
Ask HN: Trying to grow a newsletter subscriber base - allsystemsgo
Hello!<p>My wife is trying to grow her newsletter subscriber base. We are running Google AdWords and have about a 1% click through rate. With her current growth rate, it looks like she has a long road ahead of her.<p>I&#x27;m considering hosting a giveaway on her newsletter. I&#x27;ve done a giveaway in the past to gain subscribers and usually the link to the giveaway just gets passed around to fake accounts or to users who follow the #AmazonGiveaway hashtag. I want to offer a giveaway but still keep up the engagement of my subscribers.<p>Thanks for your help. We&#x27;re open to any ideas.
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wj
Have you considered incentives for new subscribers? My experience is that
there is no shortcut to growing subscriber base but you can slowly do it by
offering a short educational email course, a PDF of 10 tips, or an ebook
(which has the additional benefit of helping establish her as an authority--
particularly if you self-publish to Amazon through Createspace. "Newsletter
name by the author of Book About Topic".)

Create a separate landing page for each. Here are some free landing page
templates you can use:

[https://www.leadpages.net/the-ultimate-list-of-free-
landing-...](https://www.leadpages.net/the-ultimate-list-of-free-landing-page-
templates)

Here is a blog post on the ebook option:

[http://blog.engagetactics.com/the-step-by-step-guide-to-
crea...](http://blog.engagetactics.com/the-step-by-step-guide-to-creating-an-
ebook/)

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gk1
If you want subscribers who care about your content and engage, and not just
people (or bots) who signed up for free things, then earn their subscription
by sharing interesting and helpful content.

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OJFord
Agreed, but presumably OP is looking for a way to aid the discovery of the
newsletter to prospective readers.

~~~
allsystemsgo
That's correct. The content seems to be engaging (we've gotten some good user
feedback so far and about 40% of our users open the newsletter).

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pan69
Like others have already pointed out, I'm also not sure if giveaways are the
best option since it might not attract genuine interest, which I assume is
what you're after.

Even though you might have the most insightful newsletter, getting awareness
about this with a target audience can be tough. I'm not sure what the subject
on your wife's newsletter is but, if she's not already, she should be active
in the community targeting this audience. E.g. if there are discussion forums
regarding the newsletter's subject then your wife should participate as an
insightful and active member of this community and be viewed as an authority
on the subject. Then having a newsletter sign up link in your public profile
of these communities might then help in getting genuine subscribers.

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shortformblog
Just wrote about this in another thread:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12721396](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12721396)

But I would highly recommend the syndication route if it's likely to gain
pickup through that method.

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saluki
To build a real audience I would shy away from adwords and giveaways. Focus on
publishing good content often instead that will get people signed up who are
truly interested.

Depending on the audience, spend time answering questions in discussion
groups, engage with your existing audience through emails and her website.

Instead of a giveaway provide value to signups through an ebook or a drip set
of emails with small helpful pdfs that provide them value and will keep them
interested and coming back.

Look in to doing guest posts/interviews and/or sponsoring popular blogs and
podcasts in her niche.

Good luck building the list it can be a long road.

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codezero
What's the newsletter about? Likely the best approach to attracting
subscribers will depend heavily on the target demographic.

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Overtonwindow
I work for a small nonprofit that publishes a newsletter, and it's been very
hard to convince people to subscribe. We're trying to think beyond email, and
more mobile. Then again ours is free. I wish you the best of luck.

