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Social media can be a powerful driver of email subscribers. Using social media, you can drive droves of ready to subscribe traffic to your website. You can then combine your social media and your email marketing efforts to create a truly effective marketing strategy.

So how can you use social media to get more email subscribers?

Add an Email Box to Your Facebook Page

Most email autoresponder services have code that you can add to your Facebook page to create an opt-in form on your page itself. This is a great way to get people who are interacting with your page to sign up right then and there, without having to click off to anywhere.

Treat your Facebook page a bit like a squeeze page. Use it to offer a gift or a teaser, but make people sign up on the email list to get the gift.

Use Facebook for Retargeting

Did you know you can embed a retargeting pixel on your Facebook page? That means anyone who likes your Facebook page will have your retargeting cookie activated.

You can then use retargeting networks like AdRoll or ReTargeter to show ads only to people who’ve liked your Facebook page. Since you already know they like you, it’s much more likely that they’ll sign up for your email list.

Post Updates That Drive to Your Email

Every once in a while, post a status update or throw out a tweet that encourages people to sign up to your email list.

Again, the best way to do this is to give people a reason why they should sign up now. Give them a solution to a problem they’re facing, or offer them a gift they’d really want.

Survey Your Audience

Social media is a great platform for launching surveys. If you’re having trouble enticing people to sign up for your email list, why not just ask your audience what they want?

Use what you learn to create email hooks and email messages that people are more inspired to sign up to.

“Tomorrow I’m Gonna Post …”

If you write a particularly good email that’s going out the next day, tweet that to your Twitter followers. Let people know that awesome content is coming. Be specific about what value you plan on offering.

People will often opt in simply because they want to get that specific email.

Send to a Lightbox Page

Some people just won’t sign up to an email list without getting content first. To snag these people, send them to an actual post with high quality content. Give them about 20 seconds to browse the content, then have a lightbox opt-in box show up. This can work like a charm for harder to convince readers.

Your email list can be a potent tool for building your social media audience. People who are already on your email list are people who already like and trust your brand. They’re much more likely to want to be involved with you on social media than someone who just lands on your website.

So how do you use email to build your social reach and audience?

Add Social Media Icons to HTML Emails

Create social media icons for your various social networks and place them in your HTML emails. You can even place code in your emails that will display your follower count or fan count to build social proof.

Offer a Discount through a “Like Wall”

A “like wall” is a fancy term for asking people to like you before giving them something. You put content on the fan-only portion of your Facebook page, so people have to like it to see it.

Putting a coupon code, a discount, a special report or some other prize that people are likely to really want behind a like wall is a fantastic way to get a lot more likes.

Promote this through your emails. For example, you might offer a 20% Christmas special, but people have to like your page to see the special.

Comb Your Email for People’s Twitter Accounts

This technique is really simple, really common sense and really effective – yet few people do it. This technique allows you to add almost everyone in your market whose email you have to the people you follow on Twitter. A lot of them will follow you back.

Go into your email autoresponder service and export all the emails you have. Then just plug them into Twitter. Follow everyone that comes up.

Run a Contest on Social Media; Promote It with Email

Social media platforms make running contests really easy. The inherently viral nature of social media can make contests really take off. But you do need to have an initial audience to launch a contest with.

That’s where email comes in. Use social media platforms to host your contest, but use your email list to launch your contest.

Want Likes or Follows? Ask!

Surprisingly, one of the most effective ways to use email to get more customers is to just ask. At the end of your emails ask people to like you on Facebook or follow you on Twitter. Every once in a while, you can even send an entire email designed specifically to increase social media engagement.

These are just some of the many ways you can build your social media reach using email. Marketers often treat these two mediums as if it were one or the other. The most effective strategy is often both.

The call to action is where everything in your email marketing comes together. It’s where the culmination of all your work – from your marketing strategy to your subject line to your message itself – results in a click or a purchase. Having strong calls to action can make all the difference in the world.

So what makes calls to action work? How do you maximize your email click-throughs?

Make It Stand Out

Your call to action should garner more attention than anything else on your email. If you’re writing a text email, you could use arrows like this to showcase your call to action:

Call to Action Here

If you’re using HTML emails, you can use well-designed buttons to get people to click. You can also show previews of products or websites to entice clicks.

Give a Unique Reason to Click Now

Why should they click on your link right now? Give them a unique reason.

If your reason is the same every time (e.g. “Click to buy our product”), there’s no reason for people to click right now. On the other hand, if there’s a reason that’s unique to this email, they’re much more likely to click.

For example, “Click to see our January special.” Or, “Click to register for a webinar that’s in three days.” Or, “Click to see a test bonus that’s only offered to 300 people.”

Give people a unique reason to click right now, even if what you’re selling is the same.

Tell Them What to Do

Tell people exactly what you want them to do. Brands are probably the biggest offenders of this. Don’t just put a picture of your product or your website. Actually tell people what to do.

Good calls to action include:

* Click below to watch this free video
* Join our newsletter here
* Order now to get your discount. Click here

Be precise and assertive.

Split Test Calls to Action

Split testing your calls to action early can have an enormous impact over the life of your email marketing campaigns.

Does your audience respond better to red or blue buttons? Big or small buttons? To “learn more” or “add to cart?”

Even text call to action should be tested. Does an early call to action work better, or a late call to action? Does “=====>” work better, or “>>>>>>>>”?

Test these one for your entire list, then implement what you learn in all your emails going forward.

You’d be shocked at how much difference a call to action can make. Just changing the wording of your call to action can increase your CTRs by as much as 30%. It’s one of the most important things you could split test.

Email marketing is a complex topics. Fortunately, it’s a well-explored topic. Just about every mistake has been made, and almost every approach to email has been tested by a myriad of different marketers in different markets.

So what actually works? And what pitfalls should you avoid? Here are six do’s and don’ts.

#1 – Don’t: Mix Bought Lists with Opt-In Lists

Purchased lists and co-reg lists are going to get a much lower open rate than opt-in lists. You could also get a higher spam complaint rate. Having them on the same server could cause your purchased lists to damage the deliverability of your opt-in lists.

#2 – Do: Split Test

Is HTML email better or text email better? Is a big black headline better, or just leaving your first line as it is? Are short emails better or long emails?

You’ll never know unless you test. Split test everything you can about your list.

#3 – Don’t: Rush Your Subject Line Writing

Don’t spend five minutes writing your subject line. Spend half an hour on it, at least. Write twenty different subject lines, then pick the best one.

People often write the body of the email first, then write the subject as an afterthought. It should really be the other way around. Pay more attention to your subject than anything else.

#4 – Do: Build Trust over Time

The main purpose of an email list should be to build trust with people over time. Establish credibility with them. Get them to feel like they know you and that they can trust you to deliver value in your products.

Don’t just sell, sell, sell. Deliver value and build trust. In the long run, you’ll sell more this way.

#5 – Don’t: Use Double Opt-In

Most autoresponder services are going to push you to use double opt-in. It makes their job easier. But it really makes no sense for you as a marketer.

Yes, you get higher open rates and lower unsubscribes from double opt-ins. But the TOTAL opens from the same number of initial subscribers will always be smaller.

You will basically never make more money with double opt-in than single opt-in. It makes no sense to use double opt-in.

#6 – Do: Send a Variety of Different Kinds of Emails

Mix up your emails. This helps keep people from getting bored with your emails.

For example, your bread and butter email might be tips on a specific topic. But every once in a while, do an email just on answering questions mailed to you this week. Every once in a while, analyze a product or comment on a news story. Every once in a while, share a personal story.

It’s okay to have a primary style, but varying things up can make things a lot more interesting.

Traffic building is one of the most important skills you could develop as a blogger. Traffic generation skills, along with actual content writing skills, will ultimately determine your success as a blogger. So how do you get more traffic to your website?

Target Long Tail Keywords

Using the Google Keyword Tool, identify search terms that get at least 1,000 exact searches a month. Using Open Site Explorer and MajesticSEO, check the strength of the top 10 rankings.

Find long tail keywords that don’t have strong competitors. Write content designed to rank for those keywords.

Talk about Something New and Hot

Is there a new product on the market? Or a new way of doing things that everyone’s talking about? Or perhaps there’s a controversial event that just happened?

If there’s something new and hot going on in your industry, write about it.

Post Your Content on Social Networks

You should cultivate a presence on both Twitter and Facebook as early as possible. If there are other social networks that your audience is on, you should be on those as well. For example, executives are often on LinkedIn while internet marketers are often on Google+.

Post your content on social networks. Then make sure you actually interact with your audience through social media. Don’t just push your content. Build real relationships.

Create Link Bait

Link bait is any type of content that’s designed for the expressed purpose of going viral or for garnering links. Two effective forms of link bait include infographics and viral videos.

Create content that people are going to want to share with their friends. It should be emotional, impactful and original. Then post it on social bookmarking sites like Reddit and StumbleUpon, as well as share it with your friends and followers.

Guest Post

Look for other blogs in your industry that share a similar target market. Look for blogs that aren’t extremely popular, but have a good-sized following. In other words, “respectable” but not “celebrities.”

Contact them and offer to write a high quality article for them. Link to a few examples on your site. Suggest a few potential titles.

Many webmasters will agree, simply because you’re offering them a break. They get great content without having to write it themselves. And giving you a link to your site costs them nothing.

Contacting Your Commenters

Finally, try reaching out to the people who comment on your site. Ask them for backlinks, offer to guest write for them or look for other ways to collaborate. They already like your site enough to comment on it, so they’re very likely to say yes.

These are a few popular and effective ways to build your blog traffic. Blog traffic isn’t built overnight. There is no magic switch. But if you continually invest in your blog’s community, in a few months you’ll find that thousands upon thousands of people have made it part of their weekly routine to visit your blog regularly.

Getting a lot of comments on your blog helps in many different ways. It helps you get more backlinks, as people are more likely to link to a highly commented blog. People are more likely to joint venture with you, or do interviews with you. People are even more likely to comment on your post if they see a lot of people commenting on it.

So how can you generate more comments with your blog posts?

The #1 Tip: Write Fantastic Blog Content

First and foremost, your content needs to be stellar. There’s no marketing technique that can replace stellar content.

In the short run, the following tactics can help. In the long run, the only way you get a lot of comments is by publishing great content regularly.

Focus on Getting RSS Subscribers

Getting people to subscribe to your RSS feed will give your comments a huge boost. RSS feeds make it easy for people who want to follow you to figure out what you’re up to on a regular basis.

How do you get more RSS subscribers? Ask. Ask inside your content. Also, have an RSS feed subscribe button visible on your site.

Write with Passion

Deciding to comment on a page is more of an emotional decision than a logical one. How do you get people emotionally vested in posting a comment? By being emotional in the first place.

Write with passion. It comes through on the page. When you write with passion, people are more likely to want to connect with you.

Post It on Your Personal Facebook Account

When you post a new piece of content, don’t just post it to your blog’s Facebook page. Post it to your personal account as well.

The people who know you in person are much more likely to actually care about what you’re up to. People from your personal network will often come over and comment just because they like you.

Ask Questions

Ask a simple question that people would love to answer. For example, ask for feedback or ask for advice. Or ask people to pitch in their questions, and answer them in the comments.

Bribe Them

Of all the tactics here, this one is the most effective. But you can’t use it too often.

How do you get more comments? Just bribe people. Give away a prize or a gift for the best comment.

The prize could be something small, like a 16 GB USB key or a $10 Starbucks card. It could be a digital product that costs you nothing to produce. As long as it’s something people perceive as valuable, they’re probably going to take 60 seconds to post a comment.

These are a few different ways you can generate more comments on your blog.

Your subject line is the single most important sentence in all your emails. A slightly better subject line is going to make a bigger impact than a much better email. The more people who you get to open your email, the more click-throughs you’re going to get and the more sales you’ll get. Plain and simple.

So how do you write enticing and attention-grabbing subject lines?

Use Personalization

Use their name in the subject. Some marketers think this is tacky, or that people get used to it or start to tune it out after a time.

They don’t.

This has been split tested time and again and again by marketers across many industries. Using a person’s name in the subject line gets a higher open rate than the same subject line without their name. Almost always.

Use 50 Characters Or Less

Different email clients have different subject line cut-off thresholds. As a rule of thumb, try to keep your subject lines under 50 characters.

This will keep your subjects from getting cut off. It’s also short enough that you can quickly snag someone’s attention. It doesn’t “feel” like a lot of work to read your subject line.

Imply a Benefit

How will it benefit their lives to read your email?

Magazines have tested this extensively. Headlines that imply a benefit outpull headlines that are only shocking, headlines that are only interesting or headlines that engender curiosity but don’t imply a benefit.

Always, always tell people what they’ll get by opening your email.

Imply Exclusive Information

If possible, imply that you’re going to share something with them that nobody else is talking about. Something that you’ll only share once. Something that they would really benefit from learning.

When you make information exclusive and scarce, people get curious. Curious enough to open an email.

Create a Sense of Urgency

Imply that the information in your email is only good for a short time, or that an offer might expire. This technique is hard to get right, but can be extremely powerful.

If you lie to create urgency, you’ll lose credibility with your audience. If you make up deadlines that don’t exist, people will stop paying attention to your claims.

But if you look for genuine scarcity and learn to showcase it, you can powerfully boost your open rates while actually increasing credibility. After all, people are glad you brought something time sensitive to their attention before it was too late.

Split Test

Finally, split test. Split test different styles of headlines. Different kinds of headlines work better for different kinds of audiences. Not all audiences respond to the same things. Learn what works best with your audience.

Remember – your subject lines are important. Critically important. Put a lot of time and energy into them. These tips will help you write some truly “knock it out of the park” subject lines.

In years past link building consisted of adding your site url to web directories, submitting articles to article depositories and posting comments on blogs. Today, those strategies are considerably less effective.

Instead, you should focus your attention on natural link building methods that search engines approve of.  Here are four link building strategies that you can start today.

Deep Linking

Deep linking is not a new method but it is one that many website owners overlook. Linking to a home page rather than your internal web pages is a rookie mistake. While you may feel your home page is the most important page of your website, search engines will question why most of your inbound links are going to the home page.

When people search your website, you want them to find exactly what they’re looking for. So the most valuable information is the content within your website – your articles, videos and so forth – not bits and pieces summarized on your home page.

Just as external links help build traffic, internal link building is equally important. Building this internal site structure will make it easy for visitors and search engines to crawl your site.

Remember to diversify your anchor text while still using relevant keywords when linking both internally and externally.

Social Links

While social bookmarking sites like StumbleUpon and Digg may not hold the weight that they once did, they are still looked upon as favorable by search engines. This is because a quality piece of content that ranks well on social bookmarking sites have reached that status through genuine links instead of forced ones.

Even more useful than social bookmarking is to leverage your followers.  Facebook, Twitter and the likes are not just for posting random tips. You should also be posting updates each time you add fresh content to your website. Your followers can then read, like and retweet your messages, helping to naturally build links. If you use WordPress, there are plugins that can help automate this process.

Natural Links

Forced link methods are on their way out. They simply hold very little weight with search engines these days. This includes asking for reciprocal links, buying link space on other people’s websites and using places like web directories and article directories.

Websites that use this method were hit hard in 2011 when Google released its Panda update. Where once they may have been ranking on page one, they quickly found themselves buried on page 12 of the search results.

Today, you should focus your attention on building natural links from high-quality, relevant sites. Natural links are given freely based on merit rather than from getting something in return. In other words, you want to find high-quality websites and ask them to link to you for no other reason than because you offer good information that compliments their site.

This can be a tedious and time consuming process – one you might want to outsource if you have the money, but you’ll find your link juice to be much higher than reciprocal links.

Guest Blogging

Writing content on other people’s sites in exchange for a link back to your website is a great way to build links. If you can write high quality content, people will agree to publish it on their site and the resulting backlinks are both highly relevant and high in quality.

Before you contact random websites, make a list of at least 30 blogs that target the same group of people you do. These blogs should have high traffic, a large social following and lots of interaction with their followers. As you visit each site and create your list, make a note of topics that you can pitch to each one. Taking the extra time to do this will increase your chances of being accepted as a guest blogger.

These are four link building strategies that search engines approve of.  Building backlinks can be a tedious and time consuming process, but it’s also one you can easily outsource if you have the money.

Search engines companies work hard to give users the best results possible. They do this by tweaking their methods of measurement on how websites are ranked. As a website owner, it is vital to stay up-to-date on strategies that will keep your site search engine friendly. Without this knowledge, your site could experience a drastic dip in ranking, traffic and sales.

Years ago when SEO first became popular, your website could quickly and easily rank high in the results by stuffing it with targeted key words. Today, that method is frowned upon by search engines.

SEO is rapidly moving in a new direction and it is essential that you keep up. Here are four changes you should consider making to your SEO strategy.

#1 Rethink Your Keyword Density

In years past, a popular SEO strategy was to fill each piece of content on your site with a set of targeted keywords. These keywords would be used in article titles, the first paragraph, within subheadings and sprinkled throughout the article. In addition, it was recommended to highlight those subheadings to give weight to the keywords.

Today, search engines frown on this keyword stuffing method. Instead, they prefer to see natural flowing articles that may only contain a set of keywords once or twice throughout and only where it is a natural fit. And while you can still bold subheadings to draw reader attention if you like, they don’t play much of a role in search engine ranking anymore.

#2 Include More Multimedia

Relationship building should be part of every business. This allows your visitors and customers to feel more confident in what you have to say. The more people get to know you, the more your reputation, traffic and sales will grow.

One easy way to connect with your prospects is through the use of multimedia. High quality videos, audios and web presentations will quickly generate buzz within the online world. People who like what you say will start sharing links to your multimedia with others. This natural back linking will help increase your search engine ranking.

In order for this method to work, you should plan to publish new multimedia on a regular basis and perhaps on a set schedule. It doesn’t have to be every week, but it should be often enough that your followers look forward to your next message and know when to expect it.

If you can produce high quality multimedia with noteworthy information on a regular basis, you can generate a lot of backlinks that tell search engines that your site is important.

#3 Reconsider Forced Links

Another popular SEO method in years past was relying on forced linking. Forced links are typically links from places like web directories, article directories, bookmarking your own web pages, blog networks, link exchanges, links within social media profiles, buying links and so forth. Websites that use this method were hit hard in 2011 when Google released its Panda update. While not completely obsolete, these methods simply do not hold the weight that they did in years past.

Today, you should focus your attention on building natural links from high-quality, relevant sites. Natural links are given freely based on merit rather than from getting something in return.

Building natural links can be somewhat tedious and it certainly isn’t going to happen overnight but they will give you much more importance than weak link juice.

#4 Understand Google’s Methods

While Google certainly isn’t the only great search engine, they do have a large impact on businesses. Therefore it’s important to keep up with how they determine whether or not a site is of a high quality.

Google is constantly critiquing their method and there is no way to understand the hundreds of factors that play a part in their decision. However, you can stay up-to-date on changes they make and tips they share about what they look for.

For many, just thinking about SEO makes them turn green; however, it doesn’t have to be scary or overwhelming. It just takes a little knowledge, planning and regular work to make search engines happy. For now, that happiness means high-quality content and natural links.

Taking just a little bit of time at the end of the year to prepare for the next can make a tremendous difference. Don’t just meander into the next year. Launch into it with gusto and purpose. These five ways of preparing will help you start your new year off with a bang.

1: Extract Lessons from Last Year

Look over the last year. What were your biggest wins and your biggest losses? What made those wins or losses happen?

Look for core lessons that you can take away. Make those lessons a part of your company’s DNA. Talk to your employees about those lessons and use your experiences this year to boost your success in the next.

2: Talk to Your Mentors

The beginning of the year is a great time to talk to your mentors. Reach out to people who are more successful than you, or people who’ve done what you want to do.

Talk to them about your greatest challenges, as well as what they’d do in your situation to grow your company. Incorporate their advice into your plan for the year.

3: Talk to Your Customers

Ask your customers for feedback on your service or your products. Talk about what they like and what they don’t like. Also ask them about what they’d like to see from your company in the future.

Your customers can be your best source of new ideas going into the new year. They’re also the base gauge of what will actually work or not. After all, the only real vote in business that counts is your customers’ “wallet vote.”

4: Identify Your Biggest Opportunity

Don’t focus on your biggest fires or your biggest challenges. There are always going to be fires that need to be put out and emergencies to be handled.

Instead, focus on your biggest opportunity. Put your best people on your best opportunities. Identify the biggest growth potential arena in your business, then focus the bulk of your time and energy on growing that arena.

5: Set Measurable, Metric-Based Goals

Finally, set measurable, metric-based goals that the whole company can rally around. These numbers and goals should be transparent to everyone in your company.

Ideally, there should be one goal that everyone is optimizing for. For instance, it might be revenue, or it might be month over month growth.

As well as that, each individual team or person might have their own goals to strive for. For example, the sales team might have a certain close rate percentage being their goal, while the customer service team might have a certain satisfaction rating being their goal.

Set core metrics for the company as a whole, as well as for departments individually.

If you perform these five steps, you’ll plunge head first into the new year well prepared to tackle any challenges the business world throws at you.