Along with enticing your visitors, you need to provide some instant gratification. People like to feel like they’re getting something for giving you their email address. It may be hard to think about what everyone wants and how people repsond to various things, so always put yourself in their shoes.

As yourself these questions: What makes you sign up to a mailing list? Do you like getting free items sent to your inbox for signing up? Would you have signed up had you not gotten a freebie? Of course, your opinion might be different than the next person, but it’ll at least get you thinking about ways to marketing your mailing list.

Instant Gratification

For the most part, getting people to sign up for your mailing list involves enticing them to do so. I covered this topic previously, but instant gratification ties in a little bit. The most important thing to do is make your visitors feel like they actually got something for their time spent on your site. You can accomplish this a few ways:

• Have an automated, yet informative message delivered to their inbox as soon as they sign up. This message should contain important links on your site, “starter” information about your content and maybe even a free attachement.
• Send them to a ‘Thank you’ page after signing up which contains something unique that nobody else has access to until they join your mailing list.
• Consider sending the very last edition of your newsletter to them instantly with links on how to download previous newsletters.

My two cents

Think of it from a sales point of view. How great does it feel to walk out of a Best Buy with your favorite music cd and be able to play it on the way home? It’s that instant gratification that helps justify the purchase. The same goes for mailing lists. You want to make your visitor feel like they got something out of it. But not just something–something great.

As for that image above, I just chose it because I thought it was funny!