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1. Registration Visibility
Location, location ,location. Where is it best to place for your registration form? To get the optimum results, you will have to perform some testing by placing the registration form at different locations of your homepage. Do not make your visitor have to search for it as frustration can be just a click away.
2. Registration on every Page
Email registration should be strongly emphasized on every page. Don’t expect your prospect to happily make his/her way to your contact page and register. Content can distract just as much as ad value either use breadcrumbs or funnel your prospect to register. Never miss an opportunity.
3. Call to action
Give visitors the clearest indication of the real value that they will be getting via registration. Emphasize the freebies such as free offers, free information, and coupons, just to name a few. In all honesty, visitors tend to be attracted by such freebies. If there is evidence of value , substantiated by a compelling reason for the opt-in, your registration form will come alive and your email list will therefore grow.
4. Capture quality registrants
In order to increase opt-ins, there are many ways to do it. Free white papers, coupons, discounts are all proven techniques. It is vital to monitor the quality of the registrations. The original intention of the registration form will be defeated if it is discovered that a higher percentage of subscribers registered purely for the freebie. Spring clean the list as email addresses flow in.
5. Balance of questions on the page
Visitors will undoubtedly be completely annoyed with a long list of questions. Getting this balance right is important and depends on your targeted audience. In B2B it is expected, in b2c it can be big turn off. A crucial tip will be for you to ask only pertinent questions. As it is your intention to build a long term relationship with visitors, ask only questions that are reasonable with in your market sector. This should be tested before going live.
6. Valid reason to Register
What’s in it for them? There has to be some value exchange – offer them a discount, free item, newsletter, etc. And you have to give some assurance that you will protect the customer’s privacy. But every time you ask for someone’s e-mail address, you should explain why you’re asking for it, and how you are going to use it.
7. Credibility
Credibility lends support to getting more email registrations. If real value is evident, visitors will subscribe knowing about the credibility that you have gained via the relationship that you have built with them through the years. Credibility and relationship are crucial to succeeding in building your email list. Therefore, build up credibility and strengthen relationships.
8. Correct email
To double entry or not! Using double entry, in which the e-mail address needs to be entered twice (second time for confirmation), is considered a proactive way of assuring that the email submitted is correct, But because most people simply copy and paste the first address they typed you get the bad address twice. It is a good idea to put “Please read over and check that the information entered is correct?” on a following page with a back button.
9. Confirmation e-mail
Sending a confirmation e-mail right after collecting a customer’s address is a good way to test all addresses as soon as they’re collected. Tell the customer on submitting their information that a confirmation email will be automatically sent and if not visible in their inbox and adjust spam filters
10. Opt-ins and opt outs
It is important to tell subscribers what they are opting in for. This should build on your call to action and underpin credibility. Double opt-in, where an email is sent to the subscriber and they have to click on a link to verify their subscription, offers a secure way of identifying the subscriber and stops bogus submissions. Make sure you always off the subscriber the choice of opting out of an email list.
David Duvan
Electric Talk Media
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