Using a Lightbox to increase subscribers

I hate pop ups, light boxes and all those other devices that interrupt your reading on a web page, don’t you?

So why, I hear you ask, do I have a lightbox on this site?

The simple answer is that it is spectacularly effective!

You may recall that I set my stall out to add 2000 new subscribers to the Mike’s Life newsletter this year as part of my 2010 objectives.

You may also have read in my That was January post, that I was failing on a few. Subscribers was one of them. I’m looking for around 5 new subscribers a day to get where I want to, and so far this year I’ve averaged a fraction under half that.

I needed to do something, so I asked Google for some help. Everywhere I looked, people were telling me that lightboxes are the way to go. And these weren’t hard bitten internet marketing types either. Even that nice Darren Rowse was talking about how his subscriptions went through the roof on DPS when he started using a lightbox.

A lightbox appears on screen while your website fades to dark behind it.

I decided to ignore my prejudice and try it for a couple of days, secure in the knowledge that it would come off unless it really blew my socks off. It did.

Day 1 31 new subscribers

Day 2 16 new subscribers

Day 3 18 new subscribers

Day 4 17 new subscribers

Let’s ignore the first day as everyone visiting would have seen the box. But even when you do that, it’s averaging 17 new subscribers a day.

That’s seven times more than I was getting before!

At this rate I will hit my annual target during May!

I’ve set it very conservatively as well. It’s designed that only new readers will see it, and it’s set to show only once. It doesn’t come on until they’ve been on the site for 40 seconds, so at least they can read a little before the interruption, and it clearly states that it will only appear once.

It’s a piece of cake to set it all up with Aweber (Aff link) – you can use any one of a huge variety of formats and colors and customize how many times it appears and how often, as well as what it actually says.

I still don’t like it, but I can’t ignore it’s effectiveness. Your thoughts?

Not even vaguely related, but good:

1/ Eight things I love about Twitter

2/ Steps to creating a brand for your blog

3/ First steps for a rookie blogger