Happyshort

Last weekend, on a beautiful Saturday morning, I went fishing

with a friend on the Pecos River here in New Mexico. We had been
fishing for a couple of hours when my friend decided he would carefully
approach the subject of getting more opt-in subscribers for his
newsletter. He knew I had over 400,000 opt-in subscribers for T-Shirt
King?s newsletter and he wanted to know how I did it. He was afraid
that it was a trade secret and I would brush him off and continue to
fish. That was my reaction initially.

You see, I get this type of question all the time. When it
comes at a time when I?m fishing, a simple answer like that is the
easiest, and it keeps us fishing instead of talking. However, this
morning I was a softy and, after some prodding, I gave in.

To begin with, let me quickly explain that there are two
sales tools that all online retailers should use regardless of what you
sell. You should have a newsletter and an affiliate program. My friend
already had a newsletter and an affiliate program and I?m going to
assume you do too.

We put our poles down and sat on the edge of the river to
discuss how my friend could build an opt-in list of over 100,000 this
year. He had a lot bigger expectations for his opt-in list than he did
for this fishing trip. He never did get back to fishing.

His first question was about getting people on his site to
opt-in. He had an opt-in subscription box on his site already and it
was prominently placed. But, with over 5,000 daily visitors, he was
only getting about twenty subscribers. It was a real disappointment.

So, my first suggestion was to set up a contest. He could
give away just about anything he wanted to from a free t-shirt to a
free fishing trip. I use a free t-shirt a day on T-Shirt King. To join
the contest, you just have to join the newsletter (opt-in). Check it
out ?

The next suggestion was to use a pop-up to promote the contest
and the subscription offer. Of course, my friend immediately groaned at
the thought of adding a pop-up to his site (for a minute there, I
thought we might get back to fishing). However, I told him about using
a cookied pop-up that occurs only once a day for each user. This way it
minimizes the annoyance of pop-ups. Plus, anyone that really hates
pop-ups already has pop-up blocker software. But the proof is in the
results. When I added our contest and a pop-up, we did better than
quadrupling our subscriber rate. For my fishing buddy, it would take
him from 20 opt-in?s a day to over 80.

The investment for a contest can be minimal when compared to

the cost of gaining subscribers any other way. You know that you can
find companies that will sell you subscribers for fifteen cents a piece
or more ? right? Why pay such a high price for poor quality subscribers
when you can make a smaller investment and get more subscribers of much
higher quality?

At $.15 per subscriber, that?s $15,000 for 100,000
subscribers of questionable quality. Using these methods can cost you
less than a hundred bucks for 100,000 high quality, targeted
subscribers!

Alright ? now for the big guns. Uh, er, the ?heavy tackle? -
since we?re fishing. Let?s take your list building operation and put it
on hundreds, or even thousands, of other websites. There are two
methods. Building a newsletter co-op and arming your affiliates with a
secret weapon.

These methods use two inexpensive pieces of software that
will become a key to selling your product successfully online. Of
course, they help you build your opt-in list, but the true end result
of a big high quality list will be increased sales. You?re going to
love the feeling of sending your newsletter out and watching the sales
immediately begin to come in! It?s a great feeling. So is waking up the
next morning and checking your sales before you take the day off to go
fishing ? because you can.

These tools take some effort to set up but once they?re
established, they run on auto-pilot which leaves you the time to go
fishing. Your co-op members and affiliates do the promoting and list
building for you.

The first tool is Opt-In Explosion. This is a newsletter
subscriber co-op. You?ve probably seen them run by other people. You
could join one of these co-op programs and you would substantially
increase your subscriber rate. Or, you could start your own co-op and
build your opt-in list at hyper speed.

You see, when you join their lists, typically, you get your
newsletter subscription offer shown four times for every time you show
the co-op subscriber box. Not bad. But start your own co-op and it?s
your members that get four exposures for every one time they show the
subscription offer. You get your newsletter offer shown on every
exposure, on every website, to every visitor ? every time. If you even
get a small number of members, your subscription rate will explode!

At this point, my friend was so excited, he wanted to leave
this beautiful Saturday morning, quit fishing (he?s obviously not
making enough money) and start right away. However, I saved the best
for last.

Newsletter Syndicator! How about putting your subscription
sign-up box prominently on hundreds, or even thousands, of websites?
And, you can offer the webmaster credit for the sales of your product
generated from their list? What a great idea! This little program
allows you the ability to give out subscription boxes to your
affiliates. They can put them on their site and begin building opt-in
subscriber lists specifically for your newsletter.

Using Newsletter Syndicator, when you send your newsletter
out it will automatically replace your standard url with their
affiliate url. Your newsletter with your url and the affiliate?s get
your newsletter but with their unique affiliate url. It?s easy for you
to set up and it?s easy for your affiliates to set up. Makes you money
and makes your affiliates money. Even if you have a small website with
very little traffic, one good affiliate can sign-up more opt-in
subscribers in a month than you would get all year.

At this point, my friend was no longer interested in fishing.
When I was done talking, he packed up and headed for the car to get
back to his website. I was glad we drove separately. I settled back in
to a nice day of fishing. I could afford to because I knew that I was
getting a whole lot more opt-in subscribers during that day of fishing
than I was fish. In fact, there?s a limit to the number of fish I can
get in a day. There?s no limit to the number of opt-in subscribers.

You can get both programs for under a hundred dollars. At
fifteen cents per subscriber, that?s only 667 subscribers. You?ll get
more than that in no time. With some honest effort, 100,000 high
quality opt-in subscribers this year is very possible.

It?s not rocket science and it?s a lot easier than catching
those Pecos River Browns. Give these three methods a try and you will
get to know the excitement of sending your newsletter out and watching
the sales roll in. There?s nothing like it.