One of the most cost effective marketing you can do for your organization is sending out an email newsletter. We’ve talked about the value of an email newsletter in our article, 8 Reasons to Create an e-Newsletter with Constant Contact. Now we’re going to go over some simple, easy ways to encourage people to sign up for your email newsletter.
1. Make it easy to sign up
Make it as simple and easy as possible to sign up. Don’t require that people enter in more information than is necessary. Name and email address should be enough. The more information you get is good, but people are less likely to take the time to sign up.
2. Let people know what they’re getting
Inform your customers what they get with your email newsletter. Make it sound helpful, inviting, simple and non-threatening.
- Coupons
- Helpful tips
- Industry news
- What’s New
If you are a small business and typically have close relationships with your customers, you can also add more of a personal flair by informing them of what’s going on with your company. New clients, new employees, awards, etc.
3. Create a signup form on your website
Adding a little signup box to your website is a very effective way to add people to your mailing list. It can be as big and obvious or as small and subtle as you want. It all just depends on how important it is that people sign up, and what other things on your website need to stand out as well.
One way to do it to put the form directly on every page. This is helpful because it requires less clicking for the user. And if you use something like Constant Contact, you can create it so that when they sign up they are automatically added to your list…no extra work on your part.
Examples of email sign up forms:
4. Offer incentives to sign up
Give your customers a coupon or small gift just for signing up! You will encourage people who are on the brink of signing up, and the gift can have some good promotional material in it as well.
5. Create a Join My List button on Facebook
If you use Constant Contact, and many people do, you can create a button on your Facebook page which lets people sign up for your email newsletter. It connects with Constant Contact, and is just another way to let users sign up!
See an example of how it works
6. Add a check box that lets users sign up from your Contact Us form
Similar to #3 where you are directly asking users to specifically sign up for your email newsletter, you can also add a field on your Contact Us form which is more subtle.
The point is to ask for users to sign up at every opportunity. This one is very helpful at getting good leads for your business since your customers are already taking the time to contact you.
7. Encourage existing subscribers to forward your newsletter to friends
Most programs such as Mail Chimp or Constant Contact let you create an easy to use “Forward this email” button on your newsletter. People love to forward emails (unfortunately) but in this case use it to your advantage.
Sending out an email newsletter really is one of the easiest and cost effective marketing tool you can incorporate. Use these 7 tips to build your mailing list and reap the benefits!
