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April 2002
Email Technique
How to Maximize the Ezine Signups on Your Website
Email marketing is a numbers game.
The more qualified and targeted people you have on your list, the more
chances you have to make money. When people find and visit your website you must
make every reasonable effort to get them to leave their email address
and give you permission to send future emails to them. This article is
specifically about maximizing the signups from people that don't know
you and happen to find your website in one way or the other. Future
articles will address many other ways to get Ezine subscribers. People visiting your website are
the highest quality subscriber you will ever have unless someone has met
you in person and signed up because they liked the information you had
to offer. Just because they like "you" doesn't make them a great
subscriber. A great subscriber is a person who was looking for your
information, found your website, fell in love with your information and
double opted in to your ezine list. The person who simply likes you may
never be a candidate to buy things so they aren't necessarily the
greatest subscribers. Here are the four major
things that I do to give me the greatest chance of capturing email
addresses without alienating my visitors.
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Sign up area is on every major
page of the website.
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Incentives to subscribe are
offered
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Pop up boxes are used
judiciously
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Privacy policy is available
SIGN UP AREAS
Many people don't realize that visitors can enter your website at any
page. They don't necessarily enter through your home page although the
home page in most cases does get the most traffic. A search engine may
send a person directly to any one of your sub pages if that page has
content that suits the web surfer.
If you don't have a prominent signup up area on that sub page, then the
surfer may never know that you have an email list. They may never see
your home page and will most likely leave without a trace. You have just
lost contact with someone that you worked hard to get to your site.
Three types of signup areas
If you visit
http://www.public-speaking.org you will see that I have a signup
area on every page of the site in a prominent area at the top left of
each page. People can sign up immediately on any page of the site.
If you click on the "more info" button you are taken to a page that has
. . . you guessed it . . . more info about "Great Speaking" Ezine. This
page is for the people that are less impulsive and who want to see more
about what they are getting in to if they sign up and what they can
expect to get.
I also have a plain text link in the left hand navigation area just
below the buttons.
INCENTIVES
It's a good idea to offer something of value free to people to entice
them to sign up. I offer two free reports which you can see on the "more
info" page. To fully automate the delivery of these reports, I have
included them as plain text emails that are delivered along with the
welcome letter by my list management company.
POP UP BOXES (more info
click here)
If you haven't been to
http://www.public-speaking.org in the last 30 days you will get a
pop up box promoting the ezine sign up when you enter the home page or
any of the article pages on the site. If you've been there within the
past 30 days the pop up box recognizes you and doesn't pop up. This is
if you have your cookies enabled. (cookies are a small file placed on
your computer by a website to recognize you when you return)
I feel that this is a "judicious" use of the pop up box. It's in your
face just a little and then disappears for a long time.
http://www.public-speaking.org
is a free site and if you are going to get upset with a very unobtrusive
pop up box, then you and I are unlikely to get along and I believe you
are unlikely to spend much money for what I have to offer.
Pop up boxes can dramatically increase the number of signups you get
from your website. You must, however, use them carefully. Click the
"more info" link above for a complete discussion.
PRIVACY POLICY
Although I've had one for a long time, I never used to think that this
was that big of a deal. . . probably because I'm pretty laid back and
don't spook easily. But I referred someone to some other site a couple
of weeks ago and they called me back refusing to accept my suggestion.
The reason: -- no privacy policy.
It's hard to tell how many other people feel the same way. It only takes
a little bit of work to formulate your policy and post it on your
website which will keep you from losing visitors and subscribers.
So look around at lots of other privacy policies and formulate one of
your own. I've got one at both
http://www.public-speaking.org/ezinesubscribe.htm and
http://www.antion.com/ezinesubscribe.htm The one at antion.com is
more extensive because it also covers ecommerce. Nothing is actually
sold at
http://www.public-speaking.org because it is a feeder site.
I'm not a lawyer and my privacy policies have not been reviewed by a
lawyer. I'm also not giving you legal advice. I'm just suggesting that
you have a policy and stick to it so that you don't alienate potential
subscribers. Take care of the
above four signup functions and watch your subscriber to visitor count
raise significantly
Upcoming
topics for this section:
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Email strategy
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HTML email
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Smart Email
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Plain Text Email
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Link tricks
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Getting subscribers fast
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Getting content fast
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How to make money with your zine
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How to gain clout with your zine
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How to maximize the signups on your website
Back to April 2002 Index page
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