3 Innovative Ways To Build An Optin Email List That Stands Above
The Crowd
With so many optin email lists out there, your really need to
come up with a hook to attractive subscribers. It needs to have
something special or different. It could be something you offer
inside every newsletter issue, like interviews with experts. Or
the hook could be a unique incentive that website vistors can
take advantage of immediately when they sign up.
Here are 3 ideas you can use for your own sites, or use as
inspiration to get you thinking a little outside of the box:
-- Build an Optin Email List by Creating a Private Members Only
Site or Section --
Create a private web site and have people sign up to get free,
immediate access. For example, you could say, "Subscribe to our
free e-zine and get free access to our private membership web
site!" You can choose to have them receive a username and
password every time they want to login, or you can just provide
a link to the site in your welcome email.
Your private members only site can be as big or as small as you
want. Some of the things you can include inside are: reports,
software, articles, ebooks, etc. Inside the site, you can
advertise your affiliate programs, as well. And you can
follow-up to let them know about updates, new products they
might be interested in, the latest news in your industry, etc.
-- Build an Optin Email List By Giving Subscribers a Free,
Tangible Gift --
Instead of offering a free ebook (or a whole package of them)
like most everybody else, promise to give your visitors
something they can hold in their hands if they give you their
contact information.
For example, you could say "Subscribe today and get our new
report mailed to you via First Class." You could print out your
report on standard 8 x 11 sheets of paper, fold it up, put it
inside an envelope, and mail it off.
Or you can offer a tips booklet and mail it to new subscribers.
Or you can create your own CD full of information targeted
toward your market and mail that. Or if you have a wholesale
supply of a product of interest to your subscribers, then you
can send one to each new subscriber. The possibilities are only
limited by your imagination.
Follow-up possibilities include: articles (your own or written
by others), tips you pick up, news in your niche, reviews of
products or other interested, related websites, etc.
-- Build an Optin Email List Through a Contest or Sweepstakes --
Hold a free contest or sweepstakes at your website where they
must give their contact information, including their email
address, to enter. Make the prize something that your niche
market will be interested in. Otherwise, they'll never want to
enter.
If you already have an ezine up and running, you could offer
free automatic entry for new subscribers. For example, you could
say, "Subscribe to our free newsletter and get automatic entry
into our contest." You'll also want to retroactively include
current subscribers.
You can announce the winner(s) at the end, as well as send any
new contest announcements or product announcements. Or you can
make this an ongoing contest, where you give away the same thing
to one (or more) lucky people every month. That way you'll
entice many subscribers to stay on your list.
You can find niche products to give away through wholesalers or
dropshippers. Or you can create it yourself. One of my favorite
ways to do this is create a CD-Rom with a guide or report (or
sometimes several) that my niche market will find interesting.
Once again, you can follow-up with tips, articles, news, new
product announcements, or just an announcement of each monthly
winner(s).
Hopefully, now I've inspired you to take some action or
encouraged ideas of your own with these tips. Any idea, the more
popular it gets, requires you to think outside the box every now
and then in order to be effective. Building an optin email list
is no different. And with newsletters and ezines saturating the
Internet day by day, you need to offer something a little
different to make them want to sign up to yours. Or you'll just
end up getting left behind.