Maybe you already do a regular online newsletter (ezine) or are considering doing one. Either way there are some inexpensive ways to make sure you get the largest bang for your buck and grow your subscriber list. Subscribers come and go, so it's essential that you are always growing your list.
In addition, you want subscribers who want to be on your list. I would not suggest purchasing a list. After all, what good is a list of people who have no interest in you? Your newsletter is only as good as your contacts are, so let's get started on some helpful hints to build your subscriber list.
1. Make sure you have a subscription form on your website. If people find your site and there's no form there, how will they be able to subscribe to your newsletter? Make sure it's prominent and easily identifiable. Do not hide it somewhere at the bottom of the website or on the contact us page. Make sure it's on the top portion of your website. We'd like to think that readers who land on our site will read through everything because we've got great content and they're interested in us, right? Wrong. The truth is that most readers never scroll all the way to the end of the page.
2. Put your subscription form on every page of your site. We think of our Home page as the only gateway into our site, but in actuality, visitors may first enter through the services page or blog post or testimonial page, depending on what keywords they've used in the search engines. So the home page does not mean every single visitor will get into your site through that page. Do not make them hunt to find where they can get more information from you.
3. Create a giveaway for people to receive when they sign up. Visitors are related to just hand over their email addresses, so you need to have some type of giveaway to entice them to give you their email addresses. Make sure it's downloadable, and it can be a 10 tips or the top 5 secrets … Create something that makes them WANT to give you their information.
4. Only require the first name and email address for someone to receive your ezine (unless, of course, you're physically mailing something, then you'll need all their information). Studies have shown that requiring their last name reduces the number of sign ups.
5. Be sure to add your privacy policy to your opt-in box. People want to know you're not going to sell or share their personal information with anyone else.
6. If you're selling a product, be sure to capture the email addresses of your buyers. Just because they bought from you once does not mean they'll come back a second time. If you're using a system like Infusionsoft, you can automatically add purchasers into the sequence to receive your ezine. If you're using another shopping cart like 1Shopping Cart, you may have to manually add the names and email addresses of your buyers to your newsletter program like AWEBER, Constant Contact and Mail Chimp. Either way, you should be adding those individuals to your subscriber list.
7. Ask current subscribers to forward your newsletter to friends and collections. Word of mouth is one of the best ways to grow your subscriber list. Remind your readers to spread the word by including a note in every issue.
8. Promote your newsletter when you give talks or seminars. Again, use a free giveaway to entice participants to give you their email addresses. If your audience consist of non-businesspeople, you'll want to have a sign-up sheet. However, if you're speaking to businesspeople, you can collect business cards.
9. If you're attending a networking event, be sure to include information about your ezine in your 30-second about you commercial. Most of just go through who we are and what we do (and should be including benefits to the listeners), but we do not think to mention our weekly, biweekly or monthly ezine and the great wealth of information they'll receive by subscribing .
10. Write articles and distribute them to article marketing sites and trade organizations. Be sure to include in the author resource box a link to your website where your newsletter sign up will be prominently displayed!
11. Promote your newsletter to your social media contacts, but be careful not to spam the groups or message boards. And be sure to have a sign up on your Fan Page. No Fan Page? You should have one !!
12. Be sure to include enticing copy on your email signature to drive people to your website and sign up for your newsletter.
13. Do a targeted postcard mailing to businesses with enticing copy, driving them to your website and signing up.
14. Include testimonials on your sign up page. It's great for new subscribers to be able to see what others are saying about your newsletter and build their confidence that they are subscribing to a legitimate tool that they can learn from.
Always work on growing your list and remember that quality is much better than quantity. You do not want to just pull business cards off the bulletin board and start adding them. These people are not interested in you andides, it's against the anti-spam law! You can only add people to your list who have given you permission either by signing up themselves or telling you it's okay.