Some of the best marketers are always looking for ways to constantly improve the way they do things. One person in particular that I’ve personally been following for a while is Noah Kagan.

There’s something about his no bullshit approach & honesty, combined with not being afraid to try new things that I find intriguing.

Noah knows the value in email, having 10k people on a list that you can market to or communicate with directly is incredibly valuable. Therefore building his list is one of the things he prioritizes.

When you hit the homepage on his blog he wastes absolutely no time in trying to provide you some value in exchange for an email signup. Get does this by providing a free ebook with Rogue Marketing Strategies. Would be interesting to know what percentage of people convert on this.

He regularly includes links to his join page on Twitter:

He does regular livestreams with his subscribers whilst sipping on a lovely single malt:

Most bloggers will create posts & that’s it. If you read Noah’s blog you’ll see that he often gives away a prize at the bottom of each post to incentivize activity.

Prizes he’s given away recently include:

• 5 Yearly Licences for Powtoon: 106 Comments
• Dropcam Wireless Video Camera: 99 Comments
• Satchel & Page Bag: 152 Comments
• $25 Amazon Gift Card: 82 Comments
• A load of Tom Bihn Products: 179 Comments

He also offers bonuses to subscribers if they complete some predefined actions for him:

If we don’t ask questions how can we expect answers?

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Noah does a great job of using questions to make his readers feel engaged with him, this drives more open communication plus also gives him the opportunity to reach out to people when certain answers come up.

Noah tries to make his newsletters & emails fun. Often giving challenges to readers:

Noah has a huge amount of previous experience at companies like Mint & Facebook. He uses the high profile nature of these companies as an incentive. You’re more likely to download an Ebook on how someone growth hacked Mint’s user-base to 100k users than an unknown company.

How often do you read an email newsletter or blog post that gives you objectives to think about?

Many of the tactics that you’ve seen in this post are things that Noah has just simply tested, he’s not afraid to take a step back & think about how he can better engage you when delivering content.

Even small things like the way he words his comments on his blog give you the indication that he’s actively testing what combination works best:

When many of us have learning experiences we simply remember it for the next time. Noah uses these experiences to help give knowledge to his subscribers, he’s not afraid to show the things that he also gets value out of.

Check out some of his posts around:

• What it’s like to hang with millionaires
• One of the best cold emails I’ve ever received

Gleam is making a set of apps to make it easier for people like you to incentivize your users just like Noah does.

Our first product is a drop-in competition widget, you can use this in blog posts to giveaway products in return for the actions you want. Or if you’re a brand you can give the widget to publishers to include in their posts.

Here’s what one of Noah’s giveaways would look like: