a very valuable opt-in technique. Use it and you´ll find out exactly how to help your remaining readers and keep them on your list.

Our inboxes are overflowing with emails every day and you have to give someone a pretty good reason to add your email newsletter to their roster. Here are some opt-in techniques that do just that.

Offer something of value. You know that freebies help draw more subscribers, but did you know that this opt-in technique won´t work unless you offer something that has perceived value? If you offer a free report that is free elsewhere online, why would they sign up with you? However, if you are giving away an ebook that you normally sell for $29.99, that´s value.

Use Tell a Friend. You can find Tell a Friend scripts all over the internet. Use one. Having a trusted friend recommend your newsletter is the best opt-in technique out there. People listen to their friends.

Give them a good reason. If you have an upcoming event or giveaway happening, let people know that they will get an extra discount or receive special behind-the-scene info ahead of time by signing up for your newsletter. They have a good reason to read your email newsletter, to find out when the giveaway starts.

These opt-in techniques are designed to make sure that your email list is one subscribers want to be on. If they are getting something of value just for signing up and then receiving high quality email content along the way, you will find that your opt-in numbers grow.

Giveaways are one of the best opt-in techniques for getting a huge number of subscribers quickly. They are usually very simple to enter, if you have ever signed up for a giveaway or an email marketing newsletter, you probably receive invitations to become a part of the next opt-in giveaway all the time.

In order to get the best quality traffic from a giveaway, you will want to offer something for free that relates to your niche. For example, if you have a wedding planning site, you will want to offer something to do with weddings. Perhaps an ebook on wedding planning or a guide to online wedding dress discounts.

There is another opt-in technique to get better traffic. Offer something new. If you have a PLR or resell rights book to give away, chances are you will be wasting a lot of potential traffic, since people will have already seen these everywhere else. If you don´t have the time or inclination to write your own ebook or software, consider hiring someone.

By including your website URL or sign up form URL in the freebie and offering giveaway or resell rights to the ebook or software, you can cause your free item to go viral, spreading around the internet like wildfire. And anyone who finds it interested or useful, will follow the links back to you to sign up for your newsletter. This is a great opt-in technique for making the most of the giveaway traffic.

Giveaways can be a very useful opt-in technique if you use them correctly. Offer something new and make sure it is branded and easy to use. That´s it, you can really get a lot of new subscribers with this method.

There are several opt-in techniques that will help you grow your list quickly, but if you don´t have many visitors to your website yet, it can be difficult to use most opt-in techniques. There is one great way to get more subscribers, though, even if you don´t have a huge amount of traffic.

Teaming up with two or three other newsletter providers gives you access not only to your own visitors, but to any visitors collected by your opt-in partners. The method is quite simple, when someone signs up for your email newsletter, you offer them the option of signing up for the others´ newsletters as well. Each of the partners does this and then you can sit back and watch your opt-in list grow.

Opt-in techniques like co-registration are a great way to grow a list from a group of small websites. Though none of you receives a large amount of traffic, it is still possible to gain a good-sized following by using the opt-in technique of co-registration. Of course, this technique also works for larger sites, it will simply expand your influence. Every email newsletter could use more subscribers, so why not start looking for someone to team up with today.

Opt-in lists need to grow if you want your business to grow. While everyone has their own opt-in techniques to improve their list, there are a few basics that you don´t want to miss out on.

Keep the opt-in form simple. This is the first opt-in technique you should implement. If people have to jump through hoops, do math questions and decipher wobbly letters on a swirly, multicolor background . . . they might decide it just isn´t worth signing up for your newsletter. Stick to a fast, easy opt-in form and you´ll have a lot more subscribers.

Ask for references. This opt-in technique is a great way to build your list if you have happy subscribers. Ask them to tell a friend. You could even offer an incentive, like a free ebook or a discount on your membership for anyone who refers a friend.

Send follow-up emails. Every opt-in list has inactive subscribers, or people who signed up, but never confirmed their email. Send these folks a special message with a bonus offer to help encourage them to confirm. Make sure you let them know they are receiving it because they took the first step towards signing up for your email. You can also give them a hint as to what they are missing by not confirming. This opt-in technique is vital if you have more than a handful of people on your inactive subscriber list.

Convey trust. If people trust you, they will be more than happy to hand over their email address, so provide clear information about who you are. This could include a simple About page where you have a photo of yourself, a real name (as opposed to Super Internet Marketer), and at least one method of contacting you. Adding a phone number or address is an even better way to build credibility.

Offer a freebie. People love free things and if you give them something of perceived value when they sign up for your newsletter, you´ll have more people signing up. This is probably one of the most commonly used opt-in techniques.

Give them the opportunity. Have opt-in forms all over your site, not just on the first page. If you blog, put the opt-in form in your sidebar so it is always present. You never know what will encourage someone to sign up, so making the option available after every article or piece of information on your site is a good way to capture more emails.

Looking for ways to boost your email sign ups and build your list fast? While you are probably already advertising your newsletter, there are a few other opt-in techniques that you can use to get even more people to hand over their email addresses.

1. Including an opt-in form on every article page allows you to capture emails from people who may not click back to the home page to sign up. This also is a good technique because most people are ready to take action at the end of a good article, so if they finish it and see the sign up form, they are more likely to give you their address.

2. Add a signature to the bottom of all your outgoing emails. For non-newsletter emails, the recipient may be tempted to sign up, while those who are already subscribed may forward a particularly good article, resulting in a new potential subscriber . . . provided you have a way for the other person to sign up, of course.

3. Submit your newsletter to ezine directories. This is often overlooked by webmasters, but ezine directories can actually bring you quite a bit of traffic and some new subscribers. There are literally hundreds of ezine directories, get into as many of them as possible to expand your potential subscriber base.

4. Do an ad exchange with another newsletter in the same or similar niche. You can each have a small ad in each other’s email, allowing both to reach brand-new audiences. This is a great opt-in technique to build your list on a tight budget.

5. Google Adwords is a good opt-in technique for those who have a little extra money. You can start with a budget of just five cents, if you like, and increase it as you begin to earn more with your list. Set up a page specifically for your newsletter and use the ads to drive traffic to that page where people can sign up for your newsletter.

You want people to opt in to your newsletter, right? Well, it helps if you offer them something. You’ve got to provide a clear benefit and one way to do that is to offer them something in return.

People will not just opt in to a newsletter for no reason. They are giving you something valuable - their personal information. They are afraid to pass out their e-mail addresses to just anyone. Just look at the dangers fraught with doing so:

• E-mail spam
• Virus downloads
• Tracking cookies
• Come ons and trash offers
• Loss of privacy

People really are on guard. And well they should be.

So how do you get them to opt in to your newsletter? Offer them something valuable for something valuable in return. You get a valuable e-mail address, something you can use over and over again. So what should you offer your prospects?

How about a free download of some kind. It can be an e-book. It can be a podcast, or it can be a video. But by offering something of value in return for your prospect’s email address, you are building trust and giving your prospect a reason to opt in. That’s the least you could do.