To Grow Your List Feed and Water it Daily
By Merle
Posted Friday, July 16, 2004
How to increase your ezine subscriber base
One of the biggest questions I hear online is "How do I grow my newsletter list?" If you publish an ezine, the name of the game is growth. What good is writing an ezine, if no one reads it?
There are numerous methods you can utilize to increase your subscriber base, and I'd suggest you use a combination of a few of them for best results. Let's review:
1) Subscribe Form: First of all, you want to make sure you include a subscriber box in the upper right hand corner of every page of your site. People won't subscribe if they don't know you exist. You also may want to offer a "free bonus" as an enticement to get them to give up their email address. The free bonus can take the form of a free ebook or report or other downloadable software. Just make sure it relates to the theme of your ezine. If you don't have an ebook to give away, you'll find plenty of free ones over at (http://free-ebooks.net)
2) Devote a Page: Devote an entire page to your ezine that includes back issues and testimonials from all your happy subscribers. If you can buy your ezine's domain name I'd suggest you do, then redirect that domain to that particular page of your site. It's easy to do and your webhost should be able to help you.
3) Pop Ups: Love 'em or hate 'em, they work. Regular pop ups open when someone enters your site, which may be a bit annoying. A better tactic is to use a pop up box that shows up when a person exits your site, often called a "pop under." This is usually found to be less irritating because the person has already finished viewing your site and the window is not as intrusive when it shows up upon exiting. You'll find free pop up creators at (http://www.echoecho.com/toolpopupgenerator.htm)
There's also something called a pop up "alert" button. This can be done with software. When a user enters your site, a "warning box" pops up asking them if they would like to subscribe to your ezine. They must select yes or no to get the box to go away. If they say yes, their email address is instantly sent to you. If this option interests you check it out at (http://www.optinautomator.com) it can be purchased for only 37.00
4) Buy Them: If all else fails and you have more cash than time, you may want to look at services that allow you to buy opt in subscribers. These are reputable companies who sell only 'opt in' subscribers. Some of the better ones are:
http://www.HipLists.com
http://www.WorldWideLists.com
http://www.LeadFactory.com
5) Joint Ventures: If you're willing to collaborate with other ezine publishers, you can help each other to pick up subscribers. One of the most popular methods is to team up with five or six other publishers and include the details of each other's ezines on your "thank you for subscribing" pages or in your welcome letters. You can download a free script at (http://EzineRocket.com) that will help you to easily setup a joint venture like this at your site. To see an example of what a joint venture page looks like take a look at (http://www.merlesworld.com/subscribed.html)
If you need help finding other ezine publishers, try doing a search at any of the major search engines for ezines like yours.
6) Swap Ads: Seek out other ezine publishers with similar subscriber bases that also cater to your target market and offer to swap ads with them. By running ads for your ezine in other related ezines you'll get plenty of free exposure and new subscribers. Find publishers at ezine directories such as (http://www.LifeStylesPub.com)
7) Co-Registrations: Usually in the form of a pop up box that comes up upon leaving a site, offering you the chance to subscribe to multiple ezines. An example of this type of service would be (http://www.SubscriberDrive.com) or (http://getfreesubscribers.com/)
Usually you need to join a service like this at their site and once approved they'll email you a snippet of JavaScript to add to your pages. Your ezine is shown as one of the listings in proportion to the number of times the pop up is shown on your site. Thus more traffic= more pop ups=more exposure for you.
8) Article Writing: I must say writing articles has always been one of my best promotional activities. If you include a blurb about your ezine in your sig line you can pick up subscribers every time your article is published. Here are some directories where you can post your articles:
(http://www.Family-Content.com)
(http://www.IdeaMarketers.com)
(http://marketing-seek.com)
9) Ezine Directories: You can do it by hand or purchase software, but you should get your ezine listed with as many ezine directories as you can. This will help to get the word out and makes sure you're in all the right places when people are searching for an ezine like yours. You can do it by hand or purchase software that will do it for you such as
(http://EzineAnnouncer.com)
(http://NewsLetterPromote.com)
By Hand:
(http://www.Eziner.com) (http://Zinos.com)
(http://www.Ezine-Dir.com)
(http://Newsletter-Directory.com)
(http://EzineHub.com)
(http://EzineCatalog.com)
(http://EzineListing.com)
So there you have it. Some great ideas for you to grow your subscriber base. Don't underestimate the power of your own list, it's one of the most important tools in your marketing arsenal. By implementing a few, or all of these suggestions on a regular basis, you'll have a larger list than you ever could have imagined. And that's a good investment. Remember, feed and water your list daily and it'll grow strong and healthy, blossoming into something you can be proud of and make money with at the same time.
About the Author
Merle is an internet marketer, promotion consultant and ezine publisher. Visit her sites at (http://www.mcpromotions.com/), (http://www.merlesworld.com/) and (http://www.ezineadauction.com/).
