Subscribers Magnet WordPress Plugin – Awesome?
Over the past week, I’ve received at least 15 emails from SPI readers asking me whether or not the new Subscribers Magnet WordPress Plugin by MaxBlogPress (makers of the popular WordPress Plugin, Ninja Affiliate) would be something worth investing in. To be honest with you, I hadn’t even heard about the plugin until some of you emailed me about it.
I built my online businesses with WordPress sites and never once paid for a single plugin, so I was a bit skeptical because I only know a handful of plugins that are worth paying for, such as WP-Wishlist. With so many people wanting my opinion about it, I decided to see what the big deal was.
Before I go on, I just wanted to say this to you up front: I don’t normally do posts about products like this here on SPI. I usually only promote products that I’m hardcore familiar with (i.e. Market Samurai), but I did do my best to get as familiar with the plugin as possible so I could leave you an honest assessment. There was apparently a ton of buzz about this plugin (which I somehow missed until recently), so my goal here is to give all of you my first-hand, educated opinion about it so that you can make your own educated decision whether you like it or not.
I will also disclose that the links in this post to Subscribers Magnet are affiliate links to the product, although I hope you can see based on what is written below that this post is primarily here to help you discover the plugin, not for me to make money from it. I was not asked to or paid to write this post by anyone. This is just me and my opinion about something that may or may not be useful for you and your online business or blog.
After emailing MaxBlogPress myself, I was fortunate enough to be allowed to test out a beta version of the plugin, so I could see how it worked first-hand. I had told them that I may or may not write about it on my blog, and if I do there’s no guarantee that it will be a good review. They were confident in their product (a good sign), and asked me to only be honest about it if I were to share it with you.
I tested the plugin and it’s capabilities over the past week.
What Does Subscribers Magnet Do?
The primary purpose of the Subscribers Magnet plugin is to make it really easy to drastically increase your email list conversion rates. In fact, they have a guarantee on the product that says if you use the plugin and do not at least double your subscription rate, you get 100% of your money back.
After its installed and synced with your email service provider, such as Aweber, the plugin gives any blog the ability to use a number of different methods to get new subscribers, some of which are actually pretty cool and very well thought out. What I really like is that it allows you to do this in a very unobtrusive, non-annoying way.
That is definitely right up my alley, because I hate to use (and see) pop-ups and lightboxes, and this plugin does so much more than that.
Opt-In Forms
First, using the settings menu that is provided, you can insert opt-in forms with a single click of a button almost anywhere on your blog that you’d like. For example:
1. Show an Opt-in Form At the Top of Your First Blog Post
It makes sense to place an opt-in form at the top of your first blog post because that is where most of the traffic to your homepage will go. And if you happen to show full blog posts on your blog’s homepage (unlike me, who just shows excerpts), then an opt-in form will be shown front and center to all visitors of your homepage.
Cool feature, but I would never use it. This goes against my belief for what the primary purpose of a blog post actually is, and that is to engage the reader through your content first, and then have them take some kind of action. This is why I like the next options better.
2. Show an Opt-in Form at the Bottom of Your Blog Posts
Placing an opt-in form at the bottom of your blog posts makes much more sense to me, because people who read your content will be more likely to subscribe to your email list if they like what you had to say.
If I didn’t have an opt-in form at the bottom of my posts already, then I would have definitely implemented this option using the plugin. My current opt-in form is hard-coded into my custom theme, something I had to pay someone to do.
3. Show an Opt-in Form in Your Sidebar
The information in the sidebar of a blog is almost always shown no matter what page a visitor lands on. This is why any blogger who wants to collect email addresses should, at a minimum, place an opt-in form in the sidebar of their blog.
Again, I already have an opt-in form in my sidebar that was hard-coded into my custom theme, but if I didn’t Subscribers Magnet would make it really simple to add one using a drag-and-drop widget.
So far…none of these options do anything for me, mainly because I have these already built into my site. I keep track of where all of my new subscribers come from, and I would say about 70% come from my sidebar, and 30% come from the form at the bottom of my posts.
4. Show an Opt-in Form in a Footer Ad
Subscribers Magnet also has an option to add what they call a “Footer Ad” to your blog. Here’s an example of what it looks like:
The transparent bar at the bottom is meant to be an unobtrusive way to immediately show an opt-in form to a visitor, one that will definitely catch people’s attention. It definitely does that, but personally I feel it’s almost like a popup. Even though it is transparent, doesn’t slide in or pop up out of nowhere and surprise you, it still breaks up the flow of site and forces me to take the time to click the x to close it.
As you can probably tell, I would never use this option myself. It may very well increase my conversion rates, but it may also get rid of some long time fans as well.
I may be too critical here, because MaxBlogPress does include an option to control the frequency of how often it is shown to each visitor, which is nice.
5. Embed an Opt-in Form Within the Comment Section
I’ve never seen this done anywhere before, but I think it’s awesome.
You can enable the plugin to insert an opt-in form into the comment section immediately after someone leaves a comment. Here is a sample of what it looks like when it’s enabled on my blog:
You can mess around with the copy, but the opportunity to grab a subscriber at the very moment they leave a comment is amazing.
What is also nice about this feature is that you can choose when and how often you’d like the form to appear for each visitor. If you don’t think it should be shown to first time commenters, then you can change the settings to have it show on people’s 2nd, 3rd comment, or 4th comment. That way, it’s still a one-time hit so it’s not obnoxious, but it’s shown at a more opportune moment when people are already vested in you and your site.
Although the forms above look plain, you can customize them if you choose to do so. The colors, fonts, borders and sizes are all customizable, and you can even add a background such as the one I made below (although I must admit it took a lot of trial and error to line everything up correctly):
I don’t think there’s an easy way to do rounded corners, which would go nicely with my blog’s theme, and you can’t put images on top or outside of the border, as I have on my customized opt-in form in my sidebar. Additionally, the “submit button” customization is currently limited. I really wish I could change the size of the button and font within – maybe in a later update.
Super Slick Form Auto Filler
If you go two pictures above, to the sample of the embedded opt-in form in the comment section, you’ll notice that the form is already filled out. This is the work behind the plugin’s Form Auto Filler, which automatically places the visitor’s name and email into the correct boxes, for all forms that you show on your blog.
This is sweet and super powerful because now all one has to do to subscribe to your email list is just click the submit button. That’s it.
How does it work?
Well, in order to pull that information from people, they will have had to at least leave one comment on your blog before. After that (and correct me if I’m wrong), it recognizes the ip address and simply fills in the information based on that. Very, very simple idea, that can have a major impact on your conversion rates.
Note: I had this featured enabled over the weekend and it was totally working, but I later found out that if a person is totally brand new to your site, the text fields will be blank. This is fine if you’re using the plugin, because the words “Name:” and “Email:” appear to the left of the blank text fields, but for SPI, I have the words “Name” and “Email” within the text fields, and they are supposed to automatically disappear when someone clicks inside those fields. When a new visitor came to my blog, they would just see blank fields with no instructions as to what goes where. Again, this is because of the way I designed my opt-in forms, which is meant to save space.
Just wanted to point that out just in case any of you came across the same issue.
Other Methods of Capturing Email Addresses
In addition to the opt-in forms, there are a couple of other methods that you can use to substantially grow your list using Subscribers Magnet.
Automatic / Silent Subscription
This method automatically subscribes commenters to your email list…without telling them that’s what they’re doing.
I was totally against this method and was actually wondering why this feature was included, since most of the other features were reader friendly and unobtrusive. However, MaxBlogPress describes it’s proper usage and it actually does make some sense.
First of all, you must have “double-opt in” enabled with your email service provider, which means that if someone attempts to subscribe to your list (in any method), they will first receive an email with a confirmation link, and they must click that confirmation link in order to actually be on your email list. Most providers won’t even let you do a single-opt in, especially using a silent subscription method.
Using this “silent subscription” method, a commenter leaves a comment and then immediately receives that confirmation email to confirm the subscription. But instead of saying the usual “please click the link below to confirm your subscription to the blah blah newsletter…”, MaxBlogPress suggests changing the copy to read something similar to:
“Thank you so much for your comment. I would like to offer you my eBook, (ebook name here) as a free gift. To receive your free eBook, simply subscribe to my newsletter by clicking the link below…”
That’s pretty sneaky, but because you’re still giving people a choice to subscribe, I also think it’s actually really smart.
I have not implemented or tested this method yet, because I’m still trying to decide how I feel about emailing first time commenters in the first place. I once had installed a plugin that just simply emailed first time commenters with a thank you message and a link to my Facebook Page, but I had no idea how people were reacting to those emails.
The smartest thing to do would be to test it out by setting up a separate newsletter list, and feeding new subscribers to it using this silent method, so there are some raw numbers to determine whether or not it works.
Subscribe Checkbox
This is the last feature of Subscribers Magnet that I’ll be going over today, but it’s actually my favorite. The plugin also gives you the ability to place a checkbox in the comment field that, if checked, will subscribe the commenter to your email list. So in essence, the comment fields for “Name” and “Email” double as the opt-in form for your list. The benefit is that it just takes one click to subscribe.
Here’s what it looks like:
If a person clicks the checkbox, then immediately after their comment is published an email will be sent to them to confirm their subscription to the newsletter, just as if they subscribed using one of the opt-in forms on the blog.
Again, this is yet another angle to get people to subscribe to your email list, and probably the most reader friendly one available. There is an option to have this checkbox automatically checked for people, but I like to think that everyone on my list subscribed because they wanted to, not because they accidentally overlooked a checkbox.
It’s up to you though…that’s just how I roll.
Final Thoughts
Overall, I really like the plugin and the multiple angles and opportunities you can provide visitors to your blog to subscribe without it being irritating. You can implement all of these strategies at the same time, but I would recommend selecting just a few that work for you and your traffic.
For the few days that I used this plugin (and again I couldn’t use a number of things because they were already hard-coded into my blog) I did see a slight increase in subscribers. However, I can’t say that it was solely because of the plugin because I did have a number of articles and features around the web that brought a large number of people to my site over the weekend, so I honestly cannot say for sure.
That being said, Daniel Scocco from DailyBlogTips.com uses Subscribers Magnet and has seen an nice increase in conversion rates, and other bloggers have seen an increase in conversion rates of up to 300%! A lot of other people are raving about it, so it seems like this could be one of those plugins that everyone ends up getting eventually down the road.
I definitely think it could be a worthy investment if growing your list is your primary goal.
MaxBlogPress is holding a very short introductory discount offer for Subscribers Magnet, which only lasts until Friday, July 30th. You can get Subscribers Magnet for 30% OFF the retail price by clicking here if your interested.
Thanks to those of you who emailed me about this plugin, and I hope I’ve been able to provide you with some helpful information. Thanks, and I wish you all the best.
Cheers!
Posted on : July 28th, 2010
Related posts:
- A WordPress Plugin For Instant Traffic in 5 Minutes
- How to Retain Your Subscribers Like a Pro
- 10 Ninja Techniques to Get More Subscribers, Followers, and Opt-Ins
- 100 Subscribers, and a Small Lesson about Goals
- The Beginner’s Guide to Starting a Newsletter
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44 Comments (Click Here to Leave a Comment Below)
Pat,
I’ve been using Subscribers Magnet for the past 2 weeks and have seen an increase of 205% in my opt-in numbers (compared to the 2 weeks before).
Great plugin as are many of Pawan’s.
Andrew
Awesome dude, thanks for the numbers. That’s amazing! Are you using all of the features, or just a select few?
Only one I am not using is the pop-over.
My biggest increase is as a result of my email being sent to first time commentors inviting them to grab my free blogging guide.
Andrew
Good stuff Andrew – thanks for sharing!
That was an awesome numbers when it comes to your conversion! I’ve been reviewing Subscribers Magnet for couple of days now, and it seems that it’s really great when it comes to helping you increase your opt-in conversion.
Thanks for sharing this.
Hi Pat,
First of all thank you for providing your review of Subscribers Magnet.
Secondly, I agree with your views.
“4. Show an Opt-in Form in a Footer Ad
Even though it is transparent, doesn’t slide in or pop up out of nowhere and surprise you, it still breaks up the flow of site and forces me to take the time to click the x to close it.
As you can probably tell, I would never use this option myself. It may very well increase my conversion rates, but it may also get rid of some long time fans as well.”
You are right. I do find it a little annoying. Some blogs that I visit do have this. I am a little annoying, and not totally annoying, as totally annoying would be the ‘checkbox automatically checked’, which brings me to the next point.
“Subscribe Checkbox
There is an option to have this checkbox automatically checked for people, but I like to think that everyone on my list subscribed because they wanted to, not because they accidentally overlooked a checkbox.”
I have had to uncheck this option on some blogs, and this is really annoying. So good and smart choice on this one Pat!
Actually, hotblogtips did a post on this:
One Way To Lose Trust
http://hotblogtips.com/one-way-to-lose-trust
Pat, could you please give your view on this post? It would be interesting to have your view on that post!
Kindest,
Nabeel
I am a little annoyed, and not totally annoyed, as totally annoyed*
I think the issue there is that the checkmark is already checked, so the user may or may not even want to be on the newsletter in the first place. As you can see here on SPI, the checkbox is unchecked, and if you want to subscribe to the newsletter you can just click it and go. I do agree with the views of that post though, when subscription is “forced” – thanks for sharing!
Hey what a great tool! Yea it’s not perfect but like any product you got to see the benefits…
I don’t think it’s neccesarily sneaky it just helps people make decisions easier.
I think they have a great base to start with, and can only improve from here on out once people begin to ask for more features and changes. Thanks Wilson!
Man, Pat. This is an excellent review. I also have several of these things hard-coded into my them. However, I went ahead and purchased a copy and plan to:
1. enable the footer slide-up
2. enable the comment checkbox (subscribe to newsletter).
3. enable the subscribe at end of post
4. enable opt-in form after commenting.
I will let you know what happens to my sub rate…..
Thanks,
Mark
Thanks for the affiliate love Mark, I really appreciate it. Please let me know how it goes, because it sounds like you have a solid plan.
“It may very well increase my conversion rates, but it may also get rid of some long time fans as well.”
I’m sure many…most…of your long time fans would probably be indifferent to this, if you ever did decide to implement it (the transparent “pop-up” at the bottom)….The quality and substance of your posts, at least for me, would trump that and I would mind either way…
(I’m curious as to what your other readers, long-time and not-so-long time fans, would think about it though?)
This was my initial thought as well – I would think “long time fans” at this point wouldn’t stop reading SPI even if Pat were to completely load up the site with ugly ads (I guess the real long time fans probably subscribe to the RSS feed anyway, and wouldn’t even notice).
I think the bigger issue is for new visitors – Generally, when I see someone trying really hard to get me to opt-in to their newsletter, my first thought is that they will eventually try to sell me something (or perhaps sell hard to me right away). Otherwise, why are they trying so hard to get me to opt-in? I think this *could* take away from Pat’s offer of his eBook, which truly provides value without any sort of sales pitch.
At any rate, he’s made almost perfect blogging decisions to this day, so I can’t imagine him doing wrong now.
…and, for the love of God, Pat, don’t ever resort to ads like THIS:
http://www.xomba.com/
(Can you see what I see?) lol
(I honestly don’t know what the owner(s) are thinking with that one…it’s enough blinking pink-ness to induce a seizure…)
omg, I’m a winner! LOL.
Ridiculous. Those do not work anymore.
You guys are too kind.
I sort of agree with you both, that maybe it won’t have an impact on long time fans, but at the same time, the wrong move can have devastating effects on long time fans because most people don’t like change, especially when it’s something like that where maybe they are already subscribed to the newsletter.
It is all my fault. Pat can verify this. I practically begged him to sell me something, anything to stop the itch. He kept giving away SO much value, I nearly caved in and emailed him ALL my credit card numbers just in case… Personally, Pat should charge a fee for each comment. Of course then I would have to switch back to emails ONLY.
Pat, again thanks for caring for your peeps.
Dude, it’s what I do.
Merci beaucoup Monsieur Flynn! Zis was a grayt post, zank iu!
Enough French for today, it does seem to have quite a few tricks this plugin, huh! Just like you, I already have most of the stuff coded into my theme. The other options do look useful, but the plugin does look a little pricey to me for the couple of features I’d personally be using. I can see though how it could easily benefit others.
Actually, on a second thought, can you use the plugin on more than one blog? If so, then it might actually be worth it!
By the way, I’m already subscribed to your Popular Newsletter
Hug to The Family,
Cheers!
Patrick
Haha, I love the French. Thanks Patrick!
I believe you can use the plugin on more than one blog, and for new bloggers or people with niche sites, I think this would be perfect because it’s a quick way to get a list up, without having to hard code anything.
Thanks for being a subscriber!
Cheers!
Hey Pat,
Thanks for the review. I’ve heard others rave about this plugin without much detail (but of course with affiliate links included), and your post is probably the first I’ve read that will actually influence my decision. I haven’t decided whether or not to buy it yet, but I’m leaning toward buying it simply because I think you should do whatever you can to increase your subscriber rates, to the extent that it doesn’t interfere with a visitor’s experience of your site.
Thanks again.
- Eric
Thanks for the kind words, Eric. As you probably know, I like to go above and beyond to make sure that everyone is informed on my thinking process, especially if it’s something that may require some kind of investment.
I give props to the developers of this plugin for understanding that not interfering with a visitor’s experience is the way to go.
Whatever you decide to do, I wish you all the best. Cheers!
Wow! Really great review Pat!
You are absolutely right.
The subscribers magnet plugin has a lot of advantages and I will be giving it a trial very soon.
Thanks a lot for the great post,
-Onibalusi
Hey Pat,
Awesome Review.
The plugin looks great.
I’m currently testing Popup Domination plugin and it’s working awesome. But now i’m thinking to try Subscribers magnet also.
And i think the subscribers magnet need to work more on design part.
Anyways, Thanks for sharing this great Post Pat
.
~Dev
Yeah, I sort of agree with you on the design part, although you can’t deny that the opt-in boxes that are shown do catch your attention, which can increase conversion rates even more.
Thanks for your support Dev!
What an interesting plugin! Thanks for sharing it looks like an invaluable tool, I am definitely considering trying it out for my blog.
Cheers Mike – good luck with it! Please let me know how it goes for you.
ooh! ooh! I just go ga-ga over these type of review posts. I think the two features I love the most are the checkbox in the comment field (actually the last time I posted a comment here, I actually took a note to ask you how you had that in your comment field) and the silent subscriber feature.
Does it also sync up with Mailchimp?
Thanks Dawn! I’ll have to check on the mailchimp part, but I do know that it integrates with several email subscription service providers.
Hi Dawn,
It works with all autoresponders including mailchimp.
Thanks
Deelip Khanal
MaxBlogPress
Awesome post! Thanks for this.
Cheers Michael!
Great review. I’m definitely going to check this plugin out! Thanks Pat!
Nice piece of wordpress plugin no doubt about that though i had list some good wordpress popup plugin at by blog. you many be interested in them.
and please include this in you earning report (affiliate income) i am interested to know.
Thanks!
I am already using the free plugins by MaxBlogpress like the optin adder. There are others also in their portfolio like the unblockable popup and the stripe ad plugin – both of which are free. I think the greatest benefits in this plugin is the ability of embed it in your comments section.
There is no doubt hitting your reader from multiple points will increase your subscription rate. But ultimately everything depends upon great and valuable content.
Thanks for the review, Pat.. I am also looking to release a plugin that helps increase email subscribers. I will check out Pawan’s to find out how it complements mine..
I’m tight so the fact that you have to pay is the reason I won’t try it.
Well here’s my feedback: I caught the launch but paid no attention even though I recently had a guest post on Max Blog Press. But I read every word you have to say and it sounds fab. So all apologies to the MBP team for not listening to their wise words sooner and thanks for the in depth review Pat – it does sound good, esp the comments bits you liked. I’d be up for integrating them on my blog too.
“I built my online businesses with WordPress sites and never once paid for a single plugin, so I was a bit skeptical…”
Pat,
That’s because WordPress and freebie plugins are crazy good. It’s enough to get the newbie off the ground and running. THE CMS alone is brilliant in itself. However, as your online needs start to grow, you do tend to look at paid add-ons, plugins, etc.
Btw, who gives if your post centres around an affiliate product – as long as your promoting something with genuine intentions (let alone if you’ve actually used it and it’s a good product), it’s all good.
Anyway, thanks for the heads up on Magnet.
I was a little surprised to see your review of this “new” plugin. It’s actually nearly identical to one I’ve been using for a year or so – ActionPopup from Robert Plank, a well-known PHP programmer. It’s so close in fact, it concerns me – feature by feature.
One of the most important features to me about ActionPopup is that it “disappears” after someone has opted in with the sidebar widget – giving you back the real estate. Plus it does not continue to nag them about subscribing to something they already have.
I would encourage you to take a look at ActionPopup. It’s proven itself a reliable plugin over several versions of WordPress and Robert is here to stay in terms of support and updates. A ten-year online record proves that.
Good luck in your blogging -
Hi Jeanette,
I’d like to tell you the difference between Action Popup and subscribers magnet.
Action PopUp is indeed a good product so are all of Robert’s products. But Action Pop up is just pop up while subscribers magnet has 7 different components bundled within one plugin. So its not nearly identical but very different that Action Pop Up.
Thanks
Deelip Khanal
MaxBlogPress
Hey pat!
Really nice review. I think you’re right in your judgment. This plugin is extremely useful and i’ll surely give it a try soon.
and once again, thank you for another great post
hello i really like your blog. this is killer info.