By: ActiveTrail's Postmaster Dept.
Put these Top 10 Tips For Boosting Subscriptions into effect and you can be sure that you’ll never pass up an opportunity to collect email addresses and the corresponding permission to mail.
1) Create “Special Reports” and offer then in return for subscribing to your list. Make the offer enticing enough to overcome the reader’s natural fear of giving up their email address to yet one more e-zine publisher.
2) Clearly explain your opt-in, opt-out and privacy policy so people won’t be afraid to give you their email address. Give a summary on the opt-in landing page and link to the entire policy from there.
Here’s a good summary:
"Our Privacy Promise We will never reveal your e-mail address to anyone for any reason.
You can unsubscribe any time you want to and we’ll honor your request at once.
We’ll never send you anything other than the e-zine that you signed up for".
3) Don’t focus solely on the Web to collect email addresses and send out special reports. Align yourself with brick and mortar businesses and create joint email list building ventures. If your newsletter is about tropical fish for example, work with businesses that are willing to let you collect their customer’s names and e-mail addresses in a fishbowl. Offer them a Special Report on a related subject and be sure to mention the local business as a good source for tropical fish supplies. This creates a win-win where you collect highly targeted names and the businessperson gets some great exposure as well. Use you imagination and you’ll come up with other joint-venture ideas.
4) Offer special follow-up content to people who attend your online seminars, podcasts or tele-classes. Besides offering a printed transcript of the event, you can off “insider-only” information that’s available solely to subscribers.
5) Conduct a web-based survey and offer a cool prize for those who register. Not only will you collect e-mail addresses, but if you make the prize something that has to be mailed, like an iPod or even a T-Shirt, you’ll collect their snail-mail address too. With e-mail saturation at an all time high, you can use those snail-mail addresses to run postcard campaigns and get even more sales.
6) Mention your web URL on your voicemail system.
For your out of office message:
“Thank you for calling "The Company". I’m sorry that we’re not available to answer the phone. Please leave your name and number, after the tone, and we’ll follow up with you as soon as possible. (Pause). In the meanwhile, discover how to save thousands of dollars the next time you buy a car. Visit www.MyDomain.com and subscribe to
“Insider Car-Buying Tips From The Pro’s. It’s free!”
7) Add your list subscription URL to your e-mail signature.. Don’t just add the link, add a sizzling reason to subscribe and watch your subscription rate soar.
8) Put a link to your opt-in form on every page of your site. Don’t overlook the “Thank You Page” that appears after someone has placed an order for your product or service.
9) Speaking of opt-in form links, forget the dull and boring “Click here to subscribe” message. Spice it up with a compelling reason to subscribe:
“Subscribe to the FREE Frugal Boys e-zine and discover how to cut your annual household expenses by 30% or more!”
10) Make sure that your email is highly targeted to your visitor’s needs. If you cover a wide variety of subjects, sprinkle different sign-up sales pitches throughout your site. In the example shown in item #8, the pitch was for household expenses. That might not appeal to younger visitors. Here are some examples for creating more targeted inducements along the same lines:
“Subscribe to the FREE Frugal Boys e-zine and discover how to save 25% or more on your next car purchase.”
Or…
“Drink beer, save money. Subscribe to the FREE Frugal Boys e-zine and discover how.”
And because I always believe in over-delivering, here’s Tip # 11:
11) Make sure that your actual sign-up landing page clearly defines the benefits of subscribing as well as what they will receive and the frequency they will receive it. Don’t forget to link to your Privacy page.