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Increasing Newsletter Subscriptions: What’s in it for Them? |
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| Articles Home - Marketing Articles - Increasing Newsletter Subscriptions: What’s in it for Them? |
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| Monday, September 19, 2005, 10:13 |
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Incentives & Contests |
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Incentives and contests are a great way to get new members for your web site or email newsletter. Let's face it, we all need an incentive every
now an then to transform our thought into action. Providing incentives and running contests are both effective ways to increase your subscription rate.
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Incentives |
There are many email newsletters, so it is more and more difficult to stand out from the crowd. You can have a web site full of quality content
relevant to your visitors, but even if the content is good, many users won't take the time to automatically sign up for your newsletter. To increase your subscription rate, try
stimulating your visitors a little.
Let's compare these two ads:
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Subscribe to our Best Practices Guide Newsletter and read useful articles about email marketing!
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Subscribe to our Best Practices Guide Newsletter, read useful articles about email marketing and save 40% on our
products!
More often than not, the 2nd ad will have better results.
Companies who effectively use email marketing normally offer discounts exclusively to their subscribers. Usually they have already
implemented a coupon field in their shopping cart or they send a special link in the email newsletter, that when clicked on, shows that they are a subscriber and eligible for
a discount. Good email marketing software, like Infacta's GroupMail makes this easy to do.
It is best to make such incentives available on a limited time offer, so you say that this offer is valid until November 30th.
Another incentive idea is offering subscribers free promotional material, like mousepads, pens, or other low cost items. The pay back from
having a large, targeted list of subscribers for your newsletter will be worth it. Be creative with your incentives. Use free e-books or resources that are associated with your
products, or develop partnerships with other sites that might offer free subscriptions or promotional material. This is particularly a good idea if you have an affiliation with
another site if subscribers to your newsletter get a coupon for a product that you receive commission on! Make it a win-win situation.
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Contests |
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Everyone loves the chance to win something. Understanding that, contests are a very effective way to increase subscription rates. Announcing
that all new subscribers in November will be entered in a drawing to win your newest product.
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Example: "Subscribe to our Best Practices Guide Newsletter before November 30th and you will be entered to win a
copy of our latest e-book!"
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Contests can also be effective in making your newsletter interactive. Running a writing contest could generate good articles for your
newsletter. "Write an article about small business email needs. Best article submission will win our e-book about e-mail marketing and be a feature article in our
newsletter. Offer available only to subscribers. Contest deadline, November 30th." In this way, not only might your subscribers win something, but their article would be
published in your newsletter; and everyone will be interested in what article won the contest. Contests like these have a longer effect rate as they peak interest in
subscribers and make them look forward to that upcoming issue with the winning article in it.
To maximize the effectiveness of your incentives or contests, it is important to promote them. Send press releases to on-line and off-line
industry-related magazines; exchange links with industry-related, but non-competitive sites who also might be offering incentives or contests, and of course, mention them
on your own web site and newsletter! Taking the time to widely promote your incentives and contests will draw traffic to your site and simultaneously increase your
newsletter subscriptions!
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| "I just wanted you to know that I have been using GroupMail now for about a month and a half, and so far it has worked like a charm. I wanted to take a brief moment to thank you for all the technical support you gave me at the beginning of my efforts!" | | Steve Kelly, TalkCalgary.com |
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