I’m not really the type of person that has ‘idols’ - and the word guru is enough to give me the chills. In fact, there are very few people I actually follow in their daily or weekly actions. I rather take things as they come. Successful products and brilliant ideas often come from people you’ve never heard of before, while I’ve seen more than one so called ‘big name’ deliver a product that wasn’t worth even a single dollar.

So I try to keep an open mind and try to not to get influenced by a marketer’s name when I look for info or check out a new product.

There’s one exception, however…

Ever since I first laid my hands on one of Robert Plank’s eBooks (I think it was ‘Sales Page Tactics 3′), I’m a huge fan of his work.
And with me, loads of others.

His PHP- and Java script guides all sell like hot cakes, and the same goes for the scripts he creates. In just a few years time, he has sold thousands of products. Of course there’s the ‘name fame’-factor: he sells hundreds of copies of his ebooks and scripts, just because they have his name on it. But there’s a good reason for that, since what he delivers are quality products - every single one of them!

Several of my own products - 1-2-3 Dimesale, Panic OTO and Framebrander were based on scripts published in his ebooks (Thanks, Robert!).

But enough about Robert, I don’t want him to get all snobbish…

 What I actually wanted to tell you is that Robert recently released two new scripts/WP plugins that can really help you to boost your (blog) mailing list.

Action Optin allows you to stick email subscription forms on your blog/sales letters that make sure people won’t be distracted and click away: when people click the submit button, your form disappears and is replaced with a customizable thankyou-message. You can see it in action on this page. This tool comes both as a PHP script and a Wordpress plugin.

Action Comments is a WP plugin that allows you to:

- place a checkbox underneath the comment form. It’s already checked, so after someone leaves you a comment, they have to uncheck the box to stay off your list. Chances are if they are taking the time to leave you a comment, they’re already hungry for information.

- show an "alert" box to get people to sign up. The comment form looks like a regular blog comment form, but when they try to submit that comment, an unblockable JavaScript box pops up on the screen and asks if they’d like to sign up to your list – with whatever message you choose.

This plugin works with any autoresponder service.

If you are trying to build your list, these scripts are definitely worth to check out!