Using Co-Registration Services to Grow Your Subscription List
by Brian Alt
[July 19, 2001]
Co-registration services are those that will refer new ezine
subscriptions or leads to you for a pre-defined amount of money.
This is usually accomplished by including a sign-up form for
your ezine as part of a larger form that includes many ezines
or other offers. This sometimes takes the form of a "directory"
approach, where visitors can find email publications that match
their interests. Other times, co-registration services leverage
the "thank-you" page of one or a number of other sign-up forms.
Co-registration can be an effective technique to add a large
number of new subscribers to your distribution list in a
relatively short amount of time. It's not without its pitfalls,
however. This week's article will help you determine whether
co-registration is right for your ezine, and which services you
should be using if you can afford to "buy" subscribers.
(If you're just getting started in ezine promotion, you might
want to check out our Beginner's Guide before proceeding with
the article below. It's at: http://epdigest.com/beginner/)
First, when considering the use of co-registration services to
grow your subscription list, it's helpful to know just how much
an "average" subscriber is worth to you in terms of the revenue
that your ezine can generate. Your revenue may come from
advertising, product or service sales, or any number of other
sources. By calculating the revenue that you can (or do) generate
over a given period of time (say, a year), and then dividing that
figure by the number of subscribers on your list, you can get a
rough idea of the "worth" of an individual subscriber over that
time period. While I'm not suggesting that this number is the
true value of a subscriber, it does give you a good idea of what
you can safely afford to spend on acquiring new subscribers
through co-registration efforts.
When evaluating a co-registration service, keep the following
items in mind:
- Price - Co-registration services charge anywhere from $0.05
to over $2.00 per referred subscriber. Make sure to shop
around and weigh the price of the subscribers against the
methods through which they are collected.
- Single vs. Double Opt-In - Some services refer unconfirmed
email addresses while others refer only those subscribers
that have confirmed their intent via email to join your
list. If you maintain a strict double opt-in policy, avoid
services of the single opt-in variety or confirm those
addresses on your end once you receive them. Also, single
opt-in subscriptions should be much less expensive than
their double opt-in counterparts.
- Beware Incentives - Some services will offer their visitors
incentives such as free "points" or even real cash to
encourage them to sign up for ezines and other offers. Ask
yourself this question: Is the incentive that is offered
going to detract from the value of subscribers by
encouraging people to sign up who are really interested in
the incentive and not my ezine?
- Deceptive Sign-Up Practices - Several services mix what
they call "opt-in" offers (where visitors need to check a
box) with "opt-out" offers (where a visitor must actually
un-check a box not to be subscribed). This can cause major
problems, especially if these offers are mixed together or
presented in an otherwise deceptive manner. Be sure to
check out the sign-up process of any co-registration
service before agreeing to give them any of your money.
- Your Description - Most good co-registration services
allow you complete control over your ezine's description.
Be very precise in your description in order to better
qualify the subscribers you receive. Because you're only
paying for the email addresses of the individuals who
actually select your publication, you want to make sure
that these subscribers are the most interested in your
ezine's subject matter.
A comprehensive list of co-registration services is available
on the EPDigest.com website.
If you have some specific co-registration questions or would
like to see some other topics addressed here in future issues,
please let me know. To send feedback on this week's article,
email feedback@epdigest.com.
Until next time,
Brian Alt, Publisher
Email Publishing Digest
Brian Alt is the founder and CEO of Email
Possibilities, a provider of comprehensive email publishing solutions. He
also publishes the weekly Email Publishing Digest
and is the author of several
ebooks on email publishing-related topics.
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