Hi All,

I wanted to report on a new engagement strategy that we've been using in Ottawa these past two months which seems to be working really well and I'm excited about!   It's sending a personal email to new people as we add to our email list.  (Full disclosure - this is an idea that Alex DL from Country Dance New York mentioned at the dance organizers discussion at the Dance Flurry in 2017. I loved the idea at the time but it took a while to implement.)

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Before I get onto the idea and implemention ---> a question for the group! Has anyone had success getting email addresses of most BRAND new people who show up at their dance?  Right now, we get new dancer email addresses in two ways:

1. They sign up on our email sign up sheet at the front table.

2. They put their email address on the second dance free card AND check off the box saying 'add me to your email list'.  (So they actually have to have come back a second time and hand in the filled-in card for us to get their email address.)

... ... ... I'd love to be able to figure out a way to collect the email addresses of more FIRST TIMERS without it seeming creepy.

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Anyway... here's what I wanted to share on adding new people to our email list.

WHAT WE DID BEFORE: 

We would collect email addresses through one of two ways (see above).  We would then go into mailchimp and add those email addresses.  The new person would get a form welcome email from us (carefully worded but in mailchimp format).  They would have to hit 'confirm' before being added to our email list.

WHAT WE DO NOW:

I send them a personal email from my personal account (which looks very different than a mailchimp message).  I then go into mailchimp and add them but check off that I already have permission to add them to the list.  (I also keep a photo record of them giving us permission)

WHAT WE ARE NOTICING: