Having a newsletter is a great way of keeping in touch with your visitors. It is also a great tool for developing a relationship of trust. Once your subscribers trust you, they are more likely to respond to your product recommendations and opinions. However, getting people to subscribe for a newsletter can be quite challenging. Nowadays, people are cautious to give away their e-mails because of spam, phishing and other fraudulent activities being carried out on the web. This article has some tips on how to get more people to signup for your newsletter:

Position of subscription form

Placing a subscription form on your webpages isn’t enough. You must learn how to place these forms strategically so that the maximum amount of visitors can be converted to loyal subscribers. You main page should have a big subscriber box. Ideally the form should be above-the-fold so that it gets maximum exposure. For your inner pages, place a smaller-sized version of your subscriber box in the side-bar or at the bottom of the article.

Don’t ask for too much information

It is easy to get tempted to play around with the subscription form. Many people get carried away and end up adding too many fields which is a mistake. It is better that you streamline the subscription process. In the beginning try to obtain the bare essentials like email and visitor’s name. Asking for too much information may turn away some of your visitors. Furthermore, once you have acquired your visitor’s email and name, you can always ask for more information in the subsequent emails.

Offer freebies

Most people are selfish and think in terms of “what’s in it for me”. Instead of criticizing such behavior, why not take advantage of it? Why not give away some freebies or an eBook in exchange for their email address? This is a powerful technique that is commonly used by experienced webmasters and online marketers. You can hire someone to write a short e-book guide or write it yourself. You can then tell your visitors that you are giving away freebies or free guide, and you will send it to them through email.

Offer access to private member’s area

This is basically a variation of the tactic mentioned above. Instead of freebies, you can give out a password to the members-only section of your site. Communicate to your visitors that you have a members section where you share your secret or hidden information. You can tell them that you are giving out free memberships to subscribers. For best results, add a time constraint. For example, say that it is only for a limited time. Most people view things that have exclusivity to them as valuable. This can increase your subscription rate substantially.

Ad swaps

This is a good strategy if you already have a big subscription list and want to expand it further. What you can do is contact other newsletter owners to drive traffic to your subscription form. It can either be your competitor or a website that is closely related to yours. The two of you can send promotional messages to each other’s email lists.

These are just a few things you can do to get more subscribers and make more money from your list? Do you have any ideas of your own? Feel free to share them in the comments section.