Popups to the rescue! A popup is a smaller window that appears on a page where you convince a visitor to opt-in to your list so you can contact them later.

Action PopUp is a very cool script that can appear when a visitor
is about to leave your site or when they enter your site. The popup is unblockable since it uses HTML layers instead of actual pop-up windows.

A lightbox effect dims the screen behind the popup to prevent visitors from being distracted by what you have underneath. They fill in that info, the popup disappears, and Action Action PopUp submits that info to your autoresponder in the background while your prospect continues to read the sales message.

You can use any autoresponder you want with Action PopUp.

Action PopUp has a built-in sales letter personalizer. After they fill in their first name in the Action PopUp, the sales letter will change to match that first name. If the visitor typed “Steven” as their first name in the opt-in box, then hit submit, the opt-in form would invisibly submit the information to your newsletter, close the popup, and suddenly the sales page would say “Steven” wherever you’ve put the special code on your page.

Action PopUp can work as a WordPress plugin so you can add popups to your blogs with just a few clicks.

Best of all, this tool comes bundled with two other complementary tools!

Action Opt-In allows you to use your existing opt-in form on your site and makes it disappear after people subscribe.

Under normal circumstances, placing an opt-in form on a sales page is a definite no-no in Internet Marketing. When a visitor is about to buy, and they decide to sign up to your list instead, they are taken to a “thank you for signing up” page where they can’t order. You just lost a sale!

With Action Opt-In, once your prospect has filled out the subscription form, it vanishes and they can keep reading the current page.

Action Opt-In remembers if your visitors have already subscribed to your list and will hide the subscription box on repeat visits so they won’t be bothered again and again.

Action Opt-in can also work as a Wordpress plugin.

The second bundled tool is Action Comments, a Wordpress plugin. When someone fills in the comment form on your blog, they type in their first name and e-mail address. So why not ask these already-interested people if they’d like to subscribe to your mailing list?

You can pitch your newsletter to commenters using either a checkbox or a popup dialog box.

You can see all three of these tools working here at my site, and it’s true – my opt-ins have increased since I started using these scripts!

All three tools are very easy to install and the developer provides PDF installation guides for each. They’re particularly easy to install as Wordpress plugins. But if you’re interested in using one or more of them and would like help installing and configuring them, I’d be happy to help you with them.

Learn more about Action PopUp, Action Opt-in, and Action Comments here.

But there’s one major area that needs to be included in my plan – and in your plan – before we do that: list building. By list building, I mean adding people to your email list so they get an email notification each time you post an entry to your blog, as well as occasional announcements and promotions. That’s how I communicate with my list. You might send an e-zine to your list instead.

While list building is not a stream of income itself, it is a project that deserves the same level of attention as any stream of income. As more interested people join your list, it becomes much easier for you to fill your events with participants and make more money selling products.

For example, if 3% of your list typically responds to an offer and your list has 100 people on it, you’ll get 3 customers for a particular offer. However, if your list has 1,000 people on it and you have the same response rate, you’ll get 30 customers. And if your list has 10,000 people on it, well…

Now we’re talking!

All your streams of income will have a much better chance of getting larger as your list grows larger. Remember, these are people who have chosen to receive information from you, so they’re likely to be good prospects for the services and products you offer.

The large internet marketers understand this concept all too well and are constantly working on growing their lists. For those of us who aren’t so flush (yet!), it’s tempting to focus solely on what will bring in money now. I know I’ve frequently fallen into this short term thinking.

It’s a big mistake.

Of course, we need to make enough to pay our current bills, but if we don’t put some energy into building our lists, we’ll be stuck on the rung we’re on now forever! The way to leverage our time and make more money with every service and product we offer is to get more customers for each offer. And, as we’ve seen above, this becomes easier as our list gets bigger.

For those of you who’ve been doing business online for a while, you’re familiar with the mantra, “Build your list.” You hear it everywhere online. What’s not always so clear is exactly how to do that. We’ll get to that, but for now, let’s just agree that building our lists is going to get equal footing with each of our other income streams. That means when we drill down to create more detailed plans, list building will be a major area we want to focus on every single week.

How much attention do you give to growing your list? What’s the best way you’ve found to add people to your list? Leave a comment and share what works for you.