Three Subscriber Acquisition Tips
Looking for ways to attract e-zine subscribers and build a large and responsive list? Here are three that always work.
1. Get Friends to Subscribe: Once someone has signed up for your newsletter and then forwarded it to his friends, you need to get the friends’ explicit permission to send them you regular newsletter e-mails. You can close this loop if you construct your regular e-mails with the non-subscriber also in mind.
Therefore, make sure that every forwarded e-mail features a way for the receiver to subscribe. Make the subscribe instructions clear and have them lead directly to a simple sign-up form on which e-mail address is the only “required” data field. DailyCandy.com, a fashion site, uses a simple, fun and effective call to action that asks: “Did a friend send you this? From now on, be the first to find out. Sign up for DailyCandy. It’s fun, it’s pretty and it’s free.” It’s a clearly worded, strong promotion that makes sense for their audience and their content.
2. Use Cross-Promotion Opportunities: To maximize your marketing possibilities, always mention your other newsletters in each mailing. Every e-mail and every subscribe form should cross-promote all other e-mail newsletters you publish. This gives each reader options. If, for example, someone receives your e-mail newsletter about the latest shoe fashions, forwarded from a friend, they may like it enough to sign up for your e-mails, which will put information about your shoe line in front of them every week. However, if given the opportunity to read about great ways to accessorize as well, they might also sign up for your other newsletter on accessorizing tips. This builds your list and deepens your relationships with subscribers.
3. Ask for Subscriptions in Non-marketing E-mails: Take advantage of every e-mail communication that your company has with a customer or prospect to encourage them to sign up for your newsletter. Many companies don’t do this, missing out on a huge opportunity to build their lists easily and effectively.
Use every other e-mail that you send in the normal course of business. Any time you send an e-mail you should include information about your e-mail newsletters. This includes customer-service auto-replies, order confirmations, shipping notifications and account-management messages. If someone makes a purchase from you, they are expecting to get notifications by e-mail that their order was received or that it has been shipped. You can easily include a few well-placed and relevant marketing messages for your newsletters and other e-mail offers.
Also, think about how many individual e-mails you and your employees send out each day. To partners, customers, vendors and prospects. Depending on the size of your company, it could be hundreds, if not thousands. Each person receiving one of these e-mails already has a reason to be communicating with you, so they should be receiving your newsletter.
Create a templated block of copy that promotes your newsletter and provides subscription instructions. Then have each employee in your company insert this information at the bottom of their signature file. That’s it.
Matt Blumberg and Michael Mayor are the driving forces behind Return Path, an e-mail performance company. Collaborating with them on this project are their colleagues, e-mail strategists Stephanie A. Miller and Tami Monahan Forman. This article was excerpted from their new book, “Sign Me Up! A Marketer’s Guide to Creating E-mail Newsletters That Build Relationships and Boost Sales (iUniverse Inc., 2005) © 2005 Return Path, Inc. All rights reserved.
