Building a decent list of blog subscribers is hard. The only thing that’s harder is building one rapidly.
That said, it’s not impossible to do so, and the benefits can be huge:
- A growing pool of potential clients who are regularly exposed to your financial marketing and brand.
- Establishing yourself as an industry authority and thought leader.
The list goes on.
The question is, what kind of financial marketing approach is required to achieve even your first 100 subscribers? Well, is essentially comes down to two things: blog optimisation strategies, and conversion optimisation strategies for your email list.
To combine these two approaches, we recommend following a strategy which integrates three, key elements:
1. Nailing the Lead Magnet
A “lead magnet” is when you offer something of great value to your reader, in exchange for their email address. There are many types of lead magnet, the most common being an eBook. (E.g. “Mortgage Advice for First Time Buyers Following Brexit”).
However, you can also offer a webinar or a consultation as part of your financial marketing, or possibly a white paper or guide. These lead magnets don’t have to be free, but you will gain subscribers more rapidly if they are.
To be effective, make sure your lead magnet is perceived as premium/high-value to your audience. What you’re offering needs to be compelling enough that your readers will be willing to part with their contact information. Your offer holds value if it addresses the interests, needs and problems of your readers.
It might seem like stating the obvious, but you also need to make sure that this value offering aligns with your business, products and services.
It makes no sense, for instance, that you offer a free eBook to a potential client about taking care of their allotment. You might laugh but we’ve seen this sort of thing happen! Your readers will be looking to you an authority in the world of financial advice, so make sure your lead magnet relates to this.
Furthermore, make sure that your lead magnet is really specific. Address a particular problem (e.g. a specific aspect of income protection) and offer to solve it. Even better, try and offer something that your readers can use immediately in order to encourage your conversion rates.
A final thing to consider in your financial marketing is a great, quality giveaway. Marina from Not a Model, for instance, grew her blog to nearly 20,000 subscribers in 6 weeks by offering a free $300 bracelet to an email subscriber every month.
We know, we know …it’s not an example from the financial sector. However, the underlying principle is still relevant. Could you offer a free 45 consultation, for instance, to a new email subscriber every month?
2. Honing Your Call to Action (CTA)
Your call to action is a message, button or image which directs your readers to take an action.
If your financial marketing approach involves building your blog subscribers, then you need to call your blog readers to subscribe in order to retrieve your lead magnet.
To create a powerful CTA, make sure you avoid words like “submit” or “click here”. These are comparatively weak to descriptive, compelling CTAs like:
“Give Me More”
“Watch Right Now”
“Stay Connected”
It’s also important to ensure your message is consistent throughout your financial marketing, and especially with regards to your CTA copy. It needs to be absolutely clear to the reader what it is you expect them to do next, and why they should do it. The CTA should also relate clearly to the content that preceded it.
Finally, make sure your CTA is visually compelling and stands out on the web page. Experiment with different sizes, contrasts, and images.
3. Creating a great form
This is the box where your readers put their email address, name, and other information to sign up as a blog subscriber. To achieve this, your form needs to be of a high quality or it will put your visitors off.
Make sure you don’t go overboard with form fields. Keep it between 3 to 5, and cut own on required fields. If this is going to be too difficult, give thought to dividing your form up into multiple steps.
In addition, explicitly reassure your readers that you include your privacy policy to reassure people you won’t give their details away. Use a “human verification” code to add further reassurance. Consider also placing your form above the fold in the upper right-hand corner. (This is where people tend to look first!).
