How to Get the Right Subscribers for Your Newsletter

By Bobette Kyle
Posted Wednesday, August 18, 2004

A key to successful marketing is to get the right folks interested in your products and/or services. You have to get their attention then convince them to buy.

The "getting attention" part is not as easy as some would have you believe. Sure, there are ways to drive massive amounts of traffic to your newsletter. Unfortunately, most are a waste of your time and money because they do not attract the right kind of subscribers.

This is a lesson learned well by Jeri Sires, owner of TowelBuddies (http://TowelBuddies.com).

Advertise Your Newsletter

Jeri took wise advice and advertised her newsletter on the TowelBuddies site. "I had a sign up on my site that said 'join our newsletter. Subscribers are automatically entered in our monthly drawing.'"

This worked - she got subscribers - thousands of them in a single month. Jeri was rolling in dough, right? Hardly.

Beware of Untargeted Subscribers

It turns out many of Jeri's new subscribers were only interested in the free sweepstakes. They had no interest in buying anything from Jeri or even reading her newsletter. In fact, most of them never even looked at her Web site.

Jeri explains: "When I sent the newsletter approximately ½ of my subscribers bounced and about 25% unsubbed. Come to find out, a couple of 'contest' web sites came across my giveaway and put a link to my newsletter sign up pop up window."

Identify Problems and Adjust

Like all successful marketers, Jeri recognized early that this was not working. She temporarily discontinued her newsletter and evaluated the situation. She decided to scale back and write the newsletter for her paying customers.

"I decided to nix the giveaway and start the newsletter back up. Now, instead of a lot of content I am making it just a 'sales' newsletter...I am getting much better results from it now."

Implement Persistently

Many times, folks have the false impression that successful marketers know "untold secrets" that allow them to magically get everything right the first time. Not so.

Occasionally, someone "hits the jackpot". For most of us, however, successful implementation comes only through persistent problem solving.

Take a cue from Jeri and don't give up...

Identify the basic problems, adjust your implementation, and try again. Do this with persistence and you will find success.
Marketing and Newsletter Implementation Tools

The List Machine - This package includes a list building how-to guide (complete with workbook exercises) plus a 5-piece toolbox. Everything you need to develop and implement your list building strategy.

List Building Tutorial - Learn basics of building your opt-in list with this interactive tutorial.

Marketing Plan and Promotions Guide (Shameless self promotion :-) ) - Plan and implement marketing strategies with this how-to guide.

About the Author
Bobette Kyle has more than a decade of experience in Corporate Marketing; Brand and Product Marketing; Field Marketing and Sales; and Management.

She is author of the Marketing Plan Guide "How Much For Just the Spider? Strategic Web Site Marketing for Small Budget Businesses", named one of the top 15 books of 2002 by NonFictionReviews.com. Read more about the guide here: (http://www.websitemarketingplan.com/book_information.htm)