How to increase the size of your database

Signing up new enquiries or subscribers is one thing; maintaining them and growing the size of your database is quite another.  If someone opts-in to your newsletter they are doing so because they feel you have something interesting to say.  We are frequently asked about how to increase the number of subscribers to online newsletters so here we take a look at a few hints and suggestions of how you can grow and manage your lists and common mistakes to avoid…

First things first: optimise your newsletter subscription process and gain permission: This is really important to get your list growing off to a good start.  We have written an article covering all the key hints and tips including the commonly asked ‘confirmed vs. double opt-in’ question which can be found here.

Take advantage of every single touch point: Think about every way you can increase subscribers, taking advantage of every contact you have with your customers and prospects.  Have a subscription box on every page of your website; at events or in-store promotions ask if the interested person would like to receive the newsletter and preferably obtain permission there and then; add a footer to all staff emails; promote the benefits of signing up by enhancing the subscription value with customer testimonials and offering incentives for sign ups (if you’re sending B2B campaigns whitepapers and surveys work well and for B2C campaigns money off tokens or discounts are successful).

Further ways of enlarging your address database online: There are a variety of ways to increase your email database online, including: via your newsletter (forward to a friend links); special online offers or prize draws; via SEM landing pages and online advertising.  You can also rent email addresses for stand-alone email campaigns or engage in lead generation campaigns with eCircle. 

Reasons for high unsubscription rates and mistakes to avoid: Links or images which don’t work, too high a frequency of send-outs, irrelevant content or misleading subject lines…these are all common complaints which are easily resolved.  You also need to monitor, and subsequently act on, inactive email addresses and bounces.  It might be worth attempting to reactivate inactive addresses one last time with some kind of special offer.  Over half of all email marketers send one more message to inactive email addresses before deleting them from the list.

Out with the old, in with the new – keep your database clean: Increasing your database is half the battle.  The other half is keeping your database clean by monitoring the results of each mailing so you can see who hasn’t opened, clicked or responded to your messages as well as spotting dead email addresses (people who have left their company etc).  See our ‘How to clean your database’ article here for more advice. 

This article is a summary of eCircle’s newsletter "Inside Digital Marketing". If this article was forwarded to you as a recommendation and you wish to receive further news from the email marketing sector yourself you can subscribe here.