22 Ways to Increase Your Subscriber List
by Catherine Franz
1. Don't bury your subscriber form, place it on your home
page and or every page and make it VERY easy to find.
2. Add a one-liner to the byline section of your online
published articles. For example: "You can subscribe to
[name]'s free e-newsletter by visiting [URL]."
3. Give people an additional incentive to subscribe. Give
them a free ebook or ecourse that has valuable content on a
topic that will attract the exact type of ideal
clients/customers for you.
4. During network events, ask them if you can sign them up
for your newsletter. Then you manually add them when you
return from the function with a double opt-in feature.
Explain the opt-in feature to them when you ask them to
subscribe. This gives them a way out if they were just
being polite.
Keep asking and don't stop. Practice a simple two or three
liners to explain the frequency and purpose of your e-
newsletter.
5. Contact any trade organization or associations you belong
to or membership has your target market. Ask for their
member list. Member's usually get this free, they may charge
you if you aren't.
6. After you have the organization's or association's
member list, send a direct mail letter, and offer a free
subscription and another other free offers you have that
help them get aquatinted with you, the type of services you
provide, and the benefits of working with someone such as
yourself. You can educate them through free ecourses that
were created from your e-newsletter articles.
7. Recommend your client's company's newsletter in your e-
newsletter. Ask them for a reciprocal recommendation. Both
of you win with new subscribers.
8. Write reviews or provide feedback to other newsletters
(electronic or printed) you read and enjoy. Many times
your comments will get posted in a future issue, along with
a link to your site.
9. One of the top ways to attract people is by giving them
various ways to interact with you at your web site. Use
questionnaires, contests, giveaways, games, or ask for post
survey questions and post the statistical responses. Send
out a special e-mail announcement when the results of the
questionnaire, survey, contest is posted on your web site.
The Sales Lead Report,
http://www.imninc.com/macmcintosh, adds a survey with each issue, then uses the information in
his PR campaign with phenomenal success.
10. Offer a different writing style. One that is warm,
comforting, as if you are talking to a friend on the phone.
Write conversationally with a personal tone. Add I's, me
and you.
11. Always encourage your readers to forward a copy of your
e-newsletter to friends, colleagues, and co-workers. You
can even write a "forwarding e-mail paragraph" at the
beginning so it is even easier for them to forward.
12. If you do speaking engagements or sales presentations,
use one of the first few slides or last slide to invite them
to subscribe to your e-newsletter. Don't turn off the
screen so it is displayed after you are finish speaking if
possible.
13. At speaking engagements, pass around a clip board with
a manual way they can register for your e-newsletter. Start
passing the board around before you begin speaking. Place a
small different piece of paper with a short letter from you
to them explaining the topics, frequency, and objectives of
the e-newsletter as well as the opt-in option.
14. Send out a press release to the organizations you belong
regularly about what's been going on in your e-newsletter.
I began mine by sending out a short press release whenever
an article was published. When I began getting published 10
and 20 times a month that no longer seemed practical. Thus,
I moved over to one a month with a list of where the
articles were published. Add a press release section to
your web site and post them there as well -- at least the
last six releases.
15. Find sites that give out awards for e-newsletters and
keep applying until you receive one. When you do, send out
a special announcement to your list as well as posting it in
a few issues of the e-newsletter and rewrite your bio
paragraph at the end of your articles.
16. Don't add people on your list without asking for
permission first. Always offer an opt-in/out options. Give
them a personal greeting if you are responding to a
particular networking even group or other particular group.
Some web hosts only need one s*p*a*m complaint before they
shut your e-newsletter down. And it isn't worth the
problems caused by not respecting this.
17. KISS your subscriber form. Meaning, "keep it short and
simple." Ask for their e-mail and first name only. You can
even simplify it more by just asking for their e-mail
address.
18. Set up section for past issues of your e-newsletters. I
recommend just listing their main topic or name of the
article and not by date. People don't like to read things
that they consider "old" easily. If you create pdf files for
past issues, remember that it does save space but it also
doesn't allow you to use unique meta page tags so that they
show up in the search engines.
19. Add your e-newsletter bio line to all your e-mail
signatures.
20. Send out your e-newsletter articles as content for
reprinting into other media.
21. Offer targeted subscribers a special report when they
refer your
e-newsletter to three or more colleagues. Add a price to
the special report to give a perception of added value. A
special report is 3-10 pages on a very focused topic.
22. Offer your readers high-value content for them to read.
Content they can't find easily or ever somewhere else on the
Internet and they will keep coming back. This is the new
wave for 2004. Subscriptions to e-newsletters are going
down because content is too general.
Copyriht 2004, Catherine Franz. All rights reserved.
~*~*~ RESOURCE BOX ~*~*~*~*~*
Word Count: 974
Catherine Franz is a marketing industry veteran, a Certified
Business Coach, Certified Teleclass Leader and Trainer,
speaker, author. For daily, weekly, and monthly marketing
nonfiction writing and deliberately creating ezines:
http://www.AbundanceCenter.com. 703-671-5677
~*~*~*~ PUBLISHING GUIDELINES ~*~*~*~*~*
Publishing Guidelines: Permission is granted to publish this
article electronically in free-only publications, like a web
site or ezine (print requires individual permission) as long
as the bylines (resource box) is included in full (no
modifications). You must make all links active within the
article and bylines. A courtesy copy is required and sent to
the author.
| DISCLAIMER: The content provided in this article is not warranted or guaranteed by Developer Shed, Inc. The content provided is intended for entertainment and/or educational purposes in order to introduce to the reader key ideas, concepts, and/or product reviews. As such it is incumbent upon the reader to employ real-world tactics for security and implementation of best practices. We are not liable for any negative consequences that may result from implementing any information covered in our articles or tutorials. If this is a hardware review, it is not recommended to open and/or modify your hardware. |
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