Email List Building
Every Opportunity
- feature a sign-up form on every page
- include links in email signatures
- make it easy to forward to a friend or colleague
- use in offline promotion - brochures, letterheads, packing slips, business cards, guarantee cards, invoices, posters, adverts, articles, press releases
- minimize the effort - you can always collect more details later
Get Attention
- don't hide or disguise the link
- consider a little non-looping animation
- use different color / images / fonts etc
- put the link / sign-up form in different places - people can easily filter out certain areas of a web page, particularly if it looks the same on every page
Create Desire
Keep in mind the six influence principles identified by Cialdini
- social proof - peer pressure - people just like them are signing up for the newsletter (testimonials are very powerful, especially when accompanied by photographs)
- familiarity / liking - establish common ground with your potential members
- reciprocity - give them something for free; the urge to reciprocate is powerful
- consistency - show how signing up is consistent with what they want to achieve
- authority - establish your expertise
- scarcity - highlight the unique benefits to be gained from signing up
Action
Make it easy to sign-up - most experts use a simple 2-field form requiring name and email address. On some sites, you will encounter a pop-up of some kind - you will have to judge whether such tactics are appropriate for your target audience.
The scarcity principle can often be used to encourage subscription - limited offers of information, expiring discounts etc.
Events and Launches
If you can create some form of
