Theodore Nwangene — November 10, 2016 
Does it ever feel like you’ve been blogging for years but don’t have anything to show for it?
Time and time again you sit and watch as other bloggers burst onto the scene, and in what seems like a heartbeat, start making lots of money.
The sad part is that most of these blogs are no better than yours, they don’t produce better content than you do, and they’re not even as dedicated as you are. So what’s happening? What are you doing wrong?
You might be starting to think that the day will never come… you will never become a successful blogger. Maybe you’re just unlucky.
Now, before you quit, bring your seat closer and let me tell you the breathtaking truth:
It has nothing to do with luck.
Don’t get me wrong, there is one definition of “luck” that I do believe in… It’s what “George S. Clason” stated in his book The Richest Man in Babylon.
“Men of action are favored by the Goddess of Good Luck”
But those bloggers who turned their blog into a money printing machine in less than a year are not luckier than you are.
They’re not more skillful than you.
They’re not more blessed than you…
They are simply doing something you’re not doing… Focusing all of their efforts on email marketing.
Smart bloggers and internet marketers understand that you can’t build a popular blog today without a good email list.
According to the Content Marketing Institute, “83% of B2B marketers use email newsletters for content marketing.”
So if you want your blog to take off and start making money, you have to prioritize list building.
Why you need an email list
Look at veteran markers like Jeff Bullas, Bryan Harris, Jon Morrow and Ramit Sethi that have thousands of email subscribers. Imagine the amount of traffic that frequently comes to their blog posts and sales letters upon sending just one broadcast email.
Now, also think of how many of those visitors end up buying the products they’re promoting.
This stat by Monetate speaks volume: “4.24% of visitors from email marketing buy something as compared to 2.49% of visitors from search engines and 0.59% from social media.”
So let’s talk about the tools you can use to quickly grow your email list if you run a WordPress site. These tools will make your list building efforts a breeze.
Remember the famous saying that “Many are wanted, but few are chosen”?
The same is also true in list building. There are so many tools on the internet that promise to help grow your email list, but most of them are not worth your time or money. These seven are.
The 7 WordPress Plugins That will Turn Your Blog into a List Building Wizard
1. Content Upgrade Pro
If you’re active in blogging then you’ve probably already heard about the list building strategy called the “Content Upgrade.”
It’s a form of list building where a marketer offers his or her audience an incentive that is highly relevant to the article they’re already consuming. For people to gain access to the incentive, they have to first optin to their email list.
The screenshot below is from the content Upgrade Pro website showing how content upgrade works.
In case you don’t know yet, content upgrades have proven to be one of the most effective list building tactics on the internet.
As you can see from the screenshot below, many pro bloggers are already experiencing some terrific increases in their email list just by applying this method.
The truth is that if content upgrades were not working, people would not be talking about them.
Now, Content Upgrade Pro is a plugin created by Tim Soulo and it’s primary focus is on creating beautiful content upgrades.
It’s one of the best plugins I’ve seen on the internet for this feature, and you might want to try it out and see for yourself.
However, it’s not a free plugin. The price starts from $ 47 for a single license and up to $ 197. It integrates with most of the popular email marketing software’s on the internet like Aweber, GetResponse, Active Campaign, Convertkit, etc.
2. Thrive Leads
I’ve been using Thrive Leads for over a year now, and I must confess that it’s one of the most robust list building plugins I’ve ever seen.
Think of any type of optin form you want to add to your site and Thrive Leads has got you covered.
With this plugin, you don’t have to tinker around trying to code your optin forms from scratch, it comes with easy drag and drop templates that will give you any type of form you want in a matter of minutes.
John Lee Dumas couldn’t have been wrong with the statement below:
Below are the key features of Thrive Leads:
- Advanced Targeting
- Stunning Designs
- A/B Testing Engine
- Actionable Reporting and Insights
If you’re still stuck and thinking of what lead generation and list building plugin to use, Thrive Leads might be exactly what you want.
The price starts from $ 67 with one full year of customer support.
3. Plugmatter Feature Box
The Plugmatter Feature box plugin is designed for just one type of optin form, Feature Boxes. There are not many plugins on the internet that offer this kind of optin form which is what gave Plugmatter a competitive advantage.
The feature box is the type of form that is positioned just below the header of a blog and above the main content.
Take a look at the screenshot below from smartblogger.com to see this plugin in action.
As you can see, it’s always very visible and because of this, it converts enormously.
One advantageous feature of this plugin is its ability to display a different offer to the people already subscribed to your list or show them no offer at all. This is useful because showing a subscriber the same offer over and over again can be very annoying.
The key features of this plugin include:
- It comes with multiple customizable templates
- No coding required
- It can show different content to returning visitors
- A/B split testing enabled
4. Hello Bar
Hello Bar is another list building plugin that specializes in creating beautiful notification bars usually positioned at the top header of a blog.
The Hello Bar plugin can be used either to display optin forms or a call to action sending traffic to a landing page.
The only disadvantage of the plugin, for now, is that it only integrates to a few email marketing companies like AWeber, Mailchimp, Campaign Monitor and Constant Contact. It doesn’t work on others.
The price starts from $ 4.97/month and they also have a free version with limited features.
5. OptinMonster
Optin Monster is a premium WordPress plugin that is widely used by many expert bloggers. If I’m considering another list building plugin for my blogs, I will certainly go for Optin Monster because of its fantastic features.
One of the astounding things that sets it apart from most other similar plugins is its Exit Intent feature. The idea is to show an optin form immediately when a visitor wants to leave your blog. It does this by tracking the movement of your mouse and will display a pop up once it senses you want to click away from the site.
The key features of Optin Monster include:
- Exit Intent Pop Up
- Smart A/B split testing to boost conversions
- Easy customization
- Easy to understand analytics to monitor performance
- Supports major email list providers
- Page level targeting
The price starts from $ 9/month
6. PopUpAlly Pro
This is a not so popular WordPress premium list building plugin that I found very useful.
Popupally empowers marketers to build their email list using stunning pop-ups without annoying readers. The good thing about it is that it also supports most of the mailing list providers on the internet and has many mouth watering features.
If you’re thinking of using pop-ups on your blog then this plugin might be the answer you are looking for.
Key features of Popupally Pro include:
- Exit intent
- Scroll activation
- Click-based activation
- Time-delay activation
- Embedded sign up forms
- Thank you, page configuration
- Customizable templates
- Video sign ups
- A/B split testing
- Page specific control
- Detailed statistics
The price starts from $ 99.
7. Dreamgrow
Dreamgrow is a very useful WordPress plugin whose primary function is to create slide-ins.
The plugin is designed to target readers who are actively reading your blog posts by showing an in-obstructive slide-in upon reaching a specified point of the page.
You have to decide what percentage of your article a reader must consume before the slide-in comes up, this could be on reaching the end of the post, end of comments, etc.
While using this plugin, you have the option to:
- Set the number of days it should display to a reader
- Design your own templates
- Control the position where the box appears
- Determine what percentage of scroll should trigger the box
The only thing I don’t like about the plugin is that you must have some basic knowledge of HTML and CSS before you can customize it to look exactly how you want. The default template is handy but using the same template as everyone else often decreases conversions.
Price: Free
Wrap
List building is an integral part of blogging and internet marketing today. In fact everything a successful marketer does on the web is centered around it.
According to Monetate, “Email marketing drives more conversions than any other marketing channel, including search and social.”
Therefore I urge you to pick one of the tools I mention above and use it to start building a list of eager subscribers. There are so many ways to build an email list quickly; you just have to pick the one that is more preferable to you.
I understand that there are still lots of other amazing list building plugins out there like SumoMe, Pop Up Domination, Optimize Press, LeadPages, etc. but the main thing is to pick one immediately and start working with it.
You don’t have to wait until tomorrow before you start building your email list, tomorrow might never come, so start now.
I would love to hear your thoughts on this via the comment section, and if you like this post, please share it with your friends as they might also find it valuable.
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