The document outlines strategies for growing an email list, including calculating subscriber lifetime value, improving the website signup process, using popovers and rewards to incentivize subscribers, appending email addresses from transactional data, and setting an annual goal to add 100,000 subscribers through various low-cost tactics. It provides details on implementing specific tactics like contests, birthday emails, rewarding phone representatives, and making it easy for subscribers to update their email address.

1. New Strategies for
Growing Your E-mail List
Arthur Middleton Hughes
Senior Strategist
Silverpop

2. Begin by computing Lifetime Value
Subscriber Lifetime Value
Rates This Year Next Year Third Year
The 3 year projection 1 Subscribers 219,467 208,199 197,510
of what these 219,467 2 Unsubscribers 2.38% 5,232 4,963 4,709
3 Undelivers 2.75% 6,036 5,726 5,432
people will do during
4 End of Year Subs 208,199 197,510 187,369
the next three years. 5 E-mails Delivered 60 13,168,020 12,491,940 11,850,572
6 Opens 9.23% 1,215,886 1,153,459 1,094,238
This shows that for 7 Unique Clicks 26.68% 324,422 307,765 291,964
8 Conversion Rate (% Opens) 3.54% 11,477 10,888 10,329
every sale in the e-mail
9 Off-E-mail Multiplier 2.00 22,954 21,776 20,658
there are 2 more sales 10 Total sales due to e-mails 34,431 32,664 30,987
off-line due to the e- 11 Total Revenue from E-mails $135.68 $4,671,741 $4,431,881 $4,204,337
mail. Costs 40% $1,868,696 $1,772,753 $1,681,735
12 Subs Acquisition Cost $0.12 $26,336 0 0
13 E-mail Sending $6.50 $85,592 $81,198 $77,029
Each of these 219,467 14 E-mail Creation $11.39 $150,000 $142,299 $134,993
Subscribers is worth 15 Total Costs $2,130,624 $1,996,249 $1,893,756
$30.37 in three year 16 Profit $2,541,116 $2,435,633 $2,310,581
17 Discount Rate 1 1.1 1.21
profit to this company
18 Net Present Value $2,541,116 $2,214,211 $1,909,571
– even though 90% do 19 Cumulative NPV $2,541,116 $4,755,328 $6,664,899
not open and 20 E-mail Subscriber Value $11.58 $21.67 $30.37
thousands unsubscribe
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3. Set a goal: add 100,000 Subscribers
• If you can sign up 219,000, you can certainly
add 100,000
• All you need is the willpower and a budget.
• Anyone can do this. Here’s how…
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4. There are many methods
• Appending e-mails • ECOA
• Fix the website • Reward phone reps
• Provide rewards to • Birthday Rewards
subscribers • Make it easy to change
• Popover on the website your e-mail address
• Promote in transactions • Have a contest
Create a goal and a plan
and budget to achieve
the goal
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5. Fix your website
Excellent website… but
the website signup is hard
to find. There is no reason
given for why you should
sign up.
Result: not enough sign
up.
Study your website. Make
signing up very rewarding
for the subscribers.
Here’s a good one:
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6. Popovers are powerful
 They can be triggered when you open a web page.
 They can be triggered when you leave a web page.
 They can be triggered when you click a link in a web page.
 They can be triggered by a timer that is activated when
you open or leave a web page.
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7. Reward your subscribers
Rules: The reward is an inducement to subscribe. Not available to others
 Free shipping for subscribers
 Lower prices on some products for subscribers
 A contest where subscribers are eligible for prizes
 A discount
 A birthday present
 News of new products before anyone else gets them
 A white paper on an important subject
 Games, screen savers, etc. 7

8. Why not try a contest?
Rules: Tell them about the contest as an inducement to subscribe
Prize given away every month.
To win, you just have to open your e-mail in that month and click on
anything.
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9. Reward Phone Reps
• Anyone who calls up should be
asked, “Do we have your e-mail?”
• Phone reps get a salary. If you also
give them $3.00 per e-mail signed
up, you will get many more.
• The reward is given only when you
send a welcome e-mail and the
subscriber clicks, “Yes, I want to
receive your e-mails”
• If each subscriber is worth
$26.01, why not give $3.00?
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10. Make it easy to change your e-mail
address
• Many undeliverables occur because
subscribers have changed their e-mail
address.
• Put a box somewhere on every page that
says: “Are you changing your e-mail
address? If so enter your new address
here, and we will make sure that we do
not lose you”
• As soon as anyone has entered a new
That was easy… address, be sure to thank them and send
them a confirming e-mail.
• This simple step may prevent you from
losing hundreds – or thousands – of
subscribers every year.
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11. Birthday E-mails Work
Rules: Tell them about the birthday gift as an inducement to
register.
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12. Use ECOA
ASPCA Sheds Dog-eared
Donor Email Addresses with ECOA
ASPCA uses Email marketing to stay in touch with its constituents. Due to the
high churn rate of email addresses, however, email bounces were an ongoing
problem. By sending to incorrect addresses the high bounce rates could trigger
unwanted attention from ISPs in the form of blocking and blacklisting.
ASPCA contracted FreshAddress to perform an ECOA project to find
updates, confirm deliverability of the updated email addresses and ensure its
constituents’ permission. Within a week, the problem was solved.
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13. Use transactions to gain subscribers
• Buyers should be thanked for any purchase.
• All thank you messages should have a link that
says “Keep me up to date on the latest
fashions.”
• Result: your subscriber list will grow each day
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14. Append e-mails to postal addresses
• One company sent eight million customer
names and addresses to FreshAddress. He
received back 1,016,454 new e-mail
subscribers. The cost was about $0.13 per
subscriber added.
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15. Create an annual goal and plan
Profit from
Added Budget for new
Tactics to Boost Subscribers Subscribers Cost Each Program subscribers LTV
1 Improve Website 4,000 $0.50 $2,000 $121,480 $30.37
2 Append E-mails 20,000 $0.20 $4,000 $607,400 $30.37
3 Popover 6,000 $0.67 $4,000 $182,220 $30.37
4 Transactions 6,000 $0.67 $4,000 $182,220 $30.37
5 Contest 20,000 $1.50 $30,000 $607,400 $30.37
6 Birthdays 10,000 $2.00 $20,000 $303,700 $30.37
7 Reward Subscribers 19,000 $0.79 $15,000 $577,030 $30.37
8 Reward Phone Reps 5,000 $3.00 $15,000 $151,850 $30.37
9 ECOA 8,000 $0.38 $3,000 $242,960 $30.37
10 Easy to change e-mail address 2,000 $0.50 $1,000 $60,740 $30.37
Total 100,000 $0.98 $98,000 $3,037,000
Set up a system so you can learn how many
you have every month. Keep your eye on
the numbers till you reach your goal.
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16. Available on Amazon.com
Ahughes@silverpop.com
Also see:
www.dbmarketing.com