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Part 2: Encourage Repeat Sales & Customer Loyalty
By: Jim Conley II, MerchantSeek.com

Last week we focused heavily on how to write your newsletter,
what content to include, and how to effectively distribute your
publication in a timely and efficient manner. If you missed the
first part you can check it out here:
http://www.merchantseek.com/merchantnewz/022301.htm
You'll find that publishing your own newsletter will be
invaluable to both you and your subscribers. Customer
retention is an absolute must to be successful on the Internet.

This week let's look at how to attract subscribers, some ways to
keep them subscribed, and how to encourage them to revisit
your site. There will also be other opportunities that will crop
up along the way as your newsletter gains momentum and
popularity.

With that said, let's jump into the "meat" of part two of this
series starting with...

Handling Subscriptions & Unsubscriptions

Collecting new subscribers for your publication can be handled
a few different ways. You'll need to set up a system to collect
and manage your subscibers. Granted you can collect them and
manually enter them into your subscriber list, but this takes too
much time. The process of subscribing and unsubscribing
visitors should be an automated process. There are a number of
mailing list management systems available, some of which are
free. To find one for your site travel over to
http://cgi.resourceindex.com/Programs_and_Scripts/Perl/Mailing_Lists
Here you can scan through and read about all the
different programs available and choose one that best fits your
needs. Of all of the ones listed, the most popular one seems to
be "Subscribe Me!" by Elite. You can find more information
on it here: http://www.cgiscriptcenter.com/subpro/index2.html

The best place to insert your newsletter subscription "box" is
close to the top of each of your web pages. Don't just place it
on your main page. Give people the opportunity to subscribe
from any page of your site. It's also a good idea to place a
small privacy statement under your subscribe "box" to let
people know their e-mail address is safe and will not be shared
with third parties. However, if you do plan on sharing their
contact information be sure to make them aware of that
BEFORE they subscribe.

A really great way to increase the number of subscribers to
your newsletter is to give them an incentive to subscribe. They
want to know what they are going to get if they subscribe.
Perhaps offer a small discount on a future purchase if they
subscribe. Offering a free report or e-book (make sure the
topic relates to your newsletter and website) is yet another good
incentive.

You must make it easy for readers to unsubscribe from your
newsletter. Hopefully you won't have many people who will
want to leave your mailing list, but if they do they're not
interested in going through a half a dozen steps in order to
unsubscribe. Nor will they want to e-mail you to find out how
to unsubscribe. The easiest way to handle this is to simply
place an unsubscribe statement at the bottom of each of your
newsletters explaining how to leave the list. On that note, it's
also a good idea to include a statement towards the top of your
publication that lets them know they opted-in to receive your
newsletter. Let the reader know that if they no longer wish to
receive your publication they can see the bottom of the
newsletter for unsubscribe instructions. Take a look at the top
and bottom of this week's issue of MerchantNewz to get an
idea of what I'm talking about.

Keeping Your Subscribers Subscribed

I touched some on this last week. In order to keep your
subscribers you need to provide valuable information that will
help people in some fashion. Don't expect to send off a bunch
of sales pitches to your subscribers and expect them to stick
around. They won't. The important part to remember is to
supply information relevant to your newsletter. Keep on topic.
Writing good content doesn't require you to be a professional
writer, just a few hours and you can have yourself a good
publication. Who knows, maybe down the road once you pick
up some more revenue from your newsletter (more on this
later) you may be able to hire your own editor. It's attainable,
but will require some hard work on your part. For more
information on this you can view part 1 of this series here
http://www.merchantseek.com/merchantnewz/022301.htm I
flubbed up a little as I should have mentioned that information
here rather than back in Part 1. See I'm not a perfect writer
either. Nor do you have to be. Just remember that.

Would you believe I've done it again? Yes, I've gotten so "in
tune" and excited about presenting this information to you that
I've gone overboard on my writing. I was quickly approaching
1,500 words and I still wasn't finished yet. So I've had to cut
back Part 2, and will leave it at around 900 words instead. I
didn't want to do this, in fact I'd much rather present the rest to
you. But because of the threat of losing your attention I've
decided I'll leave the last two sections for Part 3 of
Encouraging Repeat Sales and Customer Loyalty. So next
week I'll conclude (I promise this time) by talking about using
your newsletter to make your site "sticky" and the other
opportunities that will arise when you have your own opt-in
newsletter.

Till then, happy promoting and tune in next Friday for Part 3.
You won't want to miss it!

-----------------------------------------
Jim Conley II is the CEO/Founder of MerchantSeek. MerchantSeek
allows merchants from around the world to search FREE for a
Merchant Account Provider that best fits their businesses needs
and budget. Visit us at http://www.merchantseek.com/