Now That You Have Subscribers, How Do You Keep Them?

By Dan J. Fry
Posted Tuesday, December 14, 2004

Your gleaming with pride. You just finished a very prosperous list building campaign utilizing a combination of classified and E-Zine ads that have landed 1000 new subscribers to your opt-in list. But slowly you pride subsides to fear. What do I do now? How do I keep these people on my list?

This is a very common problem faced by anyone who markets on the internet. Fear not. With a bit of guidance and hard work your pride turned to fear will revert to self-satisfaction. Here is what you need to do.

Content. Content. Content. Need I say it again? The only mechanism you need to ensure is in place is to deliver high content information to your list on a regular basis. Be sure that some people will unsubscribe simply because they were only interested in the free giveaway you offered to get them on the list. It's O.K.. You don't want them on your list. The people who remain are the ones that are clearly interested to hear what you say.

So, content is the key and so content they should get. Where do you find content. Well you can write your own articles. Yes, I said write them yourself. Think back about your business. What is it that you know? What about that successful ad campaign you just ran? How about offering them a short e-course on running ads? Spend some time tocome up with ideas and then sit down in a quite place and start writing. Don't grammar check or spell check anything yet. Simply write and let the ideas flow.

Afraid to write or just starting out in your business? There are many places online where you can find articles to publish at no cost to you. Many authors agree to distribute their work in exchange for exposure. Here are a few places to consider.

(1) The e-Kinetic E-Zine - listing of articles on home business ventures. (http://www.e-kinetic.com)
(2) ARA Content (http://www.aracontent.com)
(3) Free Content (http://www.certificate.net/wwio)
(4) The Idea Marketers (http://www.ideamarketers.com)
(5) Ezine Articles (http://ezinearticles.com)
(6) Ezine Hub (http://ezinehub.com)

Another excellent source for articles is newsgroups. I use this method of promotion for my own articles at least weekly. Go to Yahoo! and create an account for Yahoo! Groups. Once logged in simply go to the group category of your choosing. There are hundreds to thousands of submitted articles which you can reprint. Make sure to abide by the authors guidelines and resource box.

As long as you offer valid content most of your subscribers will stick with you. If you are just starting out I recommend you focus only on content in your newsletter for at least a few months. After this initial period you can begin advertising within the content. Take it slow at first. Above all else, do not allow your newsletter become a sales pitch. Trust me when I say that your subscribers have a keen sense of smell for this. So, what are you waiting for?! Get to the content!

About the Author
Dan J. Fry is an independent researcher and owner of e-Kinetic.com, a site devoted to providing resources for small budget home businesses. He has a PhD in Physics and is married with two daughters and two cats. Subscribe to his free E-Zine on home business resources at mailto:e-kinetic@GetResponse.com or by visiting his site at (http://www.e-kinetic.com). He can be reached at mailto:comp@e-kinetic.com.