You have a website. You even have a decent amount of traffic coming in to your website. You have a few sales. But unless your website has this one thing, your website is *shredding* money.
What’s that one thing? The email opt-in form. What’s that? Every sign-up box you see on other websites where they ask for your email address so you can get a discount/get blog updates/get insider newsletter tips/etc. Why are these so important? Two words: email marketing.
The Direct Marketing Association puts email marketing’s ROI for 2011 at $40.56 for every $1 invested.
Sign-up forms are the baseline requirement for email marketing. Hook them up with an email marketing service like MailChimp, Aweber, or Constant Contact and you have yourself the beginnings of a quality email marketing program.
What makes a good opt-in form? It’s all about conversion – getting your visitors to part with their heavily guarded email address.
Here are a few ideas you can use to increase the conversion rate for your email sign-up on your website:
1 – Eliminate Unnecessary Steps. If possible, have your visitor enter their email address right on the page. Eliminate unnecessary clicks.
2 – Keep It Simple. Do you really need 18 pieces of information about your email subscriber? No. You need an email address, and maybe a name. Don’t discourage sign-ups by requiring your visitor to part with more of their private information and time in filling out your lengthy form.
3 – Make It Prominent, Relevant, and Often. Email opt-ins should be ‘above the fold’ of your webpage – meaning the visitor doesn’t have to scroll to see the form. If they do scroll, add an email opt-in where relevant – the bottom of almost any page on your site is a good example (if they’ve read that much, they’re likely interested in more from you). The only pages on your site where you should definitely avoid an email opt-in are your pages where you want them to press ‘buy now’ or ‘contact me’ instead.
4 – Demonstrate Your Trustworthiness. Visitors don’t give email addresses to businesses they don’t trust. Add a line about your commitment to privacy or not sharing their email address. Logos from Verisign and TRUSTe are good examples. If your subscriber count or Twitter following is high, displaying that number can increase your perceived trusthworthiness. Testimonials also work.
5 – Tell Them What They’re Signing Up For. What sort of information will be in your newsletter? How often will I receive it? What day? Being upfront about this and then delivering as promised will equal a lower unsubscribe rate as a bonus.
6 – Consider Incentives. MarketingExperiments did a study on incentives increasing sign-ups. Incentives can be a great way to increase opt-in conversion rates. Check out my quick video post to for 3 secrets to developing an email marketing incentive that works.
Adding opt-in forms to your website and beginning an email marketing program can equal a huge return for your business. Want more info on email marketing? Check out my recent post – 5 Ways to Get Your Customers to Unsubscribe Today.
Do you have an opt-in form on your site? Did you find this post useful? Let me know in the comments!
Loved this article, and it’s so true!
I also help small businesses develop their online presence, and I tell my clients all the time, “if you don’t do anything else, put an email opt-in form on your website, pronto!”
I had one client who had her opt-in form waaaaay down at the bottom of her site, and one of the first things I suggested to her was to move it up “above the fold.” She’s seen an increase in her email sign-ups from this one simple change and needless to say, she’s thrilled! Now I’m working on her to get her to change up the copy on her opt-in form so it doesn’t say the bland and uninspiring, “Sign up for our Newsletter,” so she can get even more sign-ups.
All that said, I need to make some major improvements to my OWN opt-in form and site! 🙂
Kimberly – so glad you enjoyed the article!
Opt-in forms are SO important and SO easy to add but definitely one of the top most-forgotten marketing items for small business websites. Glad you were able to pick up some nuggets for your own site as well!
Happy Optimizing! 🙂
Thanks, Liz. I clicked over to your site, which is terrific, by the way. Gives a girl something to shoot for! : )
Very helpful tips, which I plan on using asap. Thanks!
Great idea! I will have to add it to my personal website. Thank you!
Great post! I’ve been contemplating having an email sign up for ages. This has prompted me to just get on with it and do it! One question though, if I sign up with, say, MailChimp, how do I put the opt-in option on my website? And can it be put on both my website and my blog (separate sites)? Thanks!
When you create a list in Mailchimp, it will have a button on the left for you to ‘design form’ and then it will have an embed code. Mailchimp has the most amazing help as well and they have a wealth of videos that show you EXACTLY how to set up the form and put it on your sites. And yes, you can definitely put it on both sites. (However, I think it’s time you join those two sites for SEO and Google search reasons.)
Thanks Megan! I’ll give it a go this week. Any suggestions on how to join my two sites, lol?! I have a link on each that leads to the other. My site is big cartel based (my own domain) and my blog is wordpress. Thanks!
Hmmm…in that case I would leave them as they are. Otherwise, a route to go would be to follow that of Megan Auman (http://www.meganauman.com) where her shop is on Big Cartel and her site is WordPress. She’s customized Big Cartel then to exactly match her WordPress website so you can’t tell you’re going from one to the next. But really, you’ve done a beautiful job. I would instead focus on what your fans really want to get from your blog. There’s a place for self-doubt and being honest about lack of sales but too much of that and you come across as someone barely keeping their head above the water. People want to buy from someone they look up to, someone who seems successful, someone who seems confident. So do your readers want DIY, a glimpse into how you make things, tutorials, the stories behind your pieces? THAT’S what will really help give your blog focus and make it an integral part of your business.