Newsletters are your key to regular communication, and promotion, to your company’s prospects. Getting your information in front of them on a regular basis increases the odds they’ll turn to you when they have a need. It increases front of mind awareness. However, in order to profit from your opt-in list, it’s important to grow your subscribers. Here are just a few ways to get more newsletter subscribers:
#1 Post back issues on your website. This will help both with your search engine optimization and you’ll give potential subscribers a taste of what you have to offer. Don’t worry too much about people not signing up because they have access to back issues.  Most people want and appreciate the convenience of having content delivered to them instead of them having to go and look for it. Additionally, the timeliness of receiving content immediately rather than reading it three months after the fact holds tremendous value.
#2 Offer something really cool in exchange for subscribing. Free reports, online courses, audio and video products are all valued and will motivate prospects to subscribe. And if you’ve been offering something all along, freshen it up. Offer a new and improved product!
#3 Promote your newsletter in your email signature, forum and social networking signatures and profile pages and any other business communications. People are curious and will likely click through to check out your website and newsletter. Once there, your offer will be so compelling they won’t be able to resist signing up!
#4 Cross promote with other relevant businesses. For example if your niche is pet training, cross promoting your newsletter with a website with a pet food niche is perfect. They get the benefit of your website subscribers and vice versa.
#5 Offer coupons and promotions exclusively for newsletter subscribers. Everyone, particularly in the present economy, is looking for ways to save money. Couple that with the fact that people like to belong to exclusive groups. When you offer potential subscribers the opportunity to save money and receive exclusive coupons and promotions, it’ll motivate them to sign up.
#6 Test the location of your sign up form. Generally, sign up forms are located on the right hand side of a website, and always above the fold. However, it’s always important to test. A/B Split testing is the simplest way to test form location. Create two identical landing pages with your newsletter sign up form in two different locations. Test for a week, a month, or six months – test until you have enough data to draw a reasonable conclusion. Consider also testing your call to action.
Your newsletter can be a great business building asset. Make sure people know about it and boost your newsletter subscription rate by using one or more of these suggestions.