The first hundred subscribers
Nobody subscribes to a box. They subscribe to one specific thing, described exactly and delivered immediately, and the first hundred come from places that do not scale.
A list of nobody is the normal starting position and the advice usually given for it is to add a sign-up box, which does not work because nobody subscribes to a box. People subscribe to a specific thing they want, and the work is deciding what that is.
Why subscribe to a newsletter fails
It asks somebody to accept an unknown quantity of unknown material at unknown intervals, in exchange for a permanent claim on their attention. The exchange is bad and the reader can see it is bad.
A specific offer inverts it. One thing, described exactly, delivered immediately. The checklist you actually use. The template with your own numbers removed. The two-page summary of a thing that is otherwise forty pages. All of these say precisely what arrives, which is what makes the decision easy.
What makes a good one
- It solves one small problem completely, rather than introducing a large one partially.
- It is useful on its own, without buying anything. A sample of a product is marketing; a working tool is a gift.
- It takes minutes to use, not hours. Nothing is less used than a sixty-page guide.
- It is adjacent to what you sell, so the people it attracts are people you want. A prize draw builds a list of people who like prize draws.
- It is genuinely better than what a search would find in two minutes. If it is not, you have asked for an address in exchange for nothing.
Where to put it
- At the end of the content it relates to. Somebody who has just read a page about a subject is the best audience for a tool about that subject, and this placement outperforms a site-wide form by a distance.
- On a page of its own that you can link to directly, so the offer can be referenced in conversation and from elsewhere.
- After a purchase, where permission is clearest and interest is highest.
- In the place where you already have an audience, if you have one anywhere: a community, a profile, a talk, a reply to somebody's question.
What to avoid: an interruption over the content on arrival, before the reader knows whether your site is any good. It raises sign-ups and lowers quality, and the people it catches are the ones most likely to forget they agreed.
The first hundred, honestly
They come from places that do not scale, and that is fine because scale is not the current problem. People you have already spoken to. People who asked you a question. Customers. A community you are genuinely part of rather than one you joined to post a link.
A hundred people who know who you are is worth more than a thousand collected from a competition, in every direction that matters: they open, they reply, they do not complain, and they tell you what to write about. The second list damages your sending reputation and teaches you nothing.
And do not buy addresses. Beyond being unlawful in the regimes that require provable consent, bought lists complain at a rate that will put you past the mailbox providers' thresholds in a single send, and that damage follows your domain rather than the list.
Double opt-in, and when it earns its cost
Double opt-in means sending a confirmation message that the person has to act on before they are added. It costs you subscribers, reliably, because some proportion never confirm.
What it buys is worth more than those subscribers in three situations, and it is worth knowing which apply to you rather than following a rule.
- Where you have to prove consent. In Canada and Australia the burden sits with the sender, and a confirmation click is the cleanest record you can hold.
- Where mistyped addresses are common. Somebody who enters a wrong address creates a hard bounce or, worse, delivers your mail to a stranger who marks it as spam.
- Where a form can be filled in by anybody. A public form with no confirmation is also a way for somebody to sign up an address that is not theirs.
The case against is simply the lost sign-ups, which is real. A reasonable position for a small list: use double opt-in, because at this size the record and the list quality matter more than the count, and a confirmation step also removes the people who were never going to read anything.
If you do use it, make the confirmation message plain and immediate, and say in it what they will receive. It is the first message you send and it is frequently written as a system notification.
Work to do
- Decide whether you need provable consent, and use double opt-in if you do.
- Write down the one specific thing somebody gets by subscribing. If it is updates, keep working until it is a noun.
- Put the offer at the end of the three pages it relates to, rather than site-wide.
- Write the line that says what else will arrive and how often, and put it next to the form.