“Did I read that right?” I hear you say. “Why, when I have struggled so hard to build up my subscriber count, would I want to lose subscribers?!?”

The reason is simple. You don’t really want subscribers. You want *readers* – people who can receive your newsletter without any problems, can read and follow directions, and actually *want* to receive your newsletter.

Not all subscribers will fit these criteria, but there is a simple way to filter some of those people out before they ever join your newsletter.

Make subscribing to your newsletter double opt-in.

A quick explanation of what double opt-in is, in case you have never come across the term before.

Instead of adding someone to your newsletter straight away when they subscribe, the potential new subscriber gets sent a confirmation message. The subscriber then has to follow the instructions in the confirmation message (click a link, or reply to the message) before they are added to the list. In other words, they have to opt in to your list twice (double opt-in).

Now the disadvantage of this method is fairly obvious. For whatever reason (I’ll get to that in a moment), some people will never confirm their subscription. So while you may get 100 people sign up initially to your newsletter, only 70 may actually confirm their subscription.

“A 30% loss!!” I hear you cry. “That’s terrible! I’m not going to use double opt-in if it loses me subscribers!”

Not so fast. Yes, you may have lost 30% of your new subscribers. But lets look at *why* they didn’t confirm their subscription.

Firstly, the “please confirm” message might have been filtered out (probably without their knowledge). While this is bad (and a growing problem), if something as simple as a “please confirm” message was filtered out, what do you think would happen to your newsletter?

Secondly, they might not have actually bothered to look at the message. Perhaps they thought it was spam, perhaps they just open things that catch their attention in some way. But if they didn’t bother for a ‘please confirm’ message (that you would have told them to expect), would they bother opening your newsletter?

Third, they might have changed their mind – subscribing when they first heard about your newsletter, but later deciding they didn’t want to receive it after all. This is excellent! Why? Because you only want people on your newsletter list who want to receive your newsletter.

Fourth, while they might have opened the message, they might not have actually *read* the message.

For instance, the system I use at the moment requires a new subscriber to confirm their subscription by clicking a link in the message. Even though the message clearly says what to do, I still get people who just reply to the message via email. If they didn’t read the confirm message, it doesn’t give me high hopes they would actually read the newsletter if they were subscribed!

Now it is possible someone may get the ‘please confirm’ message, but not actually understand what they are supposed to do. This *is* bad (since they may turn out to be one of your best customers once they have learnt how to use a computer a bit more). The only way to solve this is to make your confirm message as clear as possible.

I used to worry about the number of subscribers I was losing to the double opt-in process. I would even email those that hadn’t confirmed after several days. I only had two people join after I emailed them.

Double opt-in is good for your list. Give it a try.

Copyright 2003 Jason Anderson

Jason is the editor of Achieve Net Profits, where he interviews successful Internet marketers each week. Save yourself time and money by learning marketing directly from the pros! –> http://www.AchieveNetProfits.com/