How to Increase Your Email List Signups

Whether or not the old internet marketing axiom, “The money’s in the list!” is really true, there’s no doubt that offering an email newsletter subscription can be a great way to connect with your customers on another level beyond your website’s content.  Following up with your visitors in this way can help to increase your sales and bolster the public perception of you and your brand, making an email list one of the easiest, fastest ways to grow your business.

Of course, if you want to take advantage of these benefits, you’ve got to get people signed up for your list first!  Simply adding a single opt-in form to your site and calling it a day just won’t cut it – instead, consider the following tips for increasing your email list signups.

Offer a (Good) Bonus

Offering a bonus to encourage subscribers to join your email list is pretty much expected these days.  In light of the recent proliferation of identity theft and phishing attacks, people are – understandably – reticent to give out their email addresses.  In order to overcome this initial hesitation, most web marketers offer some type of a bonus, whether it’s a unique coupon code, a free ebook or some other perk that’s only available to subscribers.

Unfortunately, many website owners put no further thought into the specific bonuses they offer than determining what would be easiest to supply.  This is a mistake, as different industries and markets will respond differently to various types of promotions.  For example, a market that’s highly motivated to subscribe in exchange for a “free shipping” coupon code might be lukewarm about the thought of receiving a free ebook after opting-in.

So how do you decide what to offer?  The best thing to do is to take a look at what your competitors are offering by checking out their websites.  Do they all seem to offer a consistent type of bonus, or is there variation within your industry?  If most of your competitors are offering the same type of bonus, is there a way you could improve upon the offer in order to stand out?  By putting a little time and effort into selecting your opt-in bonus, you’ll have a leg up over competitors who have simply chosen the easiest path.

Present Multiple Options to Signup

Pasting the opt-in web form code to your site’s home page is a good start, but it’s not the only place your form should reside.  Keep in mind that people may be entering your site from different pages, or that they may not be interested in opting in to your email list until they’ve read a bit of your content.  For these reasons, it’s a good idea to include your form on multiple pages, in multiple locations.

And if you need more proof of why this is so important, consider a recent case study completed by Pat Flynn of Smart Passive Income.  Originally, Pat only had his opt-in form on his site’s sidebar, as well as at the end of each post.  By adding an opt-in form to each of his static pages as well, he was able to boost conversions by more than 30% from one month to the next!

The following are a few of the different places you can test installing your opt-in form, although it’s by no means exclusive.  If there are any other locations on your site that you feel could benefit from having an opt-in form, be sure to try them out!

• On your home page
• In your site’s sidebar
• After or within each post on your site
• On your “About Me” page
• On your “Contact Me” page
• Before any videos or resources on each site
• Within the comments area of each post

If you aren’t seeing the results you’re looking for in terms of soliciting opt-ins, be sure to try some of these out.

Test Different Positions

In addition to trying your opt-in form out on different pages of your site, consider split testing different locations within each page as well.  To understand why this is so important, refer back to the case study discussed in October 11^th’s post on using scroll heat maps to determine which portions of the sample site were seen by the greatest percentage of the visitors.

In that article, which featured data from a Referral Candy survey, changing the position of the opt-in form just slightly ensured that it would be seen by 21% more visitors – an increase that would surely make a difference in the number of opt-ins the site received.

Consider a Pop-Up

Now, I’m not talking about one of those incredibly irritating messages that tells you, “Wait, don’t go!” and then makes you jump through six different hoops before you’re able to finally navigate away from a page.  That type of exit pop-up does nothing but frustrate your visitors and tarnish your brand’s image in their minds.

Instead, consider a tastefully designed lightbox-style that pops up only after visitors have spent a certain amount of time on your site, indicating that they’re actually engaged with your content.  Most email autoresponder providers offer this style of opt-in form; or, if yours doesn’t, there are plenty of other scripts that can be purchased in order to drive subscriptions using pop-ups.

Split Test Your Web Forms

The process of split testing refers to randomly serving up two different versions of an element on your website in order to objectively determine which combination results in the most conversions.  Typically, split testing is used to try out different headlines, alternate calls to action and various button graphics – all of which can significantly impact the number of people who engage with a site.

However, depending on the autoresponder provider you’ve chosen, split testing can also be used to hone in on the most effective web form to increase the number of subscribers on your email list.  If your provider offers a split testing service, you’ll be able to create two separate versions of you web form and have them randomly displayed to visitors, allowing you to determine which specific form elements result in the most sign-ups.

A few of the things you’ll want to test on your web form split tests include:

• Your form headline text
• The specific fields required to submit your opt-in form (for example, “name + email” versus simply “name”)
• The colors and graphics used on your web form
• The button text and color used to submit a subscriber’s information
• Your bonus offer (as described above)

By taking the time to test various elements of your web form and apply the other advice shared above, you should see a dramatic improvement in the number of people who sign up to be a part of your email list, which – ideally – will result in increased exposure for your business and more sales for your bottom line!

Image: shawncampbell