I know. You’ve heard this a million times before and you’re probably going to hear it a million more times before the night is through. The money is in the list. If you want to make a serious go at Internet marketing, you need to build up your mailing list with subscribers who are legitimately interested and engaged with what you have to offer.
You may have also heard that even if you make your living on the Internet, one of the best things you can do for your online business is to get out there and meet other people in real life. Go to networking events. Attend seminars. Run workshops. Make it out to trade shows and shake a few hands. There’s something infinitely more valuable about forging a real human connection, meeting face to face.
It’s not at all surprising that most of your efforts in building up your subscriber list will be online. You’ll continue to tweak your landing page and you’ll consider more effective ways to promote your opt-in form on your blog. Even so, you can still collect those e-mail addresses when you’re meeting people in real life and far superior to the old paper and pen are the available mobile apps for gathering sign-ups.
AWeber Atom
For the purposes of today’s article, I’m only going to focus on two of the biggest email marketing service providers on the Internet. Some of the other providers also have similar mobile apps available with varying levels of functionality. You’ll just need to look into whether they have something available.
In the case of AWeber, the accompanying mobile app for collecting sign-ups is called AWeber Atom. Available for both iOS and Android, Atom lets you add new subscribers to your list while you’re out and on the go. This is perfect if you have a table set up for your e-commerce site at a local trade show, for example.
The sign-up form in the app can be customized to align with your branding, including the ability to include a company logo, write some text and change the background color. While the best situation would be if the mobile device (ideally a tablet) that you’re using has a wireless connection, Atom can save the collected e-mail contacts and upload their information to the AWeber servers when you do get back to a Wi-Fi connection.
The AWeber Atom app also supports multiple mailing lists, so if you have more than one list with AWeber, you can switch between them on the fly to collect subscribers accordingly.
MailChimp Subscribe
Another popular email marketing service provider is MailChimp. What’s nice here is that MailChimp has a free plan to get your feet wet with e-mail newsletters. Some may argue that AWeber is superior, but that’s another discussion for another day.
Just as AWeber has the Atom app, MailChimp has the suitably-named Subscribe app. Like Atom, MailChimp Subscribe is also offered as both an Apple iOS app and as a Google Android app. Use it with an iPad, Samsung Galaxy, or whatever compatible mobile device you’d like. Investing in a cheap iPod touch could be a nice way to go about it too.
The core functionality is very similar by offering a mobile opt-in form that can be customized. You can add your logo and text, as well as adjust the color scheme. Unlike Atom, you can also change the background picture here for further branding. And just like Atom, MailChimp Subscribe will also work while offline, saving those addresses for when you do get back online. It also supports multiple lists.
One of the lessons that you’ll learn very quickly with Internet marketing is that you should leave no opportunity unexplored. By neglecting to add subscribers to your mailing list when you encounter an enthusiastic fan in real life, you could be leaving some serious cash on the table. People forget. Get them to sign up, right then and there, while you still have their attention.