actually none of these are working for getting subscribers. You get traffic but it doesn't mean that you automatically get subscribers Nothing works unless your site/blog is really interesting: contests don't work as people sign up and unsubscribe when it's over, from forums and directories you get traffic, as I said. What really works is making a list of sites/blogs and visit them regularly. Then you'll start getting visitors back from that sites and they are not going to be one time visitors as they know a little about you from your comments. That's my IMHO and if anyone has other suggestions, I would be happy to hear
For traffic only: PPC, banner advertisement, writing blog post in others' blogs, social media (digg, facebook group, stumbleupon,delicious)
I disagree - subscribers from contests do stay - I still have 95% of subscribers from my contest a month ago Good content also helps
Ad Swaps! This is one of the best ways to grow your list quickly. If you have 500 - 1000 subscribers, you can do an ad swap with other list owners in your market. In fact, you don't even have to have equal numbers of subscribers. If one person has 1,000 subscribers and the other person has 5,000 subscribers, then the person with 5,000 subscribers would just send your offer to 1,000 of their subscribers.
I was reading on a blog that you can use someone elses Feedburner subsciber # icon on your blog so then people will think there are a bunch of other people subscribed and will feel like they should sign up. I haven't tried it myself so I don't know how or if it works.
I've had conflicting advice when it comes to contests. I'm definitely seeking targeted traffic and I don't want every spammer in the world to sign-up for my newsletter to win a prize valued at $50, but I feel I could keep the spammers to a minimum with only posting to relevant sites. Any thoughts?