Undoubtedly you’ve heard me say to you before that it costs businesses a lot more money to find new customers than it does to keep the ones you have. That’s why keeping the customers you’ve worked so hard to find is so crucial for business success.
The most cost effective way to do this is via an online newsletter. And the more subscribers you can get, the more likely you are to make sales. The more sales you make, the more money goes directly into your pocket. See the upside of getting a significant amount of newsletter subscribers?
Everybody wants to know how to get more newsletter subscribers. You could pay a marketing company a boat-load of money to supply you with hundreds of leads for you or you could enact the following seven absolutely free ways to get a lot more subscribers!
First things first…tell me right now where your newsletter sign-up box is on your web pages?
Smart online marketers will tell me it’s on their homepage. And while it’s important that it’s there, it’s also important that it’s not the ONLY place it is. If so you need to add it to more of your web pages. I’ll tell you why…think about the last time you searched for something through a web browser. Did the list of results take you to each websites home page? No! Depending on what web surfers are searching for, they may find out about you on your product page, a past newsletter issue, your contact page or any other page on your website and never even see your home page. That’s why it is so important to add a newsletter sign-up box to EVERY webpage you have.
While you’re adding sign-up boxes be sure to put them “above the fold.” By this term I mean put them at the top of your webpages or along the side, above the point in your content where the reader needs to scroll down to read more. Not every visitor reads all of the content from start to finish. Keeping the sign-up box at or near the top of the page reminds readers that they can easily get more information from you that they find interesting.
A third way to get more newsletter subscribers is to put a link that makes it easy for your subscribers to share your content with their friends and family. You want your subscribers to share your content with as many people as they can. It’s like giving your business the stamp of approval. Nothing is better than a recommendation of your business from a source they trust. So make it easy for your readers to send it to whomever they choose. Include a Forward to a Friend link on each newsletter you send out.
You should also put sign-up boxes on all of your past, archived newsletters. If these issues have been keyword tagged and set up properly they are bound to be spidered by the search engines. When readers search for your keywords and read your content you want to remind them that they can get more great information for free from you by giving you their email address.
Whenever someone buys something from you make sure to collect their email address. Just because someone bought from you once doesn’t mean that they will continue to come back to you whenever they need something you offer. Include with their purchase a subscription to your newsletter so your business continues to stay at the forefront of their minds. This way they will come back to you for future purchases!
Not every visitor you get to your webpage will buy something from you. But they still may really like your content and message. When a visitor begins to navigate away from your site have an exit page pop-up that asks if they’d like to receive more content from you. Just be sure to add cookies so that visitors who frequent your site don’t get that message every time they click on one of your pages. That will have the opposite affect and drive away traffic!
A sure-fire way to get someone to give you their email address is to offer them something for free. People like free stuff. Offer them a free video on how to do something or a report on a related topic or a coupon valid for a future purchase. It doesn’t have to be something substantial it just needs to be FREE! Whatever it is just make sure it’s downloadable so you have a reason to ask for their email address.
Always make sure that your sign-up boxes are prominent enough that people know what they are. Put a title on it to help identify. And include a brief statement of what benefit they’ll get from signing up for your newsletter.
Good luck!
