Guest Author - Pamela Blackmon


Building a good quality subscriber list takes time and creativity. Here are just 7 inexpensive ways to capture names and email addresses of potential clients interested in your products and services:

1. Your email signature. Adding a line to your email signature is a great way to publicize your newsletter. In fact, everyone in your company or organization who deals with the public should include a similar line linking back to your website for newsletter signup.

Here’s a sample:

John Doe
ABC Company
123 Main Street
Anywhere, Any State
(555) 123-4567
John@abccompany.com
Sign up for our monthly newsletter here.

You can jazz it up by saying something like “Want the latest tips or news for fill-in-the-blank industry? Sign up for our free monthly(or weekly, etc.) newsletter here.

2. Your invoices/Correspondence. Insert a statement in your invoices or on your receipts offering free newsletter sign-up at your website. Some companies require their technicians or service people to ask for email addresses when completing service calls.

3. Your website. A newsletter sign-up box should be on every page of your website. Make sign-up as quick and easy as possible since readers don’t want to complete long forms, even if most of the information is optional. Consider offering a sample newsletter so that your subscribers know what to expect. Also, state the frequency of the newsletter and offer both html and text format since some readers don’t want or can’t accommodate the fancy bells and whistles of colors and pictures because of older computer systems.

4. Contests. Offering a contest is a great way to boost your subscription rates. Participants can win one entry into the contest by giving their name and perhaps some demographic information about themselves. Some contests allow entrants to gain additional entries by listing the email addresses of friends that your company can then contact and offer them an entry in exchange for their email address. You’ll want to give them the option of signing up for just the contest or the contest and the newsletter.

Sponsoring an internal contest among employees is also a good way to grow your list. The employee with the highest number of sign-ups could get a day off or a gift certificate or other item.

Another option is to pay employees a small fee for every customer email address they collect, particularly if you employ low-wage workers.

5. Offer a freebie. This great incentive can be an e-book, a report, article, discount coupon—really anything that your potential subscribers will find valuable. One of the best incentives I received was a cool list of Microsoft Word shortcuts, many of which I already knew. However, the ones I learned made navigating documents even faster and easier.

6. Trade shows and conventions. Once the conference is over, simply send a promotional email to the people whose business cards you collected offering them a chance to sign up for your newsletter. If they do, great. If they don’t, great. Remember you only want to send your ezine to people who want to receive it.

7. Post a sign-up book. If you have a bricks and mortar business, put a newsletter sign-up book or sheet at your front counter. You can also train your employees to ask customers if they’d like to sign up to receive money-saving offers, etc. and encourage them to sign the book or sheet.