How I plan to increase newsletter signups

[princec]

Different thread for a different technique, and will be doing this soon. We use serverside verification for full version games rather than a separate download. We recently realised that actual codes were a waste of time so they aren't used any more, unlock is only by email address.

Over the course of the last 3 years or so though we have had literally thousands of people enter real valid email addresses (even when they had to enter a code too!) in an attempt to unlock the game.

With a subtle change to the wording on the registration dialog along the lines of "or alternatively enter your email address to subscribe to our newsletter" we will be able to harvest these email addresses instead of, as we do now, simply discarding them.

Nifty plan if I may say so. Combined with Tom Cain's idea I'm hoping to build my newletter list to at least 1,000 valid entries by the end of 2006. I know it's just small fry but we're still just a tiny little outfit :D

Cas :)

<edit>Wrote Indiepath instead of Tom Cain accidentally :)

[Savant]

Hmm... You're going to have to make that pretty explicit or the mailing list won't be all that useful. Just having their email address isn't worth much - they have to want and expect your emails as well.

[princec]

It's all down to the wording on the screen.

Cas :)

[jankoM]

We recently realised that actual codes were a waste of time so they aren't used any more, unlock is only by email address.

Over the course of the last 3 years or so though we have had literally thousands of people enter real valid email addresses (even when they had to enter a code too!) in an attempt to unlock the game.

Would that mean that over last 3 years or so you have literally sold thousands of copies? Didn't you say in the past you were not doing so good... or was ultratron such a shift?

[princec]

No, it means literally thousands of people played the games and tried to unlock them by entering their email addresses :) I'm afraid the total sales of all games ever by Puppygames, of all time, is less than 500.

Cas :)

[svero]

No, it means literally thousands of people played the games and tried to unlock them by entering their email addresses :) I'm afraid the total sales of all games ever by Puppygames, of all time, is less than 500.

Cas :)

And I personally bought 350 of those helping cas test new java order systems!

[Andy]

And I personally bought 350 of those helping cas test new java order systems!

Yeah. And that was the stupidest thing because I've ordered another 150 and we both have created for cas the illusion that he can go with such marketing...

REM: For everyone in tank - Cas knows for sure what I think about his games and how high I value his efforts.

[jankoM]

Hmm... You're going to have to make that pretty explicit or the mailing list won't be all that useful. Just having their email address isn't worth much - they have to want and expect your emails as well.

I am all for explicit/fair mailing lists, but from what I see, purely bussines wise (forgeting the moral a bit) look would be "gather all emails you can - however you can". I do conctract php work for portal owner here in slovenia - he has portal with great amount of content for kids. He sells only one product, a CD with content from his website (printable exercises...). When fixing some script for him I found out that he sells around 30 such CDs every day - which I couldn't believe - comparing to you guys - you must know that slovenia has only 2.000.000 people. I was thinking for some time how he made that happen, when he called me for another php job. He needed web-app "Write a letter to Santa". All this app had to do was store the email to database and send some leter in return depending if it was a boy or a girl - all data that kids wrote into the form (how is the wheather, what are you wishes, were you good this year...) has just been dumped and had no point anywhere. It was dirty in a way. The only point of this app was for him to collect emails...

I later found out he has a list of more than 30.000 emails that he collected in various such ways (write to friend, tell us when is your birthday...) and I presume that is the basis of his succes, his website looks a little outdated and confuzing (is the same for 4 years) - althougth I must admit he really improved the content in last year (exercises) - at the begining his CD was mainly a collection of freware/shareware games like the one jack norton found out on e-bay few days ago.

Uh, so many words to tell a simple thing... I gues I am still a little disturbed because I know him from start and he was allways playing a little dirty and I was allways a saint. Of course I don't think this saint/dirty is the only thing that made him fly and left me on the ground - all kudos to him.

I am just trying to say "It's nice to play it fair, but don't say that this is allways the best bussines decision"

[Indiepath.T]

Nifty plan if I may say so. Combined with Tom Cain's idea I'm hoping to build my newletter list to at least 1,000 valid entries by the end of 2006. I know it's just small fry but we're still just a tiny little outfit :D

Go for it! I thought that I had made the wrong decision asking for email addresses, turns out that people actually want to hear about your new releases etc. We got over 500 valid email addresses in the first month!

Mind you when the user clicks the emailed link to double-opt in we do politely ask them to recommend us to 5 of thier friends. The friends then get an email saying that "Mr/Mrs Blah Blah thought you might be interested.......Click here to register". And guess what, we ask them for 5 friends and so on...

[Gilzu]

Go for it! I thought that I had made the wrong decision asking for email addresses, turns out that people actually want to hear about your new releases etc. We got over 500 valid email addresses in the first month!

Mind you when the user clicks the emailed link to double-opt in we do politely ask them to recommend us to 5 of thier friends. The friends then get an email saying that "Mr/Mrs Blah Blah thought you might be interested.......Click here to register". And guess what, we ask them for 5 friends and so on...

I rememeber that in the first days of ICQ, it had a built in mechanism where everyone could just type in an email address and a nice polite email would ask you to download and use ICQ to talk to your friends. This option still exists in every major player in the messaging business and its one of the best ways to publicize: a friend recommendation to come and join him.

Same way you can opt in a way to, say, "Your friend Gilzu has challanged you to. He claims he can capture more fluffies than you can".

Word of mouth is a great way to publicize your product.

[Savant]

I later found out he has a list of more than 30.000 emails that he collected in various such ways
Eh, in my mind those 30,000 emails are of limited use. If they didn't ask to hear from him I imagine only a small percentage actually open his email and and even smaller percentage click through to whatever he's selling.

There's permission marketing and then there's scamming email addresses so you can spam people. I much prefer the former, but that's just my opinion. I think 500 people who want to hear from you is much more valuable than 30,000 people who got harvested.

[jankoM]

There's permission marketing and then there's scamming email addresses so you can spam people. I much prefer the former, but that's just my opinion. I think 500 people who want to hear from you is much more valuable than 30,000 people who got harvested.
I couldn't agree more - I hope I will never fall so low that I will have to scam/spam people around. But at the end of the day he still has 30 sales ($450) and he operates inside slovenia only. And now that he has the money he has gotten a expert who makes printable exercises of really great quality so that CD is really getting worthy.