Every Monday, it’s a marketing topic. It’s fun and keeps me on my toes. Have a recommendation for me? Let me know!
I got an interesting link from my friend Carl on Twitter. It was titled “Three Ways To Capture Skiers’ Email Addresses”. First I thought, how oddly specific. But then I read it.
People these days get a lot of spam over email so it’s harder to get people to give their email address initially. I am the same way about giving mine out; unless a company promises me something cool and free, I pretend I don’t have one.
It just so happened that today, I was sending out my monthly newsletter which I am realizing now I do a sort of crappy job of promoting up until now. No more though!
If you have an email newsletter you are itching to promote, here are a few ways to increase your subscriptions:
- Allow people to opt-in when they are filling out an online form (like your contact form) or buying something from your online shopping cart.
- Have your sign up on every page of your website (remember, not everyone comes in on the homepage in the days of search engines!)
- Do a giveaway. One of my clients gives a $50 gift certificate to one of his social media or email subscribers every month via random drawing. It has proven very popular.
- Spell out exactly what people will get when they subscribe. The ski article has some great examples of what you can write to get people interested in signing up.
- Update social networks not just after you send but before. I put out to my social networks that I’m sending out my monthly email at a certain time. I usually get at least one or two more subscribers before it goes out.
- Have the archives on your site so people can see what your emails are like.
- Write a good email newsletter so people will forward it on. (You can even ask people to forward it to a friend or share it online if they like it. Doesn’t hurt to ask!)
I use MailChimp to do my email marketing because sends are free for lists of up to 1,000 people and their templates are really easy to customize. (Note: I don’t get paid anything to say this.)
But whether you market ski resorts or your small business, email marketing is a good way to do it and we could all stand to do it better, myself included!