As usual, the good folks at Marketing Sherpa give us the insight we need about why we’re losing email subscribers …

You can’t do much about #5 – Situation Changed – but by making sure that you get #1 and #2 right … email relevant content with the right frequency, you’ll be taking care of unsubscribe reasons 3,4 and 6.

Where to start? In your own inbox. Ask yourself…

• Which emails do you always open and read?
• Which do you set aside for later?
• Which do you automatically delete or unsubscribe to?

Compare your email messages to the email you always open and read and this comparison should, if you’re honest and objective, give you a direction to pursue in improving your email campaigns as well as retaining and gaining new subscribers.

Oh, and it’s always a good idea to question and poll your subscribers on what they find most relevant, least and what they’d like to see that you aren’t offering.

I belong to a Yahoo Group that is focused on its member’s use of blogs as a business marketing and communications tool. A member asked the group for advice regarding the lack of success in getting sign-ups for her ezine (she’s averaging 1 sign-up/week). A subscription form is prominent on the upper left of her site and she incentivizes subscriptions by offering a free report (which she doesn’t name). These were my contribution to the topic thread. I think they’re pretty relevant for most bloggers and ezine publishers

1. I agree, with the earlier comment about placing the actual title of the free report on your sign up form. But also, be sure that the report is of interest to the majority of your desired audience. I subscribed myself just to find out that your report is … 33 Do’s & Don’ts for Your Next Presentation. I don’t do presentations so the report was a bit of a disappointment to me. I’m sure that this report resonates with a lot of people but since your site is presented as a personal development resource, your visitors might be more inclined to subscribe to your ezine if the report you provide focuses more obviously on that topic, e.g., your post on “The Top 7 Ways to Improve Your Self Esteem“. You might create 2 or 3 reports and test which one provides the best response. Run each report for a couple of weeks and see if any one in particular offers a superior result.
2. When I subscribed the email I received under your signature provided a link to your website but how about promoting your ezine – with a link to subscribe – in your signature line as well.
3. Create a separate subscription page that ‘sells’ your ezine. Use this page to talk about the content and how it will benefit subscribers and provide access to an archive or sample issues.
4. When you give speeches or training, develop a landing page — and promote it at the event — that encourages people to subscribe to your ezine as well as provides special product or service offers and/or ‘exclusive’ content. I do this for my clients on a routine basis and they will add from several to several dozen (and more depending upon the event size) subscribers to their ezine subscriber lists as a result.
5. Use the back of your business card to promote your ezine (and blog). Include a link to the subscribe page…
6. You incorporate all of the social bookmarking links (Digg, del.icio.us, etc.) in your blog posts. How about a tag line at the end of each post that provides a message along the lines of, “If you liked this post and want more depth, subscribe to my ezine (with a link).” I haven’t received your ezine yet but, if you aren’t, cross promote your blog in your ezine as well. I have several clients who provide links to their most recent blog posts to good effect.
7. Don’t forget your blog. Use Feedblitz to allow people to subscribe to your blog via email. This is another great way to generate names that you can use to cross promote your ezine and other services. You don’t provide an obvious way for people to subscribe to your blog via either RSS or email. I like Feedblitz because it’s easier to track who’s subscribed. As far as RSS goes, I’d recommend a service such as Feedburner which allows a visitor to subscribe using their favorite RSS service.
8. Finally, get more ‘juice’ from your free report. The header of your PDF report lists your website with the tag line, “Join EY Insider Community Today!” Great! But why not make that a live link to a page on your website that allows them to subscribe – in other words, give them an easy means to ‘Join Your Community’. And use the last page of your report to tout your business. You just end after tip #33. You’ve just spent 6 pages providing them valuable information. Now give them an opportunity to thank you by giving them the information – and access – they need to inquire about your products, services, ezine and blog. This is good stuff, assume that it’s going to be passed around. In fact, invite them to do so.
9. Finally, Part II, in looking at your site, you have a bunch of info (most prominently, Audios) that say, “Coming Soon”. Get rid of those. If it’s not available now, remove the reference. When it becomes available, promote its availability as an ‘event’ which you can use to generate fresh interest in your site.
10. Finally, as with everything else on the web, the better content you deliver the better results you’ll enjoy in increased subscribers, visitors and business.

Hope these help and good luck.

Regards,

Tom Gray
The Evolving Internet Marketer

A prospective client who’s interested in having me take over management of his electronic newsletter asked me if I’d talk to him about building his ezine subscriber list. I mean what’s the point of having a great newsletter if nobody’s reading it, right?

Here’s a few of the ideas I gave him…

1. Take a cue from print publishers and offer a premium for subscribing to your ezine. Maybe it’s an informative white paper, an introductory teleseminar for new subscribers, or a chock-full-of-great-ideas e-book. The point is, incent people in some way to sign-up for on-line newsletter.
2. Promote the cr*p out of it. Pardon my french but to mangle an old saying, “if an ezine is published on the internet and nobody knows about it does it make an impact?”
• If you speak or provide workshops or seminars, include a handout that combines your subscription info with the description of both the invaluable content they’ll receive with each issue but touting the insanely valuable premium they’ll get just for subscribing.
• In your email signature file add a blurb with a link that says something like, “Subscribe to my SuperDooper Ezine for valuable tips on widget fabrication and receive my award winning eBook on ‘Ten Things Your Mother Never Taught You about Widgets But You Need to Know’.”
• If you have a retail store include a sign-up form next to your cash register and train your staff to ask people if they want to sign up for this valuable tool.
• Prominently promote your ezine on every page of your web site. Include access to sample issues or invite them to browse your archive of past ezine issues.
3. Don’t use it as a glorified sales vehicle. Follow the 70/30 rule that says provide 70% valuable content for every 30% of self-promotion you include.
4. Go viral. Use a broadcast service that provides “Forward to a Friend/Colleague” type functionality. Oh, and don’t just ask them to forward it to one friend, suggest they forward it to 5 people. You’ll be surprised at how many people will do so.
5. Write killer content and publish it on a consistent schedule. Make it valuable. I know when one of my clients has hit a home run with their content because click-throughs go way up. Forwards boom and web site traffic (to the ezine archive) soars.Consistency means that if you’ve captured their interest you’ve also captured their trust by being regular and reliable. There are 2 local papers in my market. If I’m subscribed to one but they deliver sporadically while the other delivers daily – guess which one will get my subscription?
6. Bonus Tip: Consider co-promotion which means finding complementary ezines and swapping subsription links with them. If you provide sales training find a marketing guru and offer a link to subscribe to their electronic newsletter if they reciprocate. If you’re a restaurant in an entertainment district, work a deal with the community playhouse next door.

In other words, market and promote your ezine like you market and promote your products and services. And don’t forget #5. That’s the key. Good content, consistently presented will do wonders for your subscriber base. How do you know it’s good? Ask yourself: Would I subscribe to my ezine?

Whenever you broadcast an ezine or email promotion you will invariably get a 2-5% response consisting of “Out of Office”-type auto replies. You may be tempted to ignore these, particularly if you have several dozen or hundred to process. My advice; don’t. Assign a staffer or set aside some down time to do a quick review. You’ll find that while the majority of these replies are of the I’m on vacation or traveling on business variety, between 10-15% will be I’m no longer at this company, please contact ________ and/or my address has changed please use me@mynewemailaddress.com for future correspondence. Also take a quick peek in your spam folder to make sure that no responses got accidentally routed there. I found 2 from my last broadcast.