Insight Marketing tips to grow your newsletter list

Before you pay anyone for a “list” of potential newsletter subscribers, you should absolutely attempt to capture these names directly. Why not? It’s free, and you know that purchased list will cost you a bundle in cash, time, and credibility once the spambots are linked back to you.

If you build it, they will come.

This doesn’t apply to fields of dreams, but also to great subscription lists filled with names and emails that are specifically applicable to your business.

The most effective way obtain a good list is to build it yourself. And it all starts with good content. If you build it, they will come. Here’s how:

Quick, Easy Tips to Grow Subscriber Lists

1. Practical, useful, original content. You will never collect email addresses just because you provide a newsletter “free of charge.” You must first provide content worthy of their time, giving readers a reason to click, stay, and subscribe. Provide unique and valuable information first and foremost.

2. Make it easy. Add a subscription form to every page of your website, and make it easy to find. Place in the same spot on every page, clearly identified. Request minimal information: the more details you ask for, the less likely you are to capture the email address.

3. Provide a sample newsletter. Future subscribers should be able to review your newsletter before they sign up. The free sample to a free newsletter is necessary to secure capturing the email address.

4. Archive past newsletters. Archive past newsletters to build credibility as an authority in your field, while providing readers access to past information. In addition, articles with good SEO techniques can provide additional web traffic.

5. Network with publishers. Publishers of newsletters and/or print articles can provide valuable links, content, and subscribers to your own publication. This is an absolute win-win, with both of you will build your lists faster.

6. Give away opt-in bonuses. Create an opt-in bonus in return for subscribing. An ebook or PDF report, webinar, podcast, or downloadable or web-based software are great options to entice new subscribers, and builds credibility as well. Do not limit opt-ins to new subscribers; if you systematically pass on various freebies, subscribers are unlikely to leave.

7. Ask readers to share. Word of mouth is viral. If a subscriber finds your content to be informative, they will pass your newsletter to friends. This can be a good source of new subscribers.

8. Blog consistently. Blogging creates great dialogue with potential customers, and creates nice synergy with email marketing. Be sure to include a newsletter sign-up form on each blog page.

9. Comment. Post valuable comments on related blogs. In most cases, comments are posted with a link back to your site. This is an easy way to generate new traffic and subscribers.

10. Allow reprints. Websites and publishers actively look for high-quality content. Share yours, as long as it’s not modified in any way. With each reprint, your audience and exposure grows leading to new subscribers, traffic and links.

11. Include “Sign Up” button. Use a button or link within your newsletter providing a text link to your subscription page. Readers will forward newsletters to others, or share online, and the “sign-up” button or link will give others an immediate manner to opt-in.

12. Add a squeeze page. A squeeze page is a mini-sales letter for your newsletter or opt-in bonus, directly building your list. Use a powerful headline and valuable benefits to tease subscribers to sign up. Once created, a service such as WordTracker can find hundreds of targeted keywords, and then you can utilize pay-per-click from Google, MSN and Yahoo.

13. Testimonials mandatory. Put strong testimonials on your squeeze page in any format, video is most believable. To increase credibility, include full names, locations and/or live urls.

14. Establish a Privacy Policy. Let readers know without doubt you will never share their contact information. Establish a Privacy Policy web page, and provide a link to that page below every opt-in form.

The days of paying a huge monthly cable bill for a pre-packaged bundle of shows you don’t watch may soon be over, and just about everybody realizes it except for the cable companies.

Consumers no longer need to be at the mercy of cable companies, paying for stations and programming they don’t watch. It’s time for cable companies to realize that their business model has been rendered obsolete by a company that is renown for putting the entertainment industry on its head; Apple.

With the iPad, Apple may soon revolutionize how TV is delivered, much like it did with the music industry. Apple is promoting content through its iPad bookstore where publishers can use it as storefront to deliver content. This approach is similar to Amazon’s Kindle, but goes far beyond Kindle’s limited scope as a single use tool for reading. Through the iPad, consumers will not only be able to download books, but also movies and TV programming.

Cable companies are no longer the only source of on-demand content, as in years past. With the advent high-speed wireless delivery, consumers can find the programming they want, when they want it, through a variety of VOD (video on demand) services. The Wall Street Journal reports Hulu, YouTube, iTunes, are just some options consumers are navigating. Netflix is staying abreast of the changing dynamic of content delivery. They changed the video rental business by not adopting a bricks and mortar business model to compete with Blockbuster, which is close to becoming bankrupt, but instead incorporating a low-cost, convenient mail/internet process.  Interestingly, Netflix is also moving away from physical delivery of DVDs by mail to streaming movies and video directly to game consoles and devices, bypassing cable boxes entirely. In addition, the video provided includes a depth of content (director interviews, plot analyses, criticism, reviews) not available through cable access.

The issue isn’t content, but delivery. The days of must-buy bundles delivered by cable companies is on the wane. Victim of the new kid on the block iPad, whose flexible, portable, interactive access to broadband web, provides a far richer experience. The Harvard Business Review notes the iPad and a good internet connection is all the consumer needs for their entertainment.

Can the cable companies reinvent their business model and remain relevant to in this dynamic industry? Or are they doomed to go the way of music industry, where fans took advantage to purchase — or steal — one hit single off an otherwise mediocre album. Why buy the whole package when you can get only what you want, when you want it?

JetBlue is getting very, very friendly!

JetBlue, long considered the social media maven with nearly 1.5 million followers on Twitter…but what’s this? A measly 60k on Facebook??? This can’t be! So what’s the popular airline kid to do when they have no friends?

Easy, bribe them!

JetBlue is doing just so, and dang it, everyone is wishing they did it first, but will undoubtedly follow suit. Sooner rather than later, but we, the wannabes frantically friending JetBlue will end up the winners regardless.

Here’s the deal: JetBlue Facebook wants more friends, and to get them, they’re offering a carefully engineered campaign to add more – a lot more, quickly and with as much PR as possible.

A fan focused campaign, named buffet-style All-You-Can-Jet Fan Sweepstakes thrives on the age old gimmick of FREE STUFF. What’s old is new again!

Become a facebook fan and you can win free round-trip tickets, comped airfaire and a vacation for you and — get this — three friends for 5 days and 4 nights. Or, the grand prize of unlimited free travel on JetBlue for a year. A YEAR!

Simple and easy: a marketing dream come true. Become a fan of JetBlue and submit a ballot via the JetBlue Sweeps Page tab (read more).

JetBlue gets the friends they’re looking for, and we get the chance to dream a little dream of traveling on someone else’s dime.

Hey, that’s what friends are for, right? (Up to 73k at this posting…and counting!)

Recently, I read an article that appeared in the New Yorker Magazine. It discussed how two well-known cereal companies, Kellogg’s and Post, dealt with the economic depression in the late 1920s. At the time, ready-to-eat cereals were relatively new and Americans didn’t view them as a real alternative to oatmeal or cream of wheat.

When the Depression hit, Post did what most companies do, reined in expenses, cut back on research and development and cut its advertising budget. But Kellogg’s did the opposite, it doubled its ad budget, moved aggressively into radio advertising, and heavily pushed its new cereal, Rice Krispies. Even when the economy cratered in the early 1930s, Kellogg’s profits rose 30% and used that momentum to go on and become the industry’s dominant cereal company.

Research has shown time and time again that companies that continue to spend on acquisition, advertising, and research and development during economic downturns do significantly better when the economy turns around.

You can read more about Kellogg’s in my book: “Branding Insights for Small Business” available on Amazon.com.

To read the complete article, click here. Special thanks to Gary Carr, an excellent media rep at Hanley Wood, for forwarding the article link to me.

Just do it.

Quality is job #1.

We try harder.

Healthy fast food.

It is entirely possible to “own” a phrase or a word in the mind of consumers. The above examples prove that – and it’s not just an option for big companies.

If you the phrase you choose describes what your brand stands for or cuts through to your brand’s core values, you can own that phrase. Being able to achieve “phrase ownership” is a quick way to communicate an idea to your customers.

Think about Burger King, they owned, “Have it your way.” Which, in essence sent the message to consumers that if they went to McDonald’s they couldn’t be sure if they could order their Big Mac with no pickles.

With Burger King, you told them what you wanted and they would  make it.

That one small difference was the reason their marketing campaign was very successful. They focused on the one thing they knew they could do better than McDonald’s, developed a phrase for it and delivered on their promise.

Your brand must evolve.

Apple still has tremendous market share and even though you might hear about a bunch of new, start-up companies making computers but, no matter what, they just can’t seem to measure up to Apple.

If you’re first-to-market with a product, obviously you have an advantage, but that only lasts so long. After that, it’s how you maintain and execute within that market space. You can’t rest on your laurels.

For example, Xerox, came out with the first copier – they had a 14 year head start with no competition – but, eventually other companies came along with better technology. Xerox just seemed to sit on what they had done in the past and now they want to evolve as a document imaging company, but really they’re not anywhere new.

Going back to Apple, they came out as one of the first personal computers, but then they lost it for awhile, but when Apple made their brand come back, the brand had evolved to include the iPod. They led their come back not with a new personal computer, but something totally new – which ironically is now helping the sales of their personal computers.