Justin Hitt just posted an excellent, albeit quick, post on the value of offering e-newsletter subscriptions in conspicuous places.

This is a personal pet peeve of mine. If you offer an e-newsletter for your company, and you're committed to email as a strategic e-marketing initiative, you should offer every single opportunity for people to subscribe. Here is an ever growing list of places to offer subscriptions:

***Thanks to all of the members of the AMA Internet/SIG for contributing to this***

1. The homepage. Never, ever forget the homepage. (some companies still do...)
2. The persistent navigation of your site - offer it on every_single_page
3. Send A Page forms - allow people to check a box to be subscribed to your newsletter when they're sending links to friends from your site.
4. From within the Send A Page emails - when that "friend" gets the email from his friend, via your company, offer a direct subscribe link into your list.
5. Literature order and download - Anytime anyone has to register to obtain something off your website, hit them up for newsletter subscription.
6. Links within your RFQ or RFI forms - If yours is a lead-generating site, ask people to sign up for your newsletter when they're requesting info.
7. Out of office emails - Have employees put a pitch for the newsletter in their out of office email replies.
8. Email footers & signatures - Better yet, get a program like Tumbleweed, which can insert marketing messages on every email sent from your company
9. Web co-op programs with complimentary sites that link from their newsletter to yours [Jerry Kaup - the e-mail ad agency]
10. Online ads soliciting subscribers – potentially offer a free incentive such as a pen or ½ pound of coffee. [Toby - Bloomberg Marketing]
11. Co-registration - involves placing a checkbox for your newsletter on other sites that reach the same target market. Essentially, it is where your subscription piggy-backs on another subscription or sign-up form somewhere else. [Scott - brandadvocate.com]

***I'm sure there are MORE - Please comment if you think of them!

Don't forget the offline components as well!
* Brochures
* Warranty Cards
* Direct Mailing
* Catalogs
* Product Packaging
* Trade Show Booths (computer kiosk @ trade show?) [Karen - Millennium Chemicals]
* Print Ads
* Include an announcement on your voice-mail or message while
people are on-hold or being transfer within your phone system [Ryan - ExactTarget]
* Sales/distrib. channel
* Sales people/Cust. Serv. /Field engineers [Sue - M4 Communications]
* All other media ads e.g., radio, TV – If you use those to drive traffic to your site, why not mention the availability of a newsletter and position it as value-add?
* Billing inserts [Toby - Bloomberg Marketing]
* Business reply cards which include a check box and space for email. [Joan Damico]

** From Joe Tyler at www.Informz.com
You really need to give people compelling reasons to sign up for your
newsletters. We find this to be more important than the number of times you
ask them if they want to subscribe. The reasons you give will depend on
your business. You may give them something free (like a whitepaper or a
coupon) or you may be able to entice them by providing offers and incentives
in the email that they can not get anywhere else.

If you have different business units, you may want to give subscribers who
subscribe from a particular unit different options than someone who is
coming from the main corporate site. We have found this to be very
effective.

The bottom line is: Stay in touch with customers through any channel possible.

Also, thanks to Sue @ M4 for suggesting the thought of creating a write-paper/checklist of all customer e-mail acquisition points for a newsletter. It will be a fairly lengthy list and should serve as a reliable resource tool for someone starting out in acquiring or expanding their e-mail database. Be on the lookout for that shortly.