Businesses tend to put a lot of effort into developing email marketing best practices, but often miss the opportunity to get those emails into the hands of as many people as possible. Lead generation is critical, and one of the best ways to generate leads is through an opt-in form on your website. Getting people to opt in can be a challenge, but there are some small changes you can make that can offer big results. Give them a reason to subscribe.
- Give A Description – Giving a short, simple description of your content and its frequency can make a dramatic difference in the effectiveness of your opt-in form. In one AWeber case study, a company conducted A/B testing on their opt-in form, with and without the description. The form with the description resulted in almost 84 percent more opt-ins.
- Use Social Proof – If you've been building your subscriber list for a while, you may have an impressive number of subscribers, and presenting that number as social proof tends to encourage people to join in. "Join more than 100,000 subscribers who are already receiving our weekly content!" Obviously, if you're just starting out, this is something you can work toward. Another alternative is to include a widget that shows the number of social media shares pages from your website. This will be a total of all pages from your site that are shared, typically broken down by medium, with a grand total of shares across all social media.
- Add Incentive – Using a lead magnet such as a free e-book or white paper, or a discount code for a future purchase will also provide a significant increase in subscribership, if you choose the right incentive for your target audience. By starting with a well-developed buyer persona and understanding that persona's concerns, motivations, and pain points, you can begin developing a list of incentives to test. Choosing the wrong incentives can result in a poor subscription rate, but, even worse, it can attract the wrong people to join your mailing list. It's true that you're not incurring significant costs by sending your information to the wrong people, but it's a missed opportunity to get your message to people who are likely to actually become buyers.
Small Changes For Big Success
If your company has been looking for ways to get email subscribers opting in at a better rate, start with small changes, and track the results carefully through analytics and testing. The more carefully you research your buyer personas and the results of each new change to your approach, the more likely it is that you'll not only see your subscription rate rise, but you'll be reaching more of the right people with each email.