How I increased newsletter signups

[Tom Cain]

Last year, I made a change to how I let people sign up for my email list that has worked really well. I thought I'd share:

I started the email list in 2002. There were links to a dedicated signup page throughout the site and in the order receipt. Signups were not that great, only a few thousand since 2002.

In July 2005, I changed the demo download from an HTML link to a form with a download button. I put a text input field right above the download button that lets them sign up for the list:

http://www.smallware.com/download/

In the six months since, my traffic, downloads, and sales have remained steady. But the size of my email list has more than doubled. I have gotten more signups in six months than in the previous three years by making this change. I believe it's because it makes signing up easier -- everything in one action -- but I don't know for sure.

Anyone looking to increase newsletter signups might want to give this a try. Two points that I think are important if you do:

1. Clearly mark the email field as optional.
2. Note that you won't spam them.

I hope this info helps anyone looking to increase their signups. If anyone else has tips that worked, I'd love to hear them.

[jankoM]

that is very nice advice, thank you a lot - I will do it

[svero]

Well... This sounds like the rare gem of advice I'm always on the lookout for. Ill definitely give this a try.

[Chris Evans]

I can confirm that this works. I did something somewhat similar in the middle of December and new signups per day quadrupled.

Before:
I had newsletter signup forms scattered throughout the site on side bars and such. But nothing really in the main content area.

After:
I added a newsletter subscription box below the download buttons. You can see it here: http://www.outsidetheboxsoftware.com..._demo_ppg.html

It seems to catch users when they're thinking, "What do I do next?". Incidentally I don't have any other newsletter signup boxes on my site, it's only on the download page yet my signups have increased 4x.

Also, since I'm not giving any impression that I'm "forcing" them to signup, I'm using single-opt-in. If you look at my download page you'll notice the download area and subscription box are clearly separated from each other. So for the most part they are less likely to put fake addresses and only people who are genuinely interested in my games are going to put their e-mail address in there.

This has greatly kick-started my newsletter subscriber base.

[Tom Gilleland]

What do you guys use to capture your emails? PHP & MySQL database?
And how do send out your email newsletters later?

Thanks,

Tom

[HarmonicFlow]

I can also confirm this fact. We re-designed our site a while back and we put the subscribe to newsletter on the download page. This is optional stuff, the download will start anyway. Interesting how a small change like this can do that big difference.

About what we uses for the sign-up. Double-opt in through http://www.ymlp.com.

At the begining we did the collecting and sending through our own script code. However, it's a much better idea doing this through YMLP or some other place. It's cheap and gets you much more functionality.

[Indiepath.T]

I concur, we do this on cloverleaf (http://cloverleafgames.com/download.php?id=1022), we make it very obvious that this is optional and use a double opt-in system also. Our system is in-house, it's the same core code that we use for Indiegamebusiness.com - Our soon to released site which offerers services such as YMLP.

We capture everything on the database, who downloaded what, when and most importantly if someone has opted in to recieve newsletters. This allows us to do a fair degree of targetted marketing and to the people we know are going to be receptive.

[Reanimated]

Hi
this is probably a stupid question but whats do double-opt in and single-opt in mean? Also, Indiepath.T im not sure if you know, but your download link is broken for me.

edit: oh wait, ignore that, its working. just realised its a PHP script so it wouldnt work if I just clicked on the link you posted.

[Savant]

this is probably a stupid question but whats do double-opt in and single-opt in mean? Also, Indiepath.T im not sure if you know, but your download link is broken for me.

A double opt-in usually means that you sign up on the site and then they send you an email containing a link that you have to click to confirm that you really and truly want to be on the list. This is a good practice as it confirms that:

a) the person really meant to sign up
b) they typed in their email address correctly.

[Tom Cain]

Originally Posted by Tom Gilleland

What do you guys use to capture your emails? PHP & MySQL database?
And how do send out your email newsletters later?

I've used PHP and MySQL, mailing with a program called "Mail Them Pro". I'm now in the process of switching to a newsletter service provider instead.

[princec]

Do you simply provide these guys with a csv file of emails and names? I've been wondering about how to do this myself.

Cas

[Hidden Sanctum]

Great information here!

I understand that the number of people on your mailing lists is dependent on a number of factors. Is there a reasonable number that I can reasonably expect to sign up initially? I'd just hate to sign up for service then get hit with a $50/month bill and I haven't even released a game yet. Does it generally take 6 months to build up just 1,000 or is 1,000 the low end and minimum that you initially get?

Also, how often do you guys send out a newsletter? I signed up on one indies mailing list and it seems like this guy sends one out every 2 weeks which seems excessive (and annoying). I would think that the only time to send one out is when you release a new game, announce a special, or do a press release.

[Hamumu]

If you use YMLP, it's free when you have less than some smallish number of subscribers (or you could just use that freeness to try it out).

As for getting data to them, it's not a CSV, because they don't store names at all - it's just a straight up list of email addresses, one to a line (at YMLP, you paste it into a form on their site - of course, they also have automated signups when you aren't doing bulk ones).

[svero]

Just wanted to mention that I changed my download pages a few days ago to match tom's suggestion. A little early to be sure where it will average out, but it seems like newsletter signups have increased about 4-5x. Seems very effective.

- Steve

[Sharpfish]

Originally Posted by svero

Just wanted to mention that I changed my download pages a few days ago to match tom's suggestion. A little early to be sure where it will average out, but it seems like newsletter signups have increased about 4-5x. Seems very effective.

- Steve

Hi Steve - you have combined the subscribe with the download button yes? Is it single or double opt-in/confirmation e-mail?

cheers

[svero]

Well I didnt have a nice simple way of implementing double opt in with this. In order to get it working nicely I had to just store the email in a database locally so it's single for the names entered on the download page. All the methods I tried to stream it through my normal double opt in process involved some fancy javascript etc.. that didnt really work out due to issues with popup blockers and so on.

[Nexic]

I'd just hate to sign up for service then get hit with a $50/month bill and I haven't even released a game yet. Does it generally take 6 months to build up just 1,000 or is 1,000 the low end and minimum that you initially get?

My subscriber list is still below 1000 after nearly 2 years. I guess I'll be trying this technique!

[Sharpfish]

Originally Posted by svero

Well I didnt have a nice simple way of implementing double opt in with this. In order to get it working nicely I had to just store the email in a database locally so it's single for the names entered on the download page. All the methods I tried to stream it through my normal double opt in process involved some fancy javascript etc.. that didnt really work out due to issues with popup blockers and so on.

Thanks for the info. I thought it would be along those lines... in my case I would have to manually copy those e-mails over to the mailing list provider - possibly triggering a confirmation mail.

cheers

[Tom Cain]

Well, I've just built my own new, from-scratch, double opt-in system to process sign-ups just from my download form. And it took a while to do.

And, right after I finished I remembered how to avoid all that work.

Here's some PHP code for the download form processor. It does whatever you want in your form processor script, posts the email address to the newsletter provider's server, and starts the download properly. This way the newsletter provider handles all the opt-in mailings and you don't have to manually copy over your captured addresses.

This example works for Ezine Director. It uses a POST function contributed in the PHP online manual's user notes:

PHP Code:

function post($host,$query,$others='') {
    $path=explode('/',$host);
    $host=$path[0];
    unset($path[0]);
    $path='/'.(implode('/',$path));
    $post="POST $path HTTP/1.1\r\nHost: $host\r\nContent-type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded\r\n${others}User-Agent: Mozilla 4.0\r\nContent-length: ".strlen($query)."\r\nConnection: close\r\n\r\n$query";
    $h=fsockopen($host,80);
    fwrite($h,$post);
    for($a=0,$r='';!$a;){
        $b=fread($h,8192);
        $r.=$b;
        $a=(($b=='')?1:0);
    }
    fclose($h);
    return $r;
}

$email = $_POST["email"];
    
if ($email <> "") {
    post("sub.ezinedirector.net/index.cfm","fuseaction=s&EzineID=<YOUR-EZINE-ID>&email=$email");
}

header("Location: <YOUR-DOWNLOAD-LOCATION>");

exit(); 


[Sharpfish]

Thanks for the code - sounds very useful, will take a closer look when I get around to the site-redesign.

[Olivier]

Thanks to Tom Cain for posting such a valuable advice, and a piece of code! This is very interesting but also new to me.
Could someone please post a sample code that would work with YMLP? I have some trouble writing the correct query.

[Hamumu]

I just took the exact code he posted, and called the post() function with:

if($email!="")
    post("www.ymlp.com/subscribe.php?jamul","YMLP0=".$email);

You won't get the results of the signup, but they'll get the activation email, so no big deal.

[Olivier]

That's what I get by overlooking PHP basics. I think my problem was string concatenation.
Thank you Hamumu!

[Olivier]

I've had problems with the above call to the post() function posted by Hamumu. After several subscription tests I didn't receive the confirmation email anymore.
Patrick from YMLP sent me the piece of code below. The way you have to call the post() function is slightly different. Now it works very well and I suggest that all YMLP users make the change:

PHP Code:

post("www.ymlp.com/subscribe.php","username=<YOUR_YMLP_USERNAME>&YMLP0=$email"); 


[Hamumu]

Thanks back, Oliver! I guess putting GET commands into the post call is probably frowned on in some fashion.

[Olivier]

Yes Mike this seems to be the problem. And I had to look at Tom Cain's code again to discover that the solution was already here!

[soniCron]

I see many of you have implimented Tom's idea by loading another page, after clicking the initial "Download" link. Have any of you noticed a decline in downloads by introducing this extra step? Have any of you measured?

[Tom Cain]

I've been testing double opt-in on my new site and have some results to share.

Some people entered fake email addresses
This is easier for me to check with double opt-in. Some of the addresses are obviously fake. It's not a high percentage, but it does indicate that some people think an address is required. Labeling the field as "optional" must not be clear enough and I want that to be clear. I changed the address field label to:

Your email address (not required for download)

This has dropped fake email entries to zero.

No Hotmail users finished the double opt-in process
I confirmed that some of these people wanted to sign up but never got the confirmation email from Ezine Director. Hotmail puts the confirmation into the Junk Mail folder by default and many users have Hotmail set to delete all Junk Mail. There is a generic note about junk mail folders, safe lists and white lists on the main signup form and the page after the signup form. I have just added a Hotmail-specific paragraph similar to this:

Hotmail users
If you don't receive your confirmation email within five minutes, please add the newsletter address to your Hotmail Safe List. In Hotmail, click the Contacts tab, then click Safe List on the left. Use the text box to add <NEWSLETTER_ADDRESS>. Then go to our sign-up page and enter your email address again. The confirmation email should arrive in your Hotmail inbox shortly.

I'll know later if this helps or hurts. If anyone has any tips for how to make it easier for Hotmail users to get the email, please share.

[Chris Evans]

Whoa, thanks for the info about Hotmail users. I also use Ezine and I was wondering why not a single hotmail user had confirmed their subscription. That explains it.

[arcadetown]

Just tested a signup to hotmail on our home grown system and it went right to my hotmail email box no problem.

Not good news for ezine as hotmail is a large % of users. I'd do some testing on that signup confirmation email. Perhaps there's some magic keyword that triggers a hotmail spam filter that you can figure out and report back to ezine to fix. Or perhaps they spam trigger anything from ezine.