mariare eNewsletters come a dime-a-dozen these days and its critical to set your eNewsletter (eZine) apart from the rest… Its easier than you think – and you’ve got to take it seriously. Even in today’s advanced technology, eNewsletters are still one of the best ways for marketing yourself, your expertise, and your products online.
1 Positioning:
Its seems like common sense to me, but it never ceases to amaze me at how many people actually totally miss the mark on this one: give your opt-in the best position you can on your website. You WILL get more user opt-ins if your opt-in list form is in the right place – top, right hand corner of your masthead or, at the bare minimum above everything else in your navigation.
2 Copy, Copy, Copy:
Give a call to action! Hello! Tell them exactly why they should sign-up and EXACTLY how it will benefit them. Call to Action, Call to Action, Call to Action. This may be a place where you want to get expert copy advice, because the way you call your users to action is critical in getting them to take that call to action.
3 Make it Good Enough:
The FREE offering, that is. Whatever it is you are offering as an incentive, make it good enough. Certainly, do not make it an entire book, or a teleseminar series you would normally charge $199.99 for — but make it good enough to get them to think one of three things (any of which will do, as far as this particularly topic is concerned):
Your an expert in your field and know what you are talking about.
Your topic and material are interesting enough to take the time to read.
The benefits from your incentive is truly a value to me.
#4 Give the Opportunity Often:
One of the best ways of increasing user opt-in is to provide them with the opportunity at every stage in their journey. For example, of course, you always put the opt-in “box” on every page of the website (main directory pages). It should be automatically built into your page template. But, take that one step further and make sure the opt-in box, or some form of it, is also on your blog, your MySpace profile and other social networking profiles (when feasible). Add an opt-in box or segment on your eNewsletter within your email signature. You’d be amazed as who reads those things…
#5 Get Referrals:
When I find a really good information source, whether its an article, blog post, or ezine — I always share it with friends who I know would be interested. Its called a referral, I’m referring something of interest to another. Use this tendency to your advantage.