Welcome to Day 3 of All About Email Week! In case you missed the earlier posts in this series, here’s a quick recap. Monday’s post covered the benefits of email newsletters, and Tuesday’s post focued on why you need to use an email newsletter provider and where to find them.
Now we’ll talk about building your subscriber list.
As most of you (hopefully) know, it’s not considered kosher to buy email lists or automatically sign people up without getting their permission first. But there are savvier ways to go about it. Here are few ideas to get you started:
- Offer an incentive. Create a giveaway or offer extras to people on your email list. For instance, Denene Brox sends a list of 10 Essay Marks for Weekend Writers when you sign up for her Weekend Writer email list. When I started building my list last year, I created a giveaway of a guidebook I’d worked on for people who signed up by a certain date. Obviously, a giveaway has a limited time frame, but it also creates a sense of urgency.
- Leverage social media. It’s definitely possible to go overboard with this one, but when I’m working on that month’s newsletter, I might tweet about it or post in my LinkedIn status with a link to my opt-in page. People who see it and get curious sometimes sign up that way.
- Play up your opt-in page. Be sure that people can easily find your opt-in page by posting a link (or even a cool-looking banner) on your website, blog, or in your email signature. Mine is listed in the blog sticky at the top of this page. Maria Schneider of Editor Unleashed also suggests including the link at the end of each post so it’s unmissable (notice I’ve stolen her idea and used it throughout this series!).
- Include the “forward to a friend” option. I love this option, because it’s easy and lets your subscribers share your newsletter with friends who might be interested in subscribing themselves.
- Use offline promotions, too. I can’t remember who suggested this or I would credit her, but someone at a networking seminar suggested that when you exchange business cards with someone, you ask if they’d like to get your email newsletter. If they say yes, you can make a note on their card and sign them up manually so they don’t have to do it themselves.
Are there other strategies that have proved successful for you? Leave a comment and let us know!
Of course, having a long list of subscribers is pointless if you don’t deliver quality content, because they might decide not to open your emails, or worse, unsubscribe altogether. Tomorrow we’ll talk about creating content, so stay tuned.
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I would definitely add, "Set Proper Expectations" on sign up.
1. Tell them how often they can expect the newsletter (frequency).
2. Show them an example of what the email will look like (look/feel).
3. Send a welcome email…immediately (keeps them connected).
Great list!
DJ Waldow
Director of Community at Blue Sky Factory
@djwaldow
@DJ: Thanks for the tips! I pretty much already do 1 & 2 (my signup form matches the look of the actual email), but I need to implement #3. Setting appropriate expectations *is* important, and I'm glad you brought that up!
You're more than welcome to steal my ideas Susan. That's what good bloggers do.
I'm enjoying this series since I'm getting ready to launch my own newsletter on Editor Unleashed and I'm soaking up all the info I can get!
I was so inspired I signed up right away Susan!
There's a little known black list maintained by – rhymes with *Pay Fo Hell* – and – rhymes with *Mime Corner* – (individually) that auto-detects more than some threshold of any email being sent to their users. If you're caught in this trap, any emails from you or anyone in your organization will be blocked.
The good news is you can contact both these firms and submit a form saying you're not a spammer, and they release the block. Problem is, you don't know you're being blocked until someone expecting your email contacts you saying they never get anything from you.
This may not be relevant for a news letter, but once you get up to several thousand subscribers it may become an issue.
Thanks for the great series Susan!
Sid.
@Sid: I could be wrong, but I think that your newsletter provider takes care of this for you. Since they handle large lists all the time and they have checks and balances in place to make sure that their clients comply with CAN-SPAM, using a service like Aweber, MailChimp, or Constant Contact makes a lot more sense than sending your newsletter through Gmail!
@Susan I bet you're right. I was pressed by my competitive nature to make a contribution and that's the best I could do.
Darn it @DJ! Foiled again!
I'll say something smarter than you one of these days…
Seriously – interesting series Susan.
Sid.
These are some great tips. I have been thinking about what kind of incentive I can offer. You have given me some good ideas, though. Thanks!
I find that having contests on my blog helps – I give something away, but to enter the giveaway you have to join the list (or if a person is already on the list, they can do something else).
99% of users stay on after the contest it over.