Strategies for Increasing the Volume of Subscriptions
The key to any successful content marketing campaign or strategy is to build a large audience, and one of the most effective ways to do this is to try to encourage people to subscribe. Having a base of subscribers can provide a degree of consistency and help to ensure that your blog posts, news articles, promotional emails and social media posts reach a steady core audience. This then provides the ideal platform to build from.
However, while the aim may be to get followers and build a solid core audience, the task of actually building that subscriber base can be difficult, and it requires a strategic approach. In this post, we take a closer look at how to get more followers and the various strategies you can employ for increasing the volume of subscriptions.
1. Focus on Useful Content
Regardless of whether you are trying to increase the number of subscriptions to your blog, your email newsletter, or even your social media accounts, the first step is to prioritise the creation of high-quality content, which is of genuine use and interest to your target audience. Ultimately, the quality and nature of your content will be the single biggest factor in determining how successful you are at building a subscriber base.
In particular, it is important to avoid being too overtly promotional with your content, especially with blog posts and news articles. While the content may be intended to be promotional, it needs to serve an additional purpose as well if you want to get followers to keep coming back and to subscribe for the long term.
2. Publish Content Regularly
Next, you need to make sure you are publishing content regularly, so that visitors have a reason to subscribe and come back. Whether you are outsourcing content, or creating it yourself, try to make sure you have a steady stream of it at all times. You should also try to be consistent with how much you post and when you post it. At the same time, however, you need to ensure that your content is original and that each post offers some new ideas.
According to research carried out by Hubspot, companies that publish 16 or more blog posts per month attract 4.5 times the number of leads that companies publishing 4 or less blog posts a month attract. Moreover, the study found that companies that had published 401+ blog posts in total received twice as much traffic as companies that had published 301-400 blog posts in total. More leads and more traffic is likely to result in more subscriptions.
3. Make Subscribing Appealing
Once you have a steady stream of fresh content, which offers real value to readers, you can start to think about actively seeking subscribers. To do this, you need to make it clear to visitors what the purpose of subscribing is, and what they can expect to get out of it. In addition, one useful strategy is to create a dedicated landing page for new subscriptions, and offer an incentive for anyone who subscribes through that page.
Aside from explaining the benefits of subscribing and offering incentives for doing so, however, it is also imperative that you make signing up simple. For a blog, or an email newsletter, this will mean clearly displaying a subscription form, or a link to a sign up page, complete with a call to action. You should also try to provide as many different options as possible, including an RSS subscription button and an option to subscribe through email or social media.
4. Embrace SEO Techniques
The vast majority of subscribers are going to start out as visitors to your blog, website or social media page. For this reason, on a basic level, to increase the volume of subscriptions, you first need to increase the number of visitors you attract. One way of achieving this is through search engine optimisation, which can help to boost your visibility.
Research high value keywords and include them naturally within text, headings, titles and image tags. Make sure your pages are optimised for viewing on mobile devices, as this has become a major ranking factor for Google’s results pages, and use links to other blog posts or website pages, as well as to authoritative external sources. With that said, you must take care with SEO and avoid sacrificing the quality of your content for short-term gain.
5. Follow Influential People
When thinking about how to get more followers, one strategy that is often overlooked is taking the time to follow others on social media, or subscribe to other people’s blogs. More specifically, it can be beneficial to follow figures of influence within your particular field, including thought leaders, trade publications and potential business partners.
There are a number of benefits to this particular approach, but perhaps the most significant is the ability to network with others and gain trust. Many of those you follow will be willing to follow you back, while others may interact or share your content, which can widen your reach. Of course, by following them, you will be able to read their content, take inspiration from the things they do well, and identify some of the gaps in the market.
In terms of expanding the reach of your content, your current audience can be one of your most valuable assets, especially if you can encourage them to take the time to share your content with others. To make the most of this opportunity, you need to place an emphasis on creating content that is shareable by its very nature.
In reality, this means two things: firstly, the content you create needs to be easy to share, especially via social media channels, and secondly, the content you publish needs to be worth sharing. Adding social media buttons to blog pages is one very simple step towards this, while posting links to content on your Facebook and Twitter accounts can make sharing easier still. Additionally, content needs to be helpful and have mass appeal.
7. Treat Your Subscribers Well
Finally, in order to increase your total number of subscribers or followers, it is essential that you are able to retain existing ones. While it is perfectly reasonable to chase new subscriptions, you need to be careful not to neglect the audience you already have and this means making a conscious effort to treat subscribers well. In order to achieve this, there are some best practices to adopt, and some pitfalls to avoid.
In terms of content creation, try to be mindful of what your existing subscribers will have already read. If you start to publish repetitive content, you may find that some of your followers look elsewhere. When offering incentives for new subscribers, you need to try to avoid a situation where current subscribers feel they have been overlooked. It is also of the utmost importance to avoid spamming subscribers, especially through email marketing.
About our author
Ron first arrived in Barcelona, Spain in 2007. Although initially pursuing a career in wealth management and finance, he learned that the content writing community provided the highest level of personal satisfaction while still being able to personally help clients. He has been a full-time professional writer since 2011. Some of his other interests include martial arts and bodybuilding.
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