by Guest » Fri Dec 26, 2003 5:23 pm
Great thread.
We make a big issue of getting to know our subscribers. It's important to us. Those who sign up for our ezine on have the choice to tell us more about themselves or to simply give us their email address. Dave and I have been surprised over the years that the great majority are willing to fill out the form and give us plenty of information. Having done this over the years, we have collected close to 6,000 of these filled out forms, thus providing us a fairly good idea of who our subscribers are and what are their interests.
Also, after they subscribe anywhere on the website, they get a page that looks , asking them if they have products or services they sell (link). We get around 70 subscribers per month that fill out that form. While that may not seem like many, after 2+ years of doing this we have a pretty good idea of the business activities of our subscribers.
We have quite a few other spots on our website that let us get to know our visitors - invaluable information!
Scott's idea is an excellent one - using the welcome email to get them to respond. You could use surveys and polls in emails, on your website, pretty much anything you can think of for asking questions.
We also use our forums for getting to know our audience. The first forum in our "Business and Marketing" section is entitled "This is Who I Am ... This is What I Do (or want to do)." Many register on the forum and then never post. I periodically send out an individual email to each one of them asking them to tell us a bit about themselves. Many do.
Look for every opportunity you can to ASK. Most won't volunteer information until they're asked.
Some great ideas here. Can't wait to hear more.
Heidi