One of the most important attributes of a successful website is good customer interaction.  Someone can visit your web site once and fuggedaboudit.  So having a means to entice them to come back is really useful.  And saves on costs if you bought the traffic in the first place.

Getting your visitors to opt-in to an email list is a great way to maintain contact, to remind them to come back to your site, to educate or empower them, to announce new products or services or promote a special, contest, survey, etc.  If you’re blogging, an RSS feed is essential, and works in a similar way.  RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication and we’ll give you success tips in a future post, but for now, subscribe to this blog’s feed in the right column —–>

Building an email list often takes time, but there are ways to speed up the process.  There are ways to attract subscribers who will be receptive to your offers and there are techniques to mitigate the number of "casual" or non-receptive subscribers.  Developing a list of active, engaged people can pay dividends for years.

But very few people will just sign up for anything.  People are pretty jaded, so you really need to offer something of value or your prospect will just look at your offer as yet another way to fill up her inbox with junk.  It needs to be compelling and relevant.  People are searching for things and if you can scratch their itch, you’ve done alot to achieve the 4 steps of A.I.D.A.  They are Aware of you and your offer, they’re Interested and they may have the Desire to take Action.

So, what do you offer them?  It depends on your market and goals.  It needs to be of value.  It could be a newsletter subscription, an online course (like our 5 Biggest Mistakes Most People Make With Their Website),  an series of updates or a one-time report or white paper.  Setting up sequential autoresponders can pretty much automate your system.

CASE STUDY:    In the late 90′s we invented Movie Time E-Mail for a chain of movie theatres in the Chicago area.  The idea was simple; encourage people to sign up for a weekly email with a whole week’s worth of showtimes for their favorite theatre.  It reminded people to consider seeing a flick every week and also gave us the ability to promote other events and specials, such as a screening of a film followed by a live conversation with an actor or director.  We used Movie Time E-mail to promote gift certificates.  And when biz was slow, we could send out promos for concession stand specials.

The idea caught on.  Most of the big chains now offer something similar.  (Today, you can also deliver it to cellphones.)

Realtors could offer a daily update to buyers.  You could even segment based on various needs: executive home, starter home, condos or commercial property.  Remember to stay relevant – don’t send a list of residential condos to someone looking for office/warehouse space or a list of 1 and 2 BR homes to someone with 5 kids.  (We’ll address audience segmentation and how to do it sometime soon)

Information marketers do a great job of maintaining a constant drip of targeted information and offers, many of which can be triggered by individual actions over a period of time.  Depending on which CRM tool you use, you can slice and dice to your heart’s content, allowing for fairly sophisticated offers.

Other tips on building an online list:

• Don’t ask for too much information.  Your response rate goes down the more information you ask for.  Many times, you can start with an email address, but we usually suggest also asking for a first name.  There are techniques for building more information into your lists as time goes on.
• Make your offer(s) clear and compelling.
• Put offers on as many pages of your site as possible.  Different offers may be more appropriate on different pages.
• Don’t email too often, but if you don’t do it regularly, you may miss a connection.  Some of the "gurus" are recommending once a day, but that can be time-consuming, especially before you get a bunch of autoresponders in the can.  If you promised a monthly newsletter, make sure you send it regularly.  You might also send them something one or two other times per month.  Many CRMs will allow you to set up a reasonable schedule, including not sending on weekends, if that’s important to you.
• Encourage your subscribers to forward your emails on to others who may have an interest.
• ALWAYS allow subscribers to opt-out of your list.  I know it’s a bummer, but in most cases its the law.  And besides, if they opt out, they weren’t that into you anyway.  If alot of your subscribers opt-out, its time to put on your thinking cap and figure out why.

There are many things to consider when building a website list and we’ll probably address them in the future.  In the meantime, phone or email if you have questions or if you would like it Done4You by Web Asylum!

– Kurt Scholle (rhymes with holy)
The Website ROI Guy