Lesson 4: The Quick And Easy List Building Setup – Opt-in

Welcome back, :

Now that you have a website created, the next step is figuring out how you will collect names for you list.

You need an opt-in form.  But before we talk about the form and what it needs, we need to back up a bit… and talk about email marketing services.

Email marketing is one of the most powerful marketing tools available for
communicating and developing relationships. But, email marketing can
only be that powerful when it’s done well.

Using your standard email account (e.g. Outlook, Eudora, Hotmail, AOL MailSM, Yahoo etc.) to send a mass text or HTML message to your list is not doing email marketing well. That’s because your standard email account is  not designed for email marketing and therefore has signifi cant limitations that can actually undermine your eff orts.

The good news is – you do not have to go it alone. There are Web-based email
marketing services that are inexpensive and designed to work effectively.

The Best Email Marketing Services:

1. Are Approved as Bulk Mailers

Many email accounts and most ISPs limit the number of emails that you can send at one time. Further, most ISPs guard against bulk emailing, as it is often spam. Legitimate services typically have strong relationships with ISPs and are able to send bulk email.

2. Follow Professional Mailing Practices

For those of you using Outlook or another email account, mistakes can happen. Perhaps the most common mistake is exposing your entire list in the To: line, which violates all of your list members’ confidentiality and exposes their email addresses.

3. Provide List Hosting and Management

An email marketing service hosts your email list and automatically performs
critical list management functions. Th ese functions can include signup for new subscribers, editing capabilities so that subscribers can edit their own profiles, and the ability to unsubscribe with one click. Because you are required by law to process an unsubscribe request within 10 days, the unsubscribe functionality alone is critical to successful email marketing.

4. Require No Technical Skill or Support Staff

Whether you are using your email account (and going it alone), or using a bulk email soft ware package, you will find that an email marketing service can save you precious time and money. With a service, the bandwidth, power and flexibility are “built-in.” You do not have to worry about the technology or infrastructure required to send your email campaigns. In addition, better services include HTML templates and a simple, wizard-driven user tool that allows you to customize them to reflect your business. Most email marketing services do not have set-up costs, and many provide free ongoing support.

5. Deliver Measurable Results

An email marketing service enables you to measure the response of each email campaign. Many services report the number of emails sent, opened, who opened, who clicked through and which links they clicked on. Reports also show new subscribes, unsubscribes, bounces and formal spam complaints. These reports help you track and measure your success, target more effectively, determine warm leads and improve your results
over time.

Now there are several services that provide these necessities and more.  If you are already using one, great! Some shopping cart programs also provide these email marketing services as well, so definitely check if you can use it. However, even though I already use a shopping cart, I use aWeber for a few reasons.

Besides the fact it provides all the things listed above, it also has:

  • unlimited autoresponders (more on this in another lesson)
  • great, easily customizable opt-in boxes and forms
  • videos to make it easy to do it yourself
  • a great helpdesk if you have any problems or get stuck

Find out more at http://www.shannonrecommends.com/aweber

Now back to your opt-in form.

If visitors don’t see the form, they won’t sign up, right? So put it in an easy-to-find spot. For most sites, this means near the top of the page.

I also put another form at the end of the opt-in page, just in case someone reads the entire page and gets a little lost. (It does happen!) An additional reminder like this gives the prospect only one choice: to opt-in.

Tip:

Not all visitors have the same screen resolution, and so what might look like a good form location to you or me at 1280 x 1024 may be a poor location for people on 800 x 600. If you use Firefox as your web browser, there’s a nice extension that lets you quickly see what a page looks like on different resolutions.

Many people want to use an opt-in that displays the form in a popup window. This is an alternative, but with this approach you risk popup blockers keeping the form from appearing.

Others have used a ‘lightbox’ opt-in form. This form dims the squeeze (opt-in page) and fades in a highlighted box for the opt-in. Although this method doesn’t trigger a pop-up blocker, it’s found that lightboxes annoy your prospects more than encourages them to opt-in.

A simple inline form located near the beginning and the end of the page avoids both of those issues completely.

Keep it Short and Sweet.

Long forms may be tolerated for mortgage applications, but not opt-in subscriptions. When I go to a website, if the opt-in form looks like it’ll take me more than 10 seconds to complete, I’m put off.

Not only are people too busy to fill out a form asking for a lot of details, but in this day and age, they are often skeptical of sharing a lot of contact details with someone they don’t know very well.

Ask yourself: What do I need to get started with my subscribers? If you absolutely need your subscriber’s phone number or some other detail right now, OK, but if not, get it later as you earn his or her trust.

Studies show that the most effective opt-ins only ask for an email address; asking for an email address and a name come in second. Asking for anything else makes the effectiveness drop off significantly.

I usually ask for the name and email address, as I love to personalize my emails  because that makes more of a connection with the subscriber and usually brings better results.   (aWeber makes it easy to do so, too!)

Give Visitors a Reason to Subscribe.

No matter how much value you’re delivering to your subscribers, your emails still take up real estate in their inboxes. Your visitors, who haven’t yet experienced the value you’re delivering in your messages, already get dozens to hundreds of emails a day.

Why Should They Make Room For You?

Even though you’ve worked hard (perhaps using the cool software I provided you as a bonus) on your squeeze page, you should also tell them why they need to sign up in your opt-in box.  That’s because studies show that most people skim a squeeze page, but read the entire opt-in form. (That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have compelling copy on your squeeze page!)

Clearly and concisely detail the benefits of subscribing. Use bullet points, bold text and other techniques to tell them why they’re going to be better off getting your emails. Include something about protecting their privacy. (Again, aWeber does this automatically when you build your opt-in box.)

This not only helps to get visitors to become subscribers, it also helps to build expectations which you can then meet to build trust and relationships with them.

ASSIGNMENT:

  1. Find an email marketing service, like aWeber, if you don’t already have one.
  2. Create your opt-in boxes using your email marketing service and place the boxes at the top and and the bottom of your page.

Next week, we’ll be talking more about your target market, so you can make sure your web copy, your JV partners and your giveaway meets their needs.