Having an opt-in form on your website is a fantastic way to encourage your visitors to subscribe to your email newsletter! However, the cold, harsh reality is that having an opt-in form in place doesn’t mean your customers are automatically going to, you know, opt-in.
Allow me to inflate your recently deflated balloon. There are a myriad of effective methods and strategies that can easily boost the likelihood that your website visitors will sign up for your newsletter or email marketing campaign, IF you implement a few steps to entice them!
Visibility is key! A great opt-in form will be well placed and difficult to miss on your website. For example, it’s pretty tough for customers to miss a bright yellow button presenting very clear instructions: “CLICK HERE”. Am I right? The unfortunate reality is that we all are prone to missing the obvious. How many times have you gone to look for your glasses only to discover they’re on top of your head? No show of hands, please. The point is that the easier the opt-in form is to see, the higher the likelihood that website visitors will sign up! Not a difficult concept to master. Consider which parts of your website are going to offer higher visibility. For example, “above the fold” content offers tremendous visibility as it is considered the part of your screen which is viewed without having to scroll further down on the screen. Always try to place your opt-in form in an obvious spot and not in a place which requires you to scroll endlessly to find it.
Make your opt-in form so attractive that no one will be able to look away! Okay, so maybe that’s a bit much, but visual attractiveness is one of the pillars of marketing, is it not? Again, perhaps I’m restating the obvious, but for consumers, the word “form” invites visions of endless rows of boring, monotonous text and questions and rows of empty text fields. Yuck! You need to spice things up a bit and present your consumers with a visually exciting, well placed, and engaging opt-in form!
- Consider your color pallet.
- Choose a catchy word or brief phrase.
- There is power in fonts.
- Consider size/scale.
Make sure your opt-in form content is engaging! Provide clear, attention-grabbing copy which will spur readers to press on through the rest of the form! Your content should be such that it “wets the appetite” of potential customers.
Consider incentivizing readers with coupons, special offers, insight to early product launches and a VIP sign-up bonus if applicable! Remember: all consumers want to be in the know and ahead of the game. If you make them feel like it is worth their while to opt-in, then you stand to gain a higher amount of sign-ups and that means more money in your pocket! Provide consumers with value and they will be invaluable to you in return!
Almost every business owner is familiar with the “K.I.S.S.” acrostic, so you probably already know to keep it simple, Stupid! No one likes complications and no one has time to navigate a tedious, complicated opt-in form. Keep it simple! It should be very easy for website visitors to sign up and the fields should be limited. Don’t overwhelm consumers by requesting unnecessary information from them.
Opt-in forms are powerful lead magnets! A well placed, well designed button will encourage consumers to provide you with invaluable personal data and insight as to what they want, need, are willing to pay for and serve as the match which ignites open communication between you and your customers!
