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.
Copyright 2004, Catherine Franz.
All rights reserved.
