So you have a whiz bang newsletter that you pour your heart and soul into and delivers content rich, client focused tidbits of gold. You’ve added everyone to the list including your not-so-internet-literate relatives and now you are staring at your homepage wondering just how to encourage a website visitor that doesn’t know a thing about you to drop their email address off on your site.
I am NOT going to cover the pitch – “the benefits and reasons why one MUST subscribe to this newsletter.” I am going to discuss the MECHANICS that have proven to work in getting visitors to sign up. I am assuming that you have your addictive newsletter content worked out… that you know your client and know exactly what kind of information they want to receive in a newsletter (ok, I know that’s a big assumption, call me and we’ll talk).
Let’s take a look at a successful approach to generating subscribers:
I have worked with Andrea Novakowski (personal & executive coach) for over 7 years now and we have learned quite a bit about email newsletters. Recently she passed the 500 subscriber mark, giving us the notion that this approach works.
Do this: go to coachandrea.com to see the implementation of the following 6 steps:
- Homepage: encourage visitors to click to READ your LATEST newsletter right here – See the “Read our Tip of the Week” button? It works. Don’t put the signup right on the homepage. Website visitors want to know what they are getting into before committing their email address to you. In fact, go ahead and add some text next to this button that “sells/describes” the newsletter (we have an ongoing discussion on perfecting this language)
- Tip of the Week page: Guess what? This is Andrea’s most popular page after her homepage. Make sure you have the email subscription box proximate to the current newsletter.
- Archive your old newsletters and provide an Archives link proximate to your current newsletter. Archives give you greater credibility.
- If you have a testimonial or two about your newsletter, include it proximate to your current newsletter.
- Add a link to a Privacy Policy page. Check out Andrea’s Privacy Policy.
- Add your signup form, a short newsletter description, and link to the current newsletter on other subpages. See the Privacy Policy page above.
Think about the approach as relationship building. Let’s say I hear of your business, find you, and start formulating an opinion of your business as soon as I visit your homepage. Do I give you my email address without so much as a peek inside your website? Not likely. Imagine a brand new visitor gazing at your homepage. Here’s what they might be thinking:
“Hmm… ‘Read our Latest Newsletter’. Well, newsletters are great insights into businesses since they cover current activities… so I’ll bite and click into the news. A quick read and oh, yes the newsletter is great stuff! I might subscribe… still cautious. A Privacy Policy… that helps. A testimonial on the usefulness of the newsletter – wow, people seem to love it. Archives… impressive… look at all this content! This is serious. Hmm well I’m a skeptic but, what the heck, I can always unsubscribe right?”
Follow these steps and watch your subscriber list grow!
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