Confirming Newsletter Subscriptions After Group Giveaways

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

I have mixed feelings about group giveaways that are geared to grow newsletter subscribers.

I’ve had success in the past with the (very few) times that I’ve participated in group giveaways.  My bounce rates and unsubscribes stayed pretty low.  I think this is a testament to the fact that 1) I rarely send email newsletters and 2) the groups I joined had books very similar to mine.

But I still always felt like I was spamming unsuspecting readers–even though they had expressly agreed to sign up for all the authors’ newsletters in exchange for the chance to win a grand prize.

Additionally…and this is me being cheap, as usual…my email list is of such a size now that I have a paid plan on Mailchimp.  I don’t particularly want to waste my money sending out release newsletters to a disinterested recipient (a.k.a., someone who didn’t seek to sign up for my newsletter and mine alone).  To be clear, I do segment my lists, sending new subscribers a different newsletter than other segments.  But this is still pricy (and time consuming, to boot).

I subscribe to author assistant Mel Jolly’s newsletter and read an interesting message from her last week.  She recommended that, after getting the emails from the group giveaway, we contact the readers’ email addresses and give them a chance to opt in purposefully instead of being looped in automatically.

I had just participated in a group giveaway in May and hadn’t yet integrated the addresses into Mailchimp.  I decided to give Mel’s advice a go.

It was a large list, so I sent an email to 500 at a time (gmail’s limit).  I basically said that I appreciated them taking part in the giveaway, but that I didn’t want to bother anyone if they didn’t want to hear from me.  I gave them the link to sign up for my newsletter, told them they’d get a free book if they did (which is my standard giveaway for each new subscriber), and mentioned that my newsletters included release info and recipes.  Then I waited.

I got responses right away.  One woman said that she really appreciated being given a choice; that she was a Luddite that mistakenly thought the giveaway was for print copies–that she didn’t read ebooks.

Another woman said that she so appreciated my email that she would not only sign up for my email but would start reading one of my books right away.

Mailchimp reported 308 people had elected to join my list.  While this is a fraction of the 1000 that I contacted the first couple of days, these are 308 people who wanted to hear from me.  To me, that’s worth it.

A caution: within several days (and understanding the number of potential subscribers I was reaching out to), most email providers had blocked my email address, assuming I was spam. One way around this problem may include using different email handles.  Another way around it may be to go ahead and add them to a group on your newsletter list (maybe ‘potential subscribers or XYZ giveaway subscribers), send a message asking them to confirm their subscription…and then dropping those who don’t open their email or request to be removed. The only downside of that solution–for me, at least–is that I’d have to pay for that newsletter to be sent.  I’d like to hear other ideas about workarounds.  I have a feeling there’s something quite simple that I’m overlooking.

What are your thoughts on group giveaways? Have you participated in any?

Group Giveaways: Asking New Subscribers to Confirm Their Interest:
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