Sign Up, Damnit! Leveraging your social channels to increase signups
You have a killer, custom-designed email template, segmentation & trigger strategies out the wazoo, mobile-optimized landing pages, and every other bell and whistle out there to produce a knock-em-dead email newsletter.
But you need subscribers.
It's more common a situation than you think, so before you go and contact that sleazy list broker to buy 100,000 "legitimate, qualified email addresses", why not turn to your existing fan base on social channels to build your list?
Each social network has advantages and features that you can leverage to promote your email list signup page. And by promoting your email newsletter effectively, you're telling your followers ever-so-subtlely that it's important for them to sign up. Here are some tips to promote your list on the major social networks, as well as within your newsletter itself:
Twitter:
- Put a link in your bio - Your profile already has a field for your website, so put a link to your signup page in your bio. When people visit your profile page or hover over your name, they'll see that you want them to sign up for your newsletter. It doesn't get more blatantly obvious than this!
- The "Don't miss out" tweet - About 20-30 minutes before your email newsletter is scheduled to be sent out, tweet a link to your signup form. Give your followers a sense of urgency that they're going to miss out (and those who are already on your list might RT it for you)
- The "... is out!" tweet - Studies show some of the most popular tweets for click-throughs have some form of the online newspaper paper.li's "[so-and-so] Daily is Out!" text in them. Why not piggyback on that success and tweet a link to your newsletter's web version after you send it?
WebSIGHT Weekly by Shovi Websites is out! bit.ly/w0dKS4 ▸ Top stories today via
— Shovi Websites (@shoviweb) August 14, 2012@shoviweb
Facebook:
- Signup tab - By using apps like Static HTML and others, you can create a customized buton on your facebook page with your signup form, so your fans don't have to leave your site.
- Previews & Sneak Peeks - Studies show a large percentage of facebook users like a page to get deals or exclusive content. So, give them a sneak peek of one of your newsletter's articles by posting it as a status update, or a photo. Then, link to your signup form at the end of the post.
- Put a link in the About field - Just like Twitter, you have a field for your website on your facebook page. But it doesn't appear unless a fan clicks onto your "About" tab. However, you can link to your signup form in the About text itself by typing the full URL (include the http:// part) and it will automatically hyperlink, and display on the page itself.
LinkedIn:
- Post, Post, Post - Unfortunately, LinkedIn's company pages are a bit limited in their functionality as of now, so keep posting links about your newsletter and to your signup form. And post to your groups (judiciously, don't spam!) since you're more likely to get like-minded people signing up.
- Product Spotlight - You can add the URL in your company profile blurb but it doesn't automatically link like on facebook & Twitter. So, consider a special Product Spotlight featuring your newsletter, which links straight to your signup page (or archive).
Email:
- Signature - Add the signup link to your personal email signature.
- In-Newsletter Signup Link - We covered this before, but if you're promoting social sharing and forward-to-friend activity within your newsletter, you'll want to give new people viewing it an easy way to sign up. What better way to do this than to link directly to your signup form from within the newsletter itself?
Google+:
- Add to your profile - (Do you see a trend yet?) Having a link to your signup form from within your Page or personal Profile will show that you are emphasizing the newsletter and encourage signups.
- Use the +1 button - Putting the +1 button on your signup page will allow you to share the page on Google+ and automatically share it with your circles.
Have we left any ideas off the lists above to help promote signups using your other social channels? Leave them in the comments below, and go get those subscribers!!
About the Author - Stephan Hovnanian owns Shovi Websites, a company that manages websites and email marketing campaigns for small businesses & non-profits. Connect with Stephan on Twitter, Google+ or LinkedIn.
