If you want to grow your audience, then it is crucial to add a mailing list to your marketing arsenal. Mailing lists allow you to reach your audience more easily, with new product information and offers. This is a great way to turn cold leads into warm leads, and that is imperative if you plan on selling something.
The only challenge is that people don’t readily give out their contact details. They know that this is going to mean they receive marketing messages, and very often, that might be considered “spam”. So how can you persuade your visitors to change their mind and ease up on the resistance to share their name and email address?
What is an Incentive?
One way to get around this problem is by offering an incentive. That means providing some kind of free download in exchange for joining your mailing list, but you need to be careful with how you go about this.
For example, let’s say that you have a fitness brand, and you are trying to collect emails for your list. You might consider offering a free “report”, or a free ebook. People love getting free things, and if you tell them how your product can help them to lose weight, build muscle, or feel more energetic, and all that for free, then they will often make the decision that it is worth parting with their email address.
But there is a problem with this strategy. You might end up attracting the wrong kind of subscribers, the kind of subscriber who is just looking for some freebies, and who will not be interested in buying from you in future. Often these people will take the ebook and never read another email from you. They may even unsubscribe immediately after.
How to Attract the Right Kind of Subscriber!
It is your job to try to avoid letting that happen, so that you are attracting only the right kind of subscriber. But how do you do that?
One option is to make the “emails” themselves into the incentive. You can do this by creating an ezine, or a newsletter that provides real value. Your messages will have to be at a high standard, with top quality images and with a lot of unique content, which not only will encourage people to subscribe, but make them look forward to more of your messages.
You could let your subscribers know about special offers, discounts and more free gifts. That way, people who are signing up will have prior knowledge that you are selling something. You could also use frequent prize draws to keep people subscribed to your list.
Of course it is very important that you actually keep up your end of the bargain, and that means making sure that your communication with your subscribers is engaging and of high quality, so that your subscribers keep coming back for more, and also recommend your offerings to their friends and colleagues.
