Getting people to sign up for your email newsletter is only half the battle.  Actually getting your emails into their inboxes is the other half.

There are plenty of best practices for ensuring email delivery.  One of the easiest is simply asking the email recipient to add your email address to their contacts list.  Most email clients will “white list” emails coming from email addresses included in the recipient’s contact list.

Here’s a good example of how to ask the recipient to include your email in their contact list:

I was recently introduced to Drop Box , an online service which allows you to share data between devices seamlessly.  In keeping with their simple product, their website is amazingly intelligent and simple.

A clever video describes in detail how DropBox makes the user’s life easy.  And a large download button drives conversions.  Really all it is lacking is a tag line that accurately speaks to the purpose and value proposition of Drop Box (“Easily Share Data Between All Your Devices”, maybe?) and some text for search engine optimization.

Creating a simplified download page is critical to minimizing site leakage and abandonment.  While DropBox doesn’t hit a home run on all best practices, it does exemplify some of them.

The complete list (well, at least to date …  I’m reserving the right to add more in the future) is here:

• Keep the download page simple.  Simple simple simple.
• Make sure that the download page is compatible with all major browser types.
• Utilize geo-locational technologies to deliver local language versions of your download page.
• Don’t make it difficult to actually download the software.  Create a large clickable area around the “download now” button.
• Prepare for the worst.  If someone has trouble downloading the software, what are you going to do ?  Give users step by step installation instructions during the download.  Don’t forget to customize those instructions based upon the user’s browser type!
• Include web analytics code to track not only how many people visit the download page  and where those downloads are being referred from, but also how many people are actually installing the software.
• Capture user information before the download … so that you can start marketing to the user often and frequently.

Here’s a great example of an upsell email.  With my Carbonite subscription about to expire, I have received the following email.

Let’s break this email down:

• The subject line: “My Carbonite Trial has Expired”.  Notice the initial capitalization, and the compelling call to action.
• Personalization: Well, they haven’t personalized this.  It should read something like “Dear Scott”.
• Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt:  “Your backup will be deleted from our servers”, “Don’t let this happen to you”, “In only 10 days, your backup files will be completely deleted”.
• Several clear call to actions: “Subscribe now”, “Become a paid Carbonite subscriber today”. “Become a Carbonite subscriber”
• Testimonials.  In this case, they are from people who didn’t take advantage of Carbonite.

These are just a few of the best practices that you can incorporate into your email marketing to increase upsell conversions.

Recently I was invited to read and review an advanced copy of “Delivering Happiness”, a new book by Tony Hsieh, the founder and CEO of Zappos.com.  Zappos put the offer out to bloggers and influencers as part of an intelligent online marketing campaign for the book.

As a part of the “early reader” program, I’ve made a commitment to writing an honest review in early June when the book is released to the public.  While I have to admit that part of the reason that I signed up for the program, and made the commitment to write the review, was to be one of the few (supposedly 500 in total) that get a sneak peak of Delivering Happiness, for the most part it was to get a free book that outlined the story behind the Zappos – a company whose business  model (and more importantly culture) I admire greatly.

Encouraging early adopters to “beta test” your product or service is a great way to create buzz.  Zappos has taken this an extra step by including an extra book – to be given away to one of my lucky followers.  So here’s your chance to read Delivering Happiness, first.  Comment on this post, and in 150 words or less write what delivering happiness in the corporate setting means to you.  If your answer is the best, you’ll get the book.

You can only enter in once, and we will choose the winner.  All decisions are final – no whining.  Oh, and because it’s a big world, you’ll need to pay for shipping.

Look for my official review for June.

I’ve written quite a bit about “the Popcorn Popper Process” – whereby you use free services with limited functionality to keep engaged with potential customers / clients … until the “pop” into paying clients.

I came across an email program – www.mailchimp.com – which does this very well.

They offer a free account – no credit card required – allowing you to store up to 500 subscribers and send out up to 3,000 emails per month … FOR FREE.

I’ve long believed that email programs are far overpriced.  The cost to send email is negligible compared to the prices that most email programs charge.  MailChimp seems to be leveraging this; knowing that once I get my subscribers uploaded into their system (and better yet, the autoresponders set), I won’t very likely cancel their service.  More likely than not I’ll upgrade to a paid service when my account exceeds 500 subscribers.

Brilliant Marketing Strategy.

Clive Thompson from Wired Magazine wrote this interesting article on the nature of start ups today.   He notes that many new start ups are “playing it safe”; they are shying away from competitive spaces, and not taking big risks.

I’ve noticed since the Dot Boom that many start ups have become much more conscious about how the manage and grow their businesses.  And this is a good thing.  But a case can be made that it’s gone too far. Start ups are not pushing the envelope.  They are being too cautious.  They are forgetting the value of focusing user acquisition first, then monetization and market domination – and rather just jumping to monetization.

For those of you who have been following my blog for some time, you’re probably thinking, “Wait a second, Scott.  Aren’t you the one who is always promoting monetization??”.  And you would be right.

But it requires a balancing act.  You have to build in the expectation of monetization from the beginning, while creating an attractive offer (read: FREE) that drives initial users.

Southwest Airlines uses some creative communications to re-enforce the value they deliver to their customers.

Like this “thank you” message that came via a confirmation email, with a call to action to tell them about your trip in their online Travel Guide.

And then there is this banner, which appears onscreen after a purchase.  It re-enforces that Southwest Airlines does not charge for checked baggage (well,  your first two bags within the weight and size limitations).

Messages like these are important.  It is far too easy to forget to remind customers why they do business with you.  Every chance you get to need to communicate (over and over again) the value you are providing customers.

Acquiring a customer is expensive.  Whether you’re paying with cash, or sweat equity, each customer has a cost.  And value.

There are many strategies you can employ to maximize the revenue per customer.  For example, let me show you how you can maximize the revenue from the sale of  a digital product.

Base Sale
The cost of the product

Subscription
Subscription revenue can dramatically increase revenue per user.   This requires automatic charges to the credit card on account each year, which only stops when the customer opts-out of the renewal charge (known as negative consent).

Up Sale
Offering discounts for multi-year purchases upfront can increase your immediate revenue, and alleviate any headache associated with subscription renewals.

Cross Sale
Every product has at least one product that compliments it, if not more.  Whether you are selling them, or a partner, the cross sale of other products can dramatically increase the revenue per customer.

Sub Sale
You can also sell advanced features and functionality to increase the revenue per customer.  Telephone technical support is a good example of this.

Extended Download
Extended downloads (offering the customer the ability to download the product for extended period of time) is a great way to extended the per customer revenue.

There are many more ways to generate additional revenue per customer (over their lifetime), such as special offers via email, paid advertising for complimentary products and services, and the sale of other products based upon previous purchases (each of which can be optimized using the strategy listed above).

Once you can determine an accurate Average Revenue Per User (ARPU), you can determine your maximum customer acquisition cost … and from there is becomes a numbers game of increasing the revenue while decreasing the cost.   The difference between the two figures is yours to keep.