A few lessons from this program
Here’s some of what I learned about growing a mailing list:
Understand why: Most people don’t understand the power of email marketing so they don’t make growing their list a priority. If you have a good mailing list, you can ensure that you’ll reach your audience–if you don’t, you never know if a user liked your site but never came because because he forgot about it.
I don’t even see it! One reason that users don’t join mailing lists is that they don’t even see where the registration process is. During our interview, Justin and I went hunting for the email registration form on a company’s web site and we couldn’t find it.
“Why should I?” Most people don’t say, “I want more email.” They say, “why should I register?” So you have to give them an incentive to join your list. When Justin looked at my site, he said I didn’t give people enough of an incentive to register and suggested I offer special interviews just to people who register.
Location, location, location: Justin told me that one thing successful list growers do is put their registration processes in multiple locations.
Do you know any other ways to grow a mailing list?