When customers sign up for an email newsletter from a retail store or some other company, they are sacrificing a little bit of privacy. After all, they are willingly giving their email address to a commercial entity and they don’t have the fullest of assurances that this email address will not be sold or shared with third-parties. In this way, it is important that should you choose to offer an email newsletter as part of your marketing plan, you should provide a suitable incentive for potential subscribers.

Whether it be a newsletter associated with a professional blog or an email mailing list for a local electronics store, this newsletter should come with a reason why the person would want to subscribe to it. One strategy that some companies take is to provide an initial bonus offer or extra right away. If you sign up for a certain newsletter, you may be provided with a special one-time coupon code for 20% off a purchase of some kind. For some people, that’s enough to sign up.

The problem with the one-time bonus is that the subscriber may choose to unsubscribe immediately after receiving the bonus. For this reason, it is much more valuable to offer some kind of ongoing incentive, either in place of or in addition to the one-time bonus. A great example of this is the email mailing list maintained by Boston Pizza, a popular restaurant chain in Canada and the United States.

The sole reason why I chose to sign up for its email mailing list is to get a free gourmet pasta on my birthday. Each year, they send me a new email and I get a free dinner. Because this is an ongoing promotion that gives me a free meal every year, I choose to stay subscribed to the list. If they only offered one free pasta at the time of signup, I probably would have unsubscribed shortly thereafter.

Give your subscribers a reason to stay around. This can be newsletter-specific coupon codes, promotions, or other valuable inclusions.