The old adage of “the money is in the list” may not be trendy these days, but it’s still as true as ever.
When you build an email list, you’re building an asset.
As I’ve taken over from Allan, and rebuilt the site, I’m now in the process of building and optimising the email opt-in funnel. As I’m now in the thick of it and it’s fresh in my mind, I wanted to share with you some cool tactics I’ve learned over the years that you can apply to your own sites to improve your opt-in rates.
There are a few key things that you can do that might take your opt-in rate from 5% to 10% with exactly the same amount of traffic.
So it’s worth rolling out these tweaks, even though some of them are a bit of hard work.
Here’s what you’ll need before you begin.
- A website (thanks Jay, you’re a genius).
- An email service. I use both Mailchimp and Aweber. If you’re an affiliate marketer, I recommend Aweber as they are friendlier to affiliates, better suit the kind of campaigns that we often run (e.g. text only) and have automation built in (e.g. rules to automatically move your subscribers when they subscribe to different lists) so you don’t need to be a programmer.
- Two bribes (also known as lead magnets) for sign-up. In other words, something of value that you’ll give away for free to get an email address. I’ll explain why you need two later.
- Some sort of pop-up software. Some people use and love Pop-up Domination. I personally use Ninja Pop-ups.
- A content locker. I use this social content locker for WordPress.
Now you have everything you need, let’s attack this task of increasing opt-ins with a 3 prong attack.
The 3 prong attack will focus on:
- Getting more attention to the opt-in offer.
- Increasing the conversion rate for opt-in once you have attention.
- Leveraging the opt-in you’ve just got to get more opt-ins.
Let’s go.
Get Attention
A big part of increasing your opt-in rate is to find the balance between getting the opt-in noticed vs. having someone wanting to do digital voodoo on you.
It’s a tricky balance and one you’ll have to find yourself. I personally have found that provided your offer is compelling and has enough value, you can use pop-ups with great impact without concern.
Whatever you do, don’t just throw people a pop-up that has zero value and just asks them to give you their email address.
Imagine this.
You’re walking down the street and someone steps in front of you and says “Hey there! I see you’re wearing an Arcade Fire t-shirt. I’m friends with the lead singer. Would you like me to put you on a list so that you can get early access to all their albums?”
Of course you’d be stoked to be put on that list and there would be high fives all round.
However, how would you feel if that same guy just stepped in front of you and said “Hey there! Can you give me your details so I can put you on a list”.
Of course you’d tell him to “keep walking pal”.
Just because you’re on the internet, the mechanics are no different. You need to add enough value so when you put an opt-in offer in front of somebody, interrupting their flow, they’re actually happy you did.
It’s simply because people have not been adding enough value to make the pop-up worthy of the interruption.
A general rule for what you should give away for your lead magnet is to ask yourself “if this was for sale, would you pay money for it – even if it was $10“. It needs to be that good.
Here are some of my tips for best practice on increasing attention to the offer:
1) As mentioned, have a killer lead magnet that people love so much that they would be both happy you interrupted them and happy to hand over their email address.
2) Wait for about 5-10 seconds before launching the pop-up. This will help people get a little bit settled before you throw them the opt-in offer.
3) If you want to be more conservative, you can have it as an exit pop-up. In my experience, these are not that accurate at predicting the user intent to leave. Plus I hypothesize that if they’re leaving, their frame of mind is moving onto other subject matters and are “disengaging” from you rather than “engaging” with you.
I would also recommend making the opt-in available on the page some place as well. There could be fence sitters who want to get to know you more before they hand over their details. Once they’ve read a blog post or two, they know you’re not a jerk and might then want to opt-in.
Increasing Opt-in Conversion Rate
So now you’ve got your killer opt-in lead magnet in front of people, what specific stuff can you do to increase the chances that they’ll take you up on it?
Writing compelling copy is a skill that is fundamentally essential if you want to be successful online. I would highly recommend that everyone work on their copywriting skills as it will pay for itself over and over again.
A good place to start is by reading the CopyHackers blog. Joanna strikes a nice balance between persuasion and not pushing things so hard you end up sounding like an infomercial. Check out her 101 Copywriting Do’s and Dont’s.
With good copy you can hit on the psychological triggers that will increase the likelihood that they’ll be pushing their mother out of the way to get your lead magnet.
A good pop-up tool like Ninja Popups will allow you to split test a few different versions to see which one has the best conversion rate. You will want to constantly keep testing to keep improving.
Here are some other tips I would recommend trying that have worked for me:
- Buttons matter a lot. Test the copy and colours. You’ll often find me mock boasting that we have the largest buttons in the industry.
- Follow the 101 Copywriting Do’s and Dont’s.
- If possible, use captions under images and buttons. Weirdly, they are one of the most powerful things on the page when it comes to testing.
- Have a real and unique image. Not slick stock photography that looks like an ad. For example, show some of the detail of what you’re giving away, but blur some of it out.
- Don’t collect first name. Just collect their email address. The conversion rate lift will easily outweigh the benefit for being able to use “Hi Jay” at the top of the email.
- This one is controversial. Try to use single opt-in. Email marketing platforms like to push the idea of double opt-in as it keeps their lists cleaner. This matters when they have millions of email addresses and have to work at scale (e.g. 5% of 500 million is 2.5 million). However, in my experience, as a single marketer it works out better to try and use single opt-in if your email marketing platform will allow. When I used double opt-in, I was losing 20-30% of people not confirming. Some people argue that people type in the wrong email address all the time. I haven’t seen it to be that often. Others say that delivery isn’t as good. I’ve only seen that within 0.5%. Of course, it’s fine to use double opt-in, but mathematically it doesn’t work out as well in my opinion.
- Keep testing. You have to keep trying new bribes and new ways to convince people that your bribe matters through the use of copy and imagery.
Now most people are satisfied with getting the opt-in, however, you need to keep pushing harder. That’s where this next step comes in. It’s a step that almost no-one does, but you should.
Leveraging Existing Users to Get MOre
So once the person has opted in, you have persuasive momentum. You need to find other stuff for them now that the switch in their head has flicked so they are now saying “yes” to you.
Here’s a neat trick that can help create a positive feedback loop with your opt-ins.
Using a content locker (I’m trialling this one), your visitors can earn the lead magnet you’re giving away by taking some sort of social action.
So on this thank you page, once you’ve given them the original lead magnet that you promised them, you now offer a second one. However, the way to get access to this one is to undertake a social action.
For example, tweet, like or +1 your site.
As soon as they do that, the software automatically detects that this action has been completed and the content/lead magnet is unlocked instantly.
So now you’ve doubled dipped on the same lead.So not only have you got their email address, they have now endorsed your site to one of their networks which with any luck will give you positive social signals for search (I know this factor is up for debate), but more importantly, more traffic and hopefully more email sign-ups.
As a result, a strong positive feedback loop could create snowballing outcomes.
Got any other tricks or maybe questions? Hit me below.