Hey 

Today’s article is about building readership for your
newsletter. I have seen several questions around the web about this topic
and I thought of sharing my experience. I am still learning this part of my business
as we started many of our newsletters back in fall of 2010. However, after
about 7 months, we have a total of 2,403 subscribers (counting all our
newsletters). I thought of sharing my experiences so far trying several
methods.

#1 The pop-up technique

There are plugins you can add to your Wordpress theme that
will enable you to create a pop-up for your newsletter. Basically, each time a
visitor hit your page, he will get a pop-up asking him to sign-up for the newsletter.
You can set the pop-up appearing to new visitors only (as long as people don’t
clean up their cookies ;-) ).

I have used this technique and it obviously works. When I
added the pop-up on The Financial Blogger, I saw a direct increase of
subscribers. However, this technique is very annoying for readers. Most
people are frustrated to see pop-up and they are not even reading what’s in the
box since they search for the “X” to close it. This is why I don’t use it
anymore. I rather keep my loyal readers like you!

#2 Using contest

Another technique I used was to give extra entries to
subscribers to my newsletter. I did it lately for TFB 4^th year
anniversary. I was giving 5 extra entries to my iPad contest. This was a way
to:

A) thank existing subscribers by giving them extra chances
to participate

B) gain more newsletter subscribers as those people wanted
more entries

This technique is good over the short term but you obviously
must deliver good content to your new subscribers. I have seen a peak in
subscription during that period but I have also seen more unsubscribed numbers
the following month. Some people obviously registered to the newsletter only to
enter in the iPad contest, that’s part of the game!

Since I am now concentrating my newsletter toward the
business side of my blog, people who are not interested in setting up online
business models will obviously quit my newsletter. On the other side, you are
better off with a specific newsletter with engaged readers than just a general
newsletter with people that don’t really read it anyway!

If I host another contest, I’ll surely include this
technique to get more readers.

#3 Make it visible on your home page

I’ve noticed overtime that one of the best ways to get more
readers is to be passive in your newsletter advertising. By writing good
content and making your newsletter subscription box visible on your homepage,
you will naturally gain more and more readership.

On each of my sites, I have posted my “newsletter box” on
the top right of my homepage. I want to make sure people see it and see that
it’s free.

#4 Describe your newsletter

I found that describing what you will be writing in your
newsletter not only manage your reader’s expectations but it also help you making
the difference between what you write on your blog and what will publish on
your newsletter.

This was (and still is sometimes) a challenge for me. I keep
wondering what to be included in my newsletter that is not to be included on my
blogs. I made the decision to go more specific with my newsletter (especially
with TFB’s). While I will keep writing about finance and my personal stuff on
my blog (along with my online business), I’m keeping more insider information
in my newsletter.

#5 Refer to a top post

My partner and I used different techniques to grow our
readership. He actually has more subscribers with his newsletter (over at  Intelligent Speculator) than I
have with The Financial Blogger. One technique he used and I didn’t was to
refer to his newsletter in some of his top articles.

He basically look into his Google Analytics, pick his top 10
most visited posts and added a mention about his newsletter at the bottom or
those articles. This is where he gets the most of his subscribers. This is
probably the best move you could do: adding a specific mention of your
newsletter at the bottom of your most visited articles!

A few warnings before you go…

Building a newsletter is a lot of fun as it is another media
to connect with your readers. What I like the most is that this list is
independent of my website and that it gives me the chance to talk with several
of my readers that reply to my newsletter.

However, one thing you must not do is to try to advertise
through your newsletter. I have notice that people are pretty allergic to
advertising. This is why I chose carefully products that I mention in my
newsletter and I only mention product that I like and that I use. Then, it
becomes more like an advice or an opinion than a advertising ;-).

For example, I currently use Aweber to manage my newsletters.
They have a great platform that enables your to manage several newsletters at
the same time along with creating “introduction articles” submitted according
to a schedule to new readers upon their subscription. You can also have
specific reports helping you managing your different lists. It’s not a free
service but it works very well ;-).

That’s it for today! If you have any other questions about
setting up a newsletter, shoot me an email!

Cheers,

Mike.