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What are some ways to build up my subscriber list?
What are some ways to expand my email subscriber list? Any tips?
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Sarah,
In this context, bigger is not always better. Marketers boast about the size of their email list, but the size of the list is not relevant. What is relevant is the quality of the list and the actions they take when they receive your emails. If you're getting lousy clickthrough rates on a large list, you're paying to manage and serve subscribers needlessly.
I've built three businesses with newsletters over the years, the first hardcopy, the other two via email. Every week I spent time focusing on acquiring new subscribers -- picking names out of articles, mailing or emailing prospective subscribers, etc.
I also focused on predictability -- publishing every month at the same time, and always with a good focus on thought leadership. I was promoting high level research consulting services at IDC, so I wasn't looking for transactional activities. I also happened to be the domain expert, so it was relatively easy for me to find content.
About ten years ago, when I managed a newsletter for a client, content was a challenge. The executive team was not committed to the newsletter, so they didn't put the time in. Fortunately, my team had enough domain expertise to be able to build most of the content on our own.
You should think about the goals of your newsletter. In my case, my goal has always been to start the dialog with prospective clients and to continue the dialog with existing ones. I never expected to drive much business directly with my newsletter, just to make the business development process a bit smoother.
And be gentle...it takes a while to gain a subscriber, but when they unsub, they're gone forever.
Hope this helps.
Lee
Sarah,
Lee made an excellent point by suggesting you focus on the quality of your email subscribers and targeted messages vs. list size. It reminds me of an email marketing program we managed for a travel marketing company.
When we were first hired, our client's email list consisted of approximately 350,000 subscribers, was producing about a 3%-5% open rate and less than a 1% click-through rate. Their email marketing program was costing them more than it was producing in revenue. They tried various offers -- even loss leaders. But they couldn't figure out why their response rate was so low. Needless to say, they were confused, frustrated and ready to throw in the towel.
Our first priority was to review their email analytics. My team made a shocking discovery. Almost 60% of our client's list consisted of "hard and soft bounces" -- bad undeliverable addresses and email addresses blocked by ISPs. They had been black-listed by several major ISPs, including Yahoo!, which consisted of a large percentage of their subscribers. In other words, over 210,000 emails would go undelivered in each campaign!
That was the bad news. Now the good news...
After we meticulously "cleaned" their list and took steps to our client white-listed with the ISPs (which took several weeks), the client was thrilled to discover a dramatic performance increase. Open rates immediately shot up to 12% to 16% and and click-throughs increased to 5% to 7%.
Their offer wasn't the main problem (although our redesign to their emails would yield even better results later). Their real issue was that their email campaign performed like a magic trick in the dark.
Our next step was list-building. We integrated more prominent email sign-up CTAs (calls-to-action) throughout the client's website and other marketing channels. We also gave subscribers incentives to forward their emails offers to their friends. The results were nothing short of phenomenal.
Within approximately 120 days, our client's email list grew to almost 1.2 MILLION opt-in subscribers and we consistently achieved a 98%+ deliverable rate with click-throughs as high as 24%.
The takeaway: understand your email analytics, manage your ISP relations, leverage viral marketing to grow your list organically and deliver highly relevant messages to a targeted audience.
If you found this post helpful, I'd like to invite you to stay connected with me on LinkedIn, Facebook and/or Twitter.
LinkedIn: http://www.LinkedIn.com/in/ThomasHarpointner
Twitter: http://www.Twitter.com/TomHarpointner
Facebook: http://www.Facebook.com/ThomasHarpointner
AIS Media, Inc.
http://www.aismedia.com
I assume we are talking email subscribers...
The only way I recommend you do this is organically. Ensure you have your email program ready, make sure your first few emails are of real benefit (options include free reports, software, vouchers, coupons, etc). All emails that you send should always be relevant, targeted and of potential value to the recipient.
Here are a number of ways that are available to you, the list is by no means exhaustive:
1. Your website
Include the optin form on every page of your website if at all possible. If not then promote your newsletter on your website by way of text links, banners, buttons and other CTA's. You can test with Inline/Popups/Exit Pages (hate them personally) and the like to see if they help further (beware of annoying your visitors)
2. Create subscriber landing pages, pages on your site specifically designed to promote your newsletter, this should be the only focus of the page and the primary CTA
3. Social Networks: Facebook, Twitter & LinkedIn.
Let everyone know you have an email marketing program, let them know of the benefits of subscribing. Tweet and Facebook your newsletters, include a link to subscriptions and current editions online.
You can and should embed your email subscription form on your Page at Facebook
Within your newsletters make sure you offer the ability for your recipients to share-on-social
4. Blogging... On your own blog ensure you include an email subscription form (ideally on every page). Also write guest blogs on other sites and include a link to your newsletter from your bio.
5. Optimise your email subscribe page for visitors and search engines. This ensures you can be found for your industry keywords and also making sure you drive home the real benefits of subscribing. If possible have your current subscribers evangelise by way of testimonials.
6. Encourage subscribers to promote the newsletter to friends/colleagues, through social networks, forward to a friend in the email newsletter itself and you can also encourage your current subscribers to recommend others who may be interested. Refer a confirmed subscriber and be entered into a competition is one example.
As I said by no means exhaustive, there is plenty more you can do online. Furthermore there is a huge number of things you can do offline....
Sarah - I think Andrew touched on most of the key ways to grow your email database. But the most important thing to consider is that people have to perceive that there is value in your email marketing program before they will sign up.
Think about Groupon for a minute. Groupon is reportedly the fastest growing company in US history. Their email database has grown from zero to several million in just about 18 months. The key to Groupon's list growth was not the magic of their opt-in form or other tactics, but their value proposition was clear and simple - daily deals from businesses near where you lived. That value then created word of mouth, went viral and their list grew at a phenomenal rate.
Very few businesses will see growth like Groupon, but think about the elements that made their growth explode and find what that is for your company.
What is your value proposition? Is it simple? Are there 100 companies that do the same thing? Answer the question of why should a consumer opt-in to your email program versus a competitor's? Figure that out, create awesome content and value, and then make sure you make it easy for people to find your opt-in form -whether it is your Web site, blog, Facebook page, etc.
Good luck!
Sarah - Andrew already covered some good tactics.
In addition I would like to add that you can use all your other customer touch-points to promote your email newsletter and capture permission data.
Think about adding a link to a subscription form in your email signature. Promote your newsletter in your transactional email, like an order confirmation. But also offline like on trade shows, in-store, etc. Less obvious might be to let your service desk or call center promote your newsletter. The beauty of that is you can capture and add more data because the caller in most cases is already identified (as for instance being a current customer) and you might get to know more about their product use or preferences.
I once set-up a program for a call center. If in the (inbound) service call there where questions about a certain product, the caller was asked if they would like more information about the product by email. That information was a three part email series in all of which the regular email program was promoted. We were able to collect loads
of already interested prospect (high quality) email addresses that way.
So remember, every contact can be used to promote your program and capture permission and data.
I'll add one small tip here, in the realm of organically adding quality subscribers (and I'm regurgitating this from a Constant Contact seminar that I attended a few weeks ago): ask people if you can add them to it! When discussing your business with someone, mention to them that you publish a newsletter that offers valuable insights regarding [whatever your business does] and ask if they would mind if you add them to the list, stressing that they can easily opt out at any time. The majority of people agree to become your subscribers.
Also note that it is fairly accepted practice to add any existing customers that you have to your newsletter list. I've been added to several in that way myself, most of which I'm still subscribed to, and I have yet to witness an opt-out from the clients I've added.
Good luck!
Oh, and one metric from the Constant Contact seminar: newsletters should generally be sent out no more frequently than every week and no less frequently than every month.
Hmmm... seems silly to post an answer to this topic without including a plug for my own newsletter: The Angled Update, design content for non-designers, http://angledend.com/newsletter
Sarah, there's plenty of good suggestions here (I particularly like Lee's recommendation to establish goals - not just for number of subscribers, but what you want your newsletter to accomplish).
One recommendation is to make it as easy as possible for someone to subscribe. Don't ask for oodles of information from them at the outset. All you really need is a name and email address. I've seen far too many clients ask for fields of personal data only to get a high bounce rate. If you want to glean more demographic data from your subscribers, ask for a little to get them through the door and then gradually ask for more data over time.
Another suggestion is to create e-newsletters that are as personalized as possible. Sometimes what *you* believe is of value may not be valuable to your whole subscriber base. If you find that your content is starting to cover lots of different topics, consider either creating multiple newsletters that are more topic-focused. Or, find an email delivery platform that allows you to serve up blocks of content that's personalized based on what your subscriber tells you what they want to read.
Good luck!
Great suggestions.
When you speak, on the evaluation form put a box and then "I want to be added to your tips newsletter" Have them include their name, email address and phone number (save the evaluation forms)
Maria
http://www.ElevatingYourBusiness.com
Create something of value you on your site and require a name and email address for free access. For example, create an ebook that anyone can download for free if they give you their email address.
You can also to do webinars, white papers or special reports.
First understand who your target market is.
Here are some strategies you can use.
1. novelty items (pens, key chains, hat's, t-shirts, water bottles, notepads, etc.)
2. Newspaper
3. poster
4. banner on cars
5. social media (facebook, twitter, myspace, etc..)
5. article marketing
6. blogging
7. video marketing
8. post cards
9. social events
10. free classified ads (craigslist, adlanpro, USfreeads, etc.)
11. word of mouth
12. business cards
13. here blog post about different ways to get traffic to your website
http://homebasedbusiness.com/profiles/blogs/21-ways-to-get-more-traffic-to
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