More Subscribers Through Pop-Up Windows And Joint Ventures

By Dan Grossman
Posted Monday, October 11, 2004

Pop-up windows are small windows which automatically appear when you visit or leave a website. You've probably seen one at some point as they are not very uncommon, and for a good reason.

Pop-up windows are effective! They get in your face, grab your attention, and require action just to get rid of them. They can't be ignored and scrolled over like a banner ad on your site. While they do annoy some, most webmasters agree that the results of an effective pop-up window outweigh a minor annoyance.

You can effectively use these pop-up windows to greatly increase the subscriber base of your newsletter. Pop-up windows are the perfect tool for generating new subscribers. When a surfer visits your site, or when they leave it, you hit them with a new window containing information about your newsletter and a form to subscribe.

What I really want to share with you in this article is maybe the single most effective way to build your newsletter's subscriber list at no cost: joint ventures and pop-up windows!

I just told you that pop-up windows are an effective tool for increasing your subscription rate. Think about how effective it would be to have your newsletter in pop-up windows on two sites? How about on 5? or 20? In exchange, your pop-up window would allow people to subscribe to the newsletters of all those other websites.

For an example of just what I mean, take a look at this sample page. It will pop up a window which allows you to sign up for various related newsletters. Each newsletter's publisher agreed to place this same pop-up window on their website so that all of the publishers could mutually benefit:

(http://www.websitegoodies.com/sample.html)

So how do you go about doing this same thing to increase YOUR newsletter subscription rate?

First thing you need to do is learn to create the pop-up window and be ready to handle subscriptions to multiple newsletters from just one form.

There are many places you can find the JavaScript necessary to create the pop-up window and many variations of the script. These are a few of my favorites:

Dynamic Drive's Browser Window Scripts: (http://www.dynamicdrive.com/dynamicindex8/index.html)

JavaScript Source:
(http://javascript.internet.com/)

You'll also need a script to handle the form. It will need to do more than the average subscription form, handling checkboxes for multiple newsletter subscriptions so that surfers can subscribe to as many or as few as they want. Here are two which will do what you need pretty easily:

Master Subscriber Pro by WillMaster ($35) (http://willmaster.com/master/subscriberpro/index.shtml)

Check Box Requester by WorksNet ($25) (http://www.worksnet.com/cbrmain.htm)

Once you purchase one of these solutions, write your own, or find a different one and set it up, you need to start finding other newsletter publishers to partner with.

Like link swapping or any other type of partnership, you'll have to write many emails to find people to participate in this with you. You want to build a group of newsletters which complement eachother -- they all focus on different aspects of a common topic.

You don't want more than one newsletter on the exact same topic and you don't want topics that are not related to eachother as a surfer at your website may not be interested in other topics at that time.

Once you find a couple publishers to do this with, have each insert the pop-up window on their site using JavaScript. Now, each surfer to any of the participating websites has the opportunity to subscribe to not only that one site's newsletter but all of the participating publishers' newsletters.

If done correctly, this method of generating new subscribers can quickly become your most effective.

About the Author
Dan Grossman runs WebSiteGoodies where you can find over 250 hand-picked resources, articles and tools for website owners! (http://www.websitegoodies.com)