8 Tips for Growing Your Newsletter Audience
8 Tips for Growing your Newsletter Subscribers
Your list of subscribers is one of your company’s most valuable assets, and your newsletter is a great tool for communicating with them. Growing your email list is not easy, and it takes time. These tips are helpful ways to jump-start your list of subscribers.
Develop good content. Without good content, no one is going to subscribe to your newsletters, let alone read them. Think about the emails that YOU are most likely to read - what are some of the qualities that convince you to click and open them? Make sure that your content is not purely promotional; it should also be informative and entertaining. (This rule is important for social media, too!)
Make it easy to sign up. It should be easy and clear for anyone who visits your website to sign up for your newsletter. Don’t hide the “Subscribe to our newsletter!” link at the footer of the page. It should pop up as an explicit call-to-action, and/or be visible on every page. Also, don’t ask subscribers for too much information in order to sign up - it might scare people off. Just ask two or three questions (i.e. name and email address).
Be clear about what you are offering. No one wants any more spam in their inbox, and we are all wary of signing up for overly-frequent newsletters. When you are asking people to sign up for your newsletter, consider including a sentence or two about what kind of content will be included. For example: “Enter your email address here for a weekly summary of industry news” or “sign up to be the first to know about our weekly online-only sales.”
Consider gating content. Gated content is a page or section of your website that cannot be accessed until the visitor enters their email address. Deciding whether or not to do this may depend on your industry, and what your website goals are.
Host webinars. Host a webinar on a simple, free platform like Google+ Hangouts (more info here). When people register, you can harvest their email addresses and perhaps other information, like interests or industry.
Host a giveaway. Depending on your industry, you likely have something that you can give away. Ask site visitors or social media followers to sign up for your newsletter in order to enter the contest, and then announce the winner via email.
Pay Attention to Who is Subscribing. Chances are that the service you use to send out emails (Constant Contact, MailChimp, etc.) harvests data about your subscribers, including age, location, and so forth. Use this information to better reach potential new subscribers, particularly in targeted social media advertising.
Use social media advertising. In general, social media advertising is a great way to direct traffic to your site. Make sure that they are landing on your “opt-in” page (where they can easily sign up for the newsletter).
For more tips and tricks, reach out to us for a free consultation.