Your Subscriber List
Growing Your Subscriber List
By Bob McElwain
Note: Bob McElwain ran his highly successful Sites Tips and Tricks website for many years. When he closed the site to pursue other activities, he granted permission to reprint his articles. Some are very outdated now, but there are so many gems of knowledge that we decided to publish the enitre series on Smart Web Center, just as they were originally published.
I found two great resources that deal with this topic.
One is an older article by Greg Schliesmann entitled, “Building Your Ezine.” [This link no longer works]
(http://www.jvmarketer.com/ezine/building.html )
If you are serious about growing your list, this is a must read.
The second is an excellent tutorial by Dr. Mani Sivasubramanian available at eBoz.Com. As above, check this out for loads of good ideas.
What follows is my personal approach to this important task.
What Is A Subscriber Worth To You?
Probably more than you think. Consider the time you put into preparing your newsletter. Factor in the mailing costs. (They will be modest to zero while getting started, but they increase with the size of your list.)
While subscribers to your ezine will not necessarily become a customer, your hope is they will turn to your product or service should they find a need for it. As long as they continue listening to you, they remain great prospects who may step forward at any time and buy.
There is another value to be considered: Advertising. The more subscribers you have, the greater the advertising revenue.
Each individual will need to work things out for themselves, but many successful webmasters are willing to pay as much as $3 - $5 for a subscriber. If you are new to publishing an ezine, this may sound too high. But you need to be thinking of a number that works for you even if you are just starting out. For the sake of argument, call it one dollar per subscriber. Use this factor as follows.
How much time does it take to accomplish a given task designed to bring in new subscribers? Now estimate the number you expect to bring in, times a buck apiece. Factor in an hourly value for your time. Use this approach in each of the following to decide if it’s worth doing.
Announcing Your New Ezine
Press Releases Can Work Wonders
Get Listed In Lists
Subscribe To Newsletters
Hard Work That Pays Off Double
Announcing Your New Ezine
Internet Scout New-List at will publish an announcement of your ezine at no charge. (You can find New-List in the nav bar on the left of the page.) I gave this a shot when I began “STAT News.” My count showed it generated 15 new subscribers. Since it takes me a lot of time to prepare a good announcement, this did not work out well for me.
Greg reported 350 new subscribers from his release. It may be as simple as the fact that he is a better copywriter than I am. . Check the original article to see how Greg handled it. It may work for you. Remember, 350 subscribers at a buck a piece is $350.
Press Releases Can Work Wonders
I have not tried a mass mailing of a press release, for I sense it just won’t pay off for me. With so many “big” items to talk about, the announcement of a new ezine about marketing and promotion is not likely to be the talk of the town.
On the other hand, if your ezine is unique in some special way, give thought to mass mailing a press release. Anything new or unusual is news. Given a good press release, returns can be very significant.
Get Listed In Lists
Below is a set of ezine lists. I’m confident it will be worth your time to get listed in each. It took me less than three hours to submit to all of them. And since I used an email address for subscription not used elsewhere, I have an accurate count of new subscribers from these lists. It amounts to about 12/month over the last two months, which suggests 144 for the year. At a buck per subscriber, and more expected next year, I feel this is time well spent. Note this list is a combination of those offered by both Greg and the tutorial at eBoz.Com. The links are up to date as of 11/03/99, the day I submitted.
Before beginning to submit, build a great short description and a longer one, much as you would need when submitting to a directory. In the longer description, write so that the last sentence or two can be deleted without great harm. Speak to reader benefits.
You also need to prepare a set of keywords. Not all want them but many do. If you accept articles, be prepared to give guidelines. If you accept advertising, have your rates handy.
While it took about five minutes to fill out the forms at each site, a couple took much more as noted below.
“Directory of Ezines” is big time. They charge $39/year for access and I sense it’s worth it, for it seems to be the most up to date directory around. It also took some time, about fifteen minutes. Keep track of your account number and password so you can go back and update such things as the number of subscribers and advertising rates.
“InfoJump” has a very complex form. It took me about 25 minutes to complete it. If you’re short of time, you might want to pass on this one. Note this is a great source for articles for your ezine.
“Liszt” is a biggie, but I gave up on it. They apparently want subscription information specific to a particular mailing service. Mine was not listed and I couldn’t figure a way to get it in.
Directory of Ezines
EzineSeek As with a directory, pick a category then submit.
E-Zines Today Requires email submission, but read the guidelines here.
eZINESearch A major player; treat with care.
Info Jump Complex form.
Inkpot’s Zine Scene
Internet Mailing List Navigator
John Labovitz’s e-zine-list
ListCity
Liszt
Low Bandwidth Funky, may not have your category.
New Journal Digest
Publicly Accessible Mailing Lists
Zinew0rld
Subscribe To Newsletters
The next step, and a very important one, is to go back to the above list and find all ezines with a target similar to yours. Subscribe to each, even if the number seems overwhelming. Hang in with each just as long as possible.
Prior to beginning “STAT News,” I subscribed to over a hundred ezines. Trying to get through them nearly drove me crazy, but I learned a good deal. And one by one, I unsubscribed. Here’s what you are looking for.
Ideas you can use in your own newsletter. More important, reading will trigger original ideas of your own. Maybe something new. Or a fresh view of something old.
Articles written by others that you like. Get permission from the author and reprint them in your newsletter. A good plan is to hold current articles for a couple of months to avoid the problem of the same article being printed several places at the same time.
A feel for the kinds of advertisers who may like what you offer. See how each ezine handles different types of ads and note those you feel are most effective. If advertising rates are not published, ask for them. You can learn what to charge your advertisers.
Neat tricks being used to bring in new subscribers. You will want to use every idea you can find and generate your own as well.
A feeling for the kind of material accepted by each ezine. While it is generally not practical to write for a single ezine, you can find common ground between several of them. As you write for your own ezine, keep in mind you will want to submit your work to others. A good resource box will draw a significant number of new subscribers.
Hard Work That Pays Off Double
Collect the URL for all competing ezines. Also collect the mailto subscription address. What you want to find is all links to either, and where they are listed. You can, of course, do this in various ways with the search engines. And Greg offers links to a couple of good online tools you may find helpful. But like Greg, I favor WebFerret for this and many other tasks. It will search many search engine databases all at the same time. And it’s fast. On my system, it will produce a list of 1000 links in about ten minutes. But the best news is that it is free. Go to ferretsoft.com and download a copy for yourself. It has become an absolutely indispensable tool for me. If you get tired of the ads, $25 will buy you a license to turn them off.
However you approach this task it is hard work and it takes time. When you find a competitor listed where you are not, go there and get listed. When you find a site that is linked to your competitor, go there and attempt to get a link to your site. In this later case, I go a step further. If the site would be of interest to my visitors, I first link to it. Then I send a note pointing out that I have done so, and inviting a link back. I get one about 80% of the time. (For details, see mailto:buildlinks@sitetipsandtricks.com)
Keywords: