Creating and building your mailing list of subscribers is a vitally important part of successfully marketing and growing your business. Your Vitality Advocates is designed to help you grow your list and stay connected to your followers. We’ll look at several simple ways to encourage your visitors and customers to “opt-in” and add themselves to your mailing list.
The most effective strategy for building mailing lists involves creating a number of locations where you can present an opportunity to ask your visitors to opt-in. The more locations you have, the better chances you have of getting their permission and growing your list. We’ll discuss these various locations and how to use them in this article.
Before we start you need to know that there are certain rules that apply to legally creating a mailing list on the internet. “Spam” is the term that is used when someone breaks those rules and sends out newsletters or emails without permission. It’s actually a criminal offense so we must take this seriously. Most email software and internet hosts such as Comcast, AOL, Yahoo, etc. have filters to try to help minimize the thousands of spam communications sent out every day.
Unfortunately, you can’t just make a list with all your contacts in your address book, even though you know these people. We need to ask our visitors, contacts and customers for their “permission” to add them to a mailing list. They must affirmatively agree to this “option”. This is called “opting-in”.
Here are our top recommendations:
1. Creating a Home for Your List
The very first step in building a mailing list is determining where you want this list to be housed. There are many software contact management solutions that you may be familiar with like MailChimp, Constant Contact, etc. Your Vitality Advocates page is designed to integrate with MailChimp because we feel it is the best, however, if you already use another contact management tool these techniques described below will work just fine with that one, too. If you have not already set up your free MailChimp account, here’s the instructions.
2. Content, Content, Content…
The next most important part of a healthy mailing list is content. There’s really not much value in having a mailing list if you don’t have a meaningful message to send. So providing something of interest, whether it’s a news article, contest, sales promotion, event, updates, etc. is a critical part of effectively using mailing lists.
3. Tools on Your Website
We have incorporated a number of tools placed throughout your website to encourage visitors to join your mailing list:
Contact Form – A visitor clicking this link is offered a form in order to communicate directly with you. Our Pro-Business and above level pages include an integration with MailChimp so you can add a check box to this form to allow visitors to opt-in. If they do, their contact information will automatically be added to your MailChimp mailing list.
Syndicated Content – Your membership includes a subscription to syndicate news and research articles from Vitality Publications. These articles can be integrated on your member page and included in your newsletters. At the bottom of each article on Vitality Publications is an opportunity for you to copy the article to your page and share on your own social media pages. This feature can be used to attract visitors to your Vitality Advocates page and join your free newsletter by adding a link to your MailChimp sign-up form. Once again, clicking the link presents a contact form which is automatically loaded onto your MailChimp mailing list.
Heads-Up Bar – Our Vitality Advocates member pages have a Heads-Up Bar feature which appears at the top of your homepage and other pages. This can be easily customized to invite visitors to receive your free newsletter by clicking a link. This link opens the contact form which is automatically loaded into your MailChimp mailing list.
emoVite – emoVite, our exclusive emotional vitality tool offers your visitors an opportunity to recieve instant insights into their emotional health and well-being and a chance to opt-in to your newsletter. Visitors provide their first name and email contact prior to participating in your sponsored survey. When you respond to the participant, this is a good opportunity to add your invitation to your newsletter and provide an opt-in MailChimp sign-up link.
4. Emails
We all send dozens of emails each week. Every time you send out an email or reply to an email, it’s another opportunity to offer a chance to join your newsletter. It’s simple to add an opt-in sentence like: “Click Here to Receive My Newsletter” at the bottom of your email below your signature. This can be a permanent part of your footer. Hyperlinking that sentence would take them to your contact form which automatically loads to your MailChimp account (or other contact management host).
5. Events and Webinar Invitations
Creating and publicizing events is a great way to offer visitors the opt-in opportunity. Our member pages are integrated with Eventbrite, so you can easily create and promote your classes. As part of the information on the event, you can add an invitation to be added to your mailing list. Even if they can’t make the event, some visitors might decide to join your mailing list. Of course everyone attending the event should be encouraged to join your mailing list.
6. Contests and Giveaways
Contests and giveaways are a great way to encourage visitors to join your mailing list. As visitors register for your contest drawing, you can offer them to opt-in to your newsletter at the same time. Just place the opt-in link at the bottom of your offering
7. Social Media
You can add a sign-up app on your social media sites. Also, every time you post a comment on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc., you have an opportunity to add an invitation to join your newsletter. Don’t let those opportunities slip by. Just add the same opt-in link at the end of your post.
If you incorporate a consistent planned approach that includes ALL of these methods, and provide your subscribers with good, relevant, content, you’ll be growing your mailing list and, most importantly, your business in no time!
Click Here to receive our newsletter with more tips on growing your business.
Published in Instructions, NewsTags: emoVite Eventbrite Lead Capture MailChimp Mailing List Newsletters
