Collect Subscribers Offline: Do’s & Don’ts

Using a website opt-in form to collect subscribers is a great, automated way to build your list.

Many publishers want to collect subscribers offline too. Done right, this can be a valuable asset in your email marketing arsenal.

However, not every email address that comes your way offline belongs to someone who wants to be on your list.

How do you tell which ones you should add to your list — and which ones you shouldn’t?

Assume Nothing

This should go without saying, but you don’t want to try to add everyone who might want your messages.

Seems simple enough. But people have a tendency to mistakenly assume permission when it’s not explicitly given.

Here’s an example:

You meet Joe at a business lunch. You talk for a few minutes, exchange business cards and go your separate ways.

A week later you’re at your desk, and you see his card sticking out from underneath your cell phone.

So, you add Joe to your list, right? Right?

Wrong. Very wrong.

Business cards are given out for a lot of reasons, not just to subscribe to a list. Unless this person specifically asked you to add them to your list, don’t do it.

Opt-in list management is a simple concept in theory, but it’s easy to fall victim to the temptation of doing something just like that, that simply isn’t an opt-in practice. This is especially true offline.

Offline Situations: Opt-In or Not?

There’s a difference between providing contact information to be subscribed to a newsletter and say, providing it so that I can call you back about setting up a meeting. And there are a whole lot of reasons in between.

So, to help guide you, we’ve put together a list of potential list-building tactics, and discuss which ones are — and aren’t — OK to use here at AWeber. (For the record, if it’s not OK to use here, you really shouldn’t be using it at all.)

In deciding if an email address collected offline is opt-in or not, consider two things:

You should look everywhere for opportunities to build your list. Be innovative! Just make sure you’re getting permission from your subscribers.

AWeber Knowledge Base: Can I Use This List?

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21 Comments

  1. Michele Dortch

    Yes! One of my BIGGEST peeves in business networking is having someone add me to their newsletter list without my permission. Especially, when I later see them brag about the size of their list. As you posted in an earlier post…list size doesn’t matter if that majority of your subs were strong-armed into signing up!

    When I meet people offline that I think would benefit from my newsletter, I ask, "Are you interested in receiving my monthly newsletter by email?" Once I manually add them, they have the chance to re-confirm their interest via AWeber’s double opt-in process (which I love!).

    Thanks for this post and reminding us of the importance of permission-based Internet marketing.

    2/8/2007 12:06 pm
  2. Dawud Miracle

    Nice post. I agree with what you’re saying. I think anytime be begin keeping a database of contacts/leads, we need to raise our level of responsibility for those leads. And if converting a leads base to clients is what drive your business, then the utmost integrity is required

    2/8/2007 12:35 pm
  3. Chris Lockwood

    I just use business cards with my site URL (that has my aweber form on it). That way people who I meet in person can sign themselves up just like anyone else, and there’s no valid reason for them to complain.

    2/8/2007 10:42 pm
  4. John

    Justin,

    I’m curious why the comments information block on your blog here bothers to ask for web site information but you use the nofollow tag on the URLs? Have you had a problem with blog spamming?

    Thanks

    2/9/2007 12:33 pm
  5. Tom Kulzer

    John,

    Nofollow is just for search engines. It’s the WordPress default as far as I know and discourages blog spam posts. It in no way affects real users which is the reason we publish this blog. To help the community be better email marketers.

    2/9/2007 3:17 pm | Follow me on Twitter
  6. Ruth

    Hi,
    Can we reprint this article on our own blogs? It is such an important point for opt in lists,

    2/12/2007 7:42 am
  7. Justin Premick

    Hi Ruth,

    Yes, you’re welcome to reprint this as long as you leave it as-is and include a resource box (I’ll send it to you).

    2/12/2007 5:16 pm | Follow me on Twitter
  8. Joar Kamara

    Good post. I totally agree with you!

    Best regards
    Joar

    2/13/2007 7:28 pm
  9. Denise O'Berry

    Congratulations for addressing this issue. I’ve harped on this for a long time. It became such a tough issue for me that I had two sets of business cards printed — one without my email address. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

    2/17/2007 8:10 am
  10. Gert Hough

    Thank you for great information. Offline marketing is something I strongly believe in yet I’ve never come so far as to start doing it.

    Thank you Michele Dortch for clearing up a question I had related to this post – I wasn’t sure if you could just add the potential subscriber (with his/her consent) Now I know.

    3/28/2007 3:24 am
  11. Nelson Tan

    Aweber has raised a very good point with its article. My personal practice has always been to treat fresh leads as COLD leads. Never presume people are already warm to you on first encounter. It is always better to prepare an introductory message as a courtesy call and leads filter, describing:

    1) yourself, your business and the benefits of your products and services,
    2) how you get their e-mail addresses or contact number in the first place (just to remind them)
    3) and a call-to-action asking them to proactively subscribe to your list to learn more about your business.

    With regards to point 3, "some will, some won’t, so what? NEXT!" Some cold leads will remain cold and fall out. You may like to mail them a second time, but not anymore than that.

    The whole point of the activity is to qualify leads for future prosperity. In this manner, patience does pay.

    3/29/2007 12:11 am
  12. Alex barbera

    I’ve heard many times that it is possible to have thousands of subscribers to your newsletter even if you don’t have a website/blog. What do you guys think? I’ve been searching through ezines and still can’t figure it out.

    8/8/2007 12:57 am
  13. Richard Mclaughlin

    I prefer the aweber way of opting in, I have another service that allows single opt in and I have a higher withdraw rate from that service. With an opt-out on a single opt-in list there seems to be the complaint issue more often.

    2/4/2008 4:24 am
  14. Yves Marie Danie Baptiste

    Excellent article!

    Small business entrepreneurs would not have such difficulty finding money to stay in business if they implemented this strategy. The information they send out to their newsletter customers would develop a relationship that would create a fence around their clients and protect their businesses from being beat out by, say, a bigger competitor.

    7/19/2008 1:24 am
  15. Jeff

    Nice post. I agree with what you’re saying. many friend said All these cost nothing to generate traffic and are highly recommended.

    8/22/2008 11:51 pm
  16. Timothy

    Say!, thanks you very much for all of the impernent information, I think, this information is very helpful in getting started with a new business venture. Again I really appreciate all of it.

    1/4/2009 2:48 pm
  17. Hunter

    I’m trying to get the hang of Aweber, I am still confused, but this article is a great starting point. It’s always best to do it right the first time, than having to go back and fix it later.

    Thanks, It is

    7/17/2009 9:19 pm

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