Setting Up your Pre-Sign-up Email System
Once you have signed up to an email service, they guide you through the steps you need to take. Rather than duplicating their guidelines, here are few things to consider for your pre-sign-up email system.
Confirmed opt-in
This practice is standard for most email services. Sometimes wrongly called “double opt-in”, confirmed opt-in is when someone enters their email address, they receive an email asking them to confirm their application to be on your list.
This has a several advantages.
- It is an anti-spam device. If someone adds your email address to a list, you receive an email with a link. Click the link to confirm you want to be on the list. To decline the request for any reason, ignore the confirmation email.
- If it is your list, the advantage is people will confirm if they are really interested, which means you have a list more likely to respond positively to your emails.
- Some people may want to download your offer but are not really interested and they have a special email address they use for these services. It goes to an inbox they rarely if ever check. Confirmed opt-in is likely to weed out addresses of this type.
Your sign-up form
Most email services offer a form design service. You design the form on their site and upload it to your website. Alternatively, design your own form and attach the email service to it. Both methods are straightforward.
The Main Things to Consider
- What information do you need when someone signs up? The best advice is keep it minimal. You can ask for more information if someone on your list becomes more active. Some people say they get the best results when they ask for email address only. It is worth considering whether you also ask for first name. You can add their first name to an email to make it more personal. I think anyone who isn’t prepared to offer a first name is probably not that interested in your offer and so I don’t think you miss much by asking for it. One word of warning though, if you ask for first names do not include them in the subject line of your emails. Two reasons: (1) it looks tacky, and (2) some people put coded names so that they can identify who has sent the email.
- The text on your form. You need to think about (1) a reminder about what you are offering in return for the email address, (2) reassurance that it will not be passed on to third parties, and (3) something on the button that says more than “Submit” (a really dreadful word that implies some sort of online wrestling match).
- Where you put the form. The two main options (and you can use both) are (1) in a sidebar or (2) on a landing page. For the latter remember you need a good title, minimal text and no videos. If a video is involved, you can use an image on the page and insist visitors sign up to see it. This type of landing page (sometimes called a squeeze page) must have no distractions, ie things like navigation. The visitor either signs up or goes away. Landing pages can be targeted from social media, so if you have a new video, send a link to the landing page from social media.
Follow-Up
Email services do vary in terms of the support they offer. If you use WordPress you have a number of plug-ins to choose from that offer support in addition to your email service. I can write about all this in more detail on request.
How do you link your site to email services?