Getting
subscribers to your ezine or newsletter
By
David Callan
The
amount of people subscribed to your ezine
has a direct affect on how much money
you can make with it either directly through
advertising or indirectly through you
mentioning and recommending your product
in it, so you'll always want to have the
biggest subscriber base possible. This
article will try and educate you on the
different methods which you can imply
to increase your subscriber numbers.
There are many different ways of getting
subscribers to your ezine. Obviously the
first place you should start is on your
website, doing this can get you an immediate
flow of subscribers. You should advertise
your Ezine and place a sign-up box on
every page of your site. Always use the
sign-up box instead of a simple email
link when you can because the results
are far better. The top of the page is
a better place for your sign-up box as
it gets more exposure but the bottom is
still good. Always include a privacy statement
telling people exactly how you're going
to use their email address and how you'll
keep it private, with all the talk about
spam nowadays this is bound to reassure
them, which in turn will increase the
number of new subscribers.
Offer
an incentive to your visitors, you should
whenever possible offer them a free gift
if they subscribe such as a free report
or ebook. There are hundreds of free ebooks
which you can give away in this way. You're
bound to increase your sign-ups by doing
this provided you offer them something
related to your sites theme.
Next you want to be submitting your Ezine
to all the Ezine directories you can find,
there are plenty of them on the Internet
and some of them get really big traffic
every month and should help tremendously
with getting new subscribers.
Include details of your Ezine in your
signature file, this is the little bit
of text that you attach to messages you
post on the Internet and to the emails
you send to people.
You
then can promote your Ezine through your
signature when you post in email discussion
lists. Email discussion lists are great
ways of communicating with people who
have similar interests as the topic of
your Ezine.
Similar
mediums to email discussion lists are
newsgroups and online discussion forums,
remember that you can't advertise your
Ezine directly in any of these mediums
but having a little mention in your signature
is perfectly alright, in most cases anyhow.
The
amount of subscribers you get through
your signature file will depend on the
quality of your post, if you post an interesting
and useful article people will think that
your Ezine will also be useful.
Another
technique is called Ad swapping. Ad swapping
is a very effective way of getting subscribers.
You want to find other publishers with
ezines similar to yours and trade ads
with them. You run their ad and they will
run yours. Within these ads both of you
will plug your own ezines and direct people
to a URL or email address where they can
subscribe.
You should swap ads with publishers no
matter how many subscribers they have
(within reason). Here's a few emails to
get you started, alternatively you could
do a search for your keywords and visit
a few of the sites returned to see if
they have newsletters, if they do you
can contact them and ask them to swap
ads with you.
Ezine-Ad-Swaps-subscribe@topica.com
AdSwapsforYou-subscribe@egroups.com
swap_it-subscribe@listbot.com
EzineAdSwap-subscribe@topica.com
ezineadexchange-subscribe@topica.com
LB-Ad_Swaps-subscribe@egroups.com
Another
method of 'swapping' would be to have the
other webmaster recommend your newsletter
when they confirm to a person that he or
she has successfully subscribed and you
in turn could do the same for him, it's
a win-win situation.
Using as many of the techniques described
in this article as possible should result
in your subscriber base growing on a continuous
basis. Beware however that to get really
big numbers reading your ezine you'll need
quality content
How
to get your emails read
Email
marketing is one of the best ways to get
the word out about your product to potential
customers. It’s cheap, efficient,
and versatile. But from the recipients’
perspective, it can also be annoying,
impersonal and invasive. For this reason,
overcoming readers’ initial antipathy
is essential to the email marketer. You
need to persuade your audience that your
letter is worth their time, and that you
are offering them more than just a barrage
of untargeted junk mail.
And
targeting is what separates junk mail
from profitable advertising. How many
times have unsolicited mailers asked you
to apply for a mail-order diploma, a $25,000
jackpot, or a home video library? Broad-based
campaigns tend to be a waste of a company’s
resources, because they are so obviously
untargeted that the most readers also
find them to be untrustworthy. The secret
to selling is to develop a rapport - and
if your prospect thinks that he or she
is just another name on your mailing list,
you won’t even get your foot in
the door.
It’s
also important to look professional, since
spam will always be undeleted unread.
Addresses that are garbled or nonsensical
suggest that your company is a fly-by-night
operation, or that it is continually being
forced off its server - so you should
obviously avoid addresses like d345f2ds@domain.com,
or fsf3445a@someplace.net. Generic addresses
like friend@domain.com, aren’t really
much better, and might even cause some
recipients to assume that your message
is a virus!
As
much as possible, try to make recipients
feel that the message is addressed only
to them. Clearly, it’s not cost-effective
to write individual email message to every
potential client, particularly if your
company caters to thousands of individual
end users. What you can do is break down
your clientele into target groups. For
instance, if your company offers three
kinds of widgets, write three letters
- one for each widget - and then send
it to people who you think might have
a specific interest in that product, perhaps
because they have bought a similar widget
from you in the past.
This tells the customer that you are aware
of his or her needs, and that you care
about meeting them. In the sometimes anonymous
world of online commerce, this personal
connection is what will allow you to edge
out the competition - and to develop a
loyal customer base.
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