Keeping in touch with current and prospective readers often requires cultivating lists of email addresses—not potential spam recipients, but people who are actually interested in hearing from you.

I took a stroll around the Web and inventoried some of the most frequently used methods for soliciting opt-in email addresses:

• Most common by far is simply to ask readers to sign up for “news and updates.”
• Many blogs require visitors to leave their email addresses in order to comment on posts.
• “Test” sites often invite visitors to take a quiz and then create an account to see the result. (For example, http://www.intelligencetest.com.)
• Lots of Flash game sites require registration either to play or to post a high score. Often these games are themselves created to promote some product or movie (For example, this game promoting the latest James Bond movie).
• News sites like the New York Times and the Washington Post often require free registration to read their content.
• Many sites ask for visitors’ email in exchange for a white paper or a podcast.
• Some sites have poll applets that require visitors to sign in to offer their opinions.
• Finally, some news sites and blogs invite readers to submit story ideas or links to their own work, or to pitch stories for payment (like Escapist, for example).

We’re about to try one or two of these techniques. Have you used any? How have they worked? Did we miss any?

Posted in Marketing and promotion