The Four Rights

If you're looking to have fun with your email acquisition process, why not try some web candy?

Web candy comes in a variety of forms--free applications, humorous widgets, and Facebook apps, just to name a few.  The most famous example is probably Elf Yourself from Office Max in which you can turn your friends into dancing elves simply by uploading a picture.

Well-crafted web candy is always engaging, usually humorous, and--most importantly for email marketers--tied to an opt-in process that turns a good number of visitors into permission-based subscribers.

One of my favorite pieces of web candy from the past couple of years comes in the form of Despair.com's Candy Heart Generator.  As you can see below, it lets you add your own sentiment to a candy heart--just in time for Valentine's Day.

What's interesting, however, is that Despair.com doesn't close the opt-in loop.  While you can email your creation to friends, the process doesn't provide an opt-in to receive Despair.com's very funny newsletter. 

The lesson?  Witty, well-crafted web candy can generate a lot of attention for a company, but unless you take full advantage of your spike in visitors by giving them a clear path to become an email subscriber, you will be leaving dollars on the table.  And that's enough to give any marketer a stomach ache.