"One million subscribers in just 20 weeks, this guy is crazy!" I hear you cry ...

Well it is undoubtedly a lot to ask, but I'll show you an example in a moment of just how fast mighty oaks can grow from a single acorn...

There's lots of ways to build a list, some ways are slow and others are fast.

To explode your list in just a few months you've got to employ specific viral marketing tactics. You've got to give your subscribers and visitors really compelling reasons to tell others about it. Provide a really compelling reason and your acorn will soon become a mighty oak ...

Ok, lets get in to the example to explain exactly what I mean.

Once you've got your first sign up, you need to give your new subscriber a compelling incentive to recruit further sign-ups for you, and then in turn, you need to give those subscribers the same compelling reason to find you more sign-ups.

Repeating this process over and over for just a few weeks will grow your list exponentially in just a very short space of time!

So in week one of your list building campaign you receive an impressive total of one new subscriber to your list. You now have a list of one (remember from small acorns mighty oak trees grow!).

Once subscribed, you give your first list member a really compelling reason to tell their friends or customers about your site (lets say you offer your subscriber a special free gift in return for them telling their friends about you).

During week 2 your incentive pays off! You receive 2 more sign-ups thanks to the efforts of your first subscriber. Now, after 2 weeks of list building you have a list of 3 subscribers (don't stop reading just yet it does get better!).

Your 2 new subscribers gained during week two find your incentive totally compelling, so they too tell their friends about your site. As a result, each subscriber then send you 2 more subscribers the following week. Now it's the end of week 3 and you now have a list of 7 subscribers! (Huge fortunes are just around the corner).

This pattern of events continues for the next 7 weeks. Based on each new subscriber finding you just 2 more sign-ups each the following week, by week 10 your list will contain 511 names. Not too shabby.

All you have done to this point is set up a web page to capture email addresses and then given each of your new sign-ups an incredibly compelling reason to tell others about you. As a result after 10 weeks you have a list of 510 subscribers.

Not a life changing number you'll be thinking?

Maybe not ... but if you wait for just another 10 weeks, based on the scenario above repeating each week, by the end of week 20, your list will have grown to 1,048,575 subscribers ... its hard to believe but it's true ... over 1 million subscribers in just 20 weeks!

When you look at this example, building a list of one million subscribers in only 20 weeks does not sound so daunting, after all asking each new subscriber to find you only 2 more subscribers isn't a huge ask. The key to achieving it though is to give your subscribers a considerable incentive to do it ...

When you start building your lists, think big, think massive, think Viral! Get yourself a "compelling reason" to give to your visitors and your acorn will flourish.