We have talked many times on this site about email marketing and the benefits of building an email list for your business, but how do you get people to sign up in the first place? Well one of the best and most effective ways is by sending people to a dedicated email opt-in landing page encouraging them to subscribe.
I encourage people to subscribe to this site via a few opt-in boxes, but by far my best converting method is by using a dedicated landing page. I get a 1284% better conversion rate with my landing page than my second best converting method, which is HUGE!!!
Here are my tips for helping you create email opt-in landing pages that convert.
Get Rid Of Distractions
Let’s be clear! THE main aim of your email opt-in landing page is to get people to sign up to your list. Anything else is just a distraction.
Whilst you may have a pretty looking site with cool looking flashy graphics, all that is going to do is distract people. Even the bog-standard header & sidebar approach that most people use on their blog can be enough to distract people before they have chance to sign up. That is why it’s important to remove as much of that as possible on your landing pages.
Getting people to your landing pages is a challenge in itself, so once they are there, you want them to sign up, not be confused and sent elsewhere. Keep your landing pages as streamlined and focused on the subject as you can – after all, you can always send them back to your homepage AFTER they subscribe.
One Column Content
It’s been shown that landing pages are at their most effective when displayed in a one column format. Again, this is to help get rid of distractions and keep people focused on the page itself.
By all means add images and video where necessary, but if you keep it all in a nice flowing one column format, it will encourage people to keep reading.
Punchy Title
As soon as people get to your landing page you need to hit them with your title. There will always be some people that accidentally end up on your page, so you need to instantly let them know what it’s about.
What’s better than having 1 title? Well having 2 of course!
Hit your readers with a BIG, BOLD title that is backed up with a subheading directly underneath. This way, you instantly grab their attention and get your point across within the first two sentences.
Lose The Links
Links are yet another distraction that you want to avoid on your landing pages. What’s the point of including any before people get chance to sign up, all that does is lower your conversion rate by sending them elsewhere.
Remember, you can include as many links as you want in your Newsletter, eBook or eCourse (whatever it is you are getting people to sign up to), but to do that they need to join your list first.
Offer An Incentive To Sign Up
Every good email list offers some sort of incentive to their subscribers. You can’t expect people to part with their email address for nothing, so you are going to have to come up with something to entice them.
There are plenty of things that you can create and giveaway for free, such as;
- An eBook (PDF Download)
- An eCourse
- Free product/service (or 30 day trial)
- Video series
- Podcast
- Access to other areas of your site (e.g. Forum)
- Newsletter
- Coupons/offers
- …and many more!
What’s even better is offering a number of these to entice people. Why not offer an eCourse that they can then download as an eBook once they have finished, or a Newsletter that also includes coupons/offers each week.
The more incentives you give to people, the more likely they are to subscribe.
Describe your free offer/gift/download and how it can help individuals. If you can convince them that you can genuinely help them, then they will be more than happy to sign up.
How Long Should Your Landing Page Be?
Well that’s easy, I have the same approach to landing pages as I do to blog posts, they should be as long as they need to be!
If you need to write 1,000 or 2,000 words for your landing page, then go for it. If you can do it in 500 words, then good for you. There is no magic number for how long a landing page should be, the key is to only include as much information as you need to.
Generally, the longer the page is, the better it converts, but you should always try to remove as much needless content as you can. Keep things simple and straight forward, let people know what they are getting and why they will benefit from it and try not to waffle.
What Info Should You Ask For?
You obviously need a person’s email address in order for them to sign up, but what other information do you need?
That is only a question you can really answer, but on the whole, the less information the better. Think of it as though you are putting hurdles in front of a runner – the more of them there are, the more likely they won’t make it to the finish.
The more information you ask for, the more likely it is that people will go elsewhere. Not only will it take longer for them to enter in the required info, but people are very cagey about what information they want to give away.
On the whole, you’re better off asking for simply their email and perhaps a name. That way, you are only asking for the bare minimum info needed whilst encouraging them to sign up.
Display Recommendations
Whether you have thousands of regular readers or only a handful, the vast majority of people visiting your landing pages will likely be new visitors (as your regular readers will likely have subscribed already). Due to this, many of these new readers probably won’t know who you are or what kind of reputation your site has, so it’s a good thing to show them to give them a bit more encouragement.
If you were hiring someone and on their resume they made out that they were the best thing since sliced bread, but when you asked for references they didn’t have any, it wouldn’t look very good. These new visitors need a bit of reassurance that you are the real deal and recommendations are a good way of showing this.
There are 2 ways to display recommendations;
- Customer/Reader Feedback
- Social Media
Ask your existing subscribers to let you know what they think of your newsletter, download, eCourse, etc. and add it to your landing page. If you can get comments from other people in your niche, then that looks great to potential subscribers.
You can also include social media subscribe buttons on your page. That way, people can see how many social media followers you already have (and encourage them to follow you as well), whilst not sending them away from your page. This is great when you have a considerable following online. If on the other hand you only have a handful of followers, you may not want to include it.
Go Create Your Email Opt-In Landing Page Now!
So there we have it. There are some of the tips that I used when creating my email opt-in landing page. You can check out my landing page (made with Premise) to see how I have created mine.
This is by FAR my best converting method that I use to get people to sign up to my list. Of course it doesn’t end there, it’s just as easy for them to unsubscribe as it is for them to subscribe, which is why it’s important to send them quality content that will interest them, but I’ll leave that for another post.
What other tips & techniques do you use when creating your landing pages? What do you find that works when encouraging you to sign up to a mailing list? Please let us know your views and opinions in the comment section below.
About Matt Smith
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