Over a half of the people who live on this planet have got an e-mail address, and they use it every day to register for services online, to pay for goods bought on the internet, to receive important communications from colleagues, relatives, and companies. With smartphones, we can be reached by e-mail at all times, and that is why e-mail marketing is so crucial for your online income. A good way to gather the e-mail address of your target is implementing a form on a landing page and throughout your website. Studying good ways to increase conversions of an e-mail form is also something you should do regularly.
There are a lot of tools online that allow you to build an e-mail form, so it is not difficult to make a good form, but there are quite few tips on how you can increase the conversions of an e-mail form. Based on our experience, here are some ideas that will surely help.
A good welcome e-mail
People take part of their time to subscribe to your newsletter and you don’t even say thank you?
Not only that: people see so many things online every day that they end up forgetting where they put their e-mail address, and the next e-mail they receive from you usually goes in the bin, or worse: in the spam.
The welcome e-mail can contain information about the service users just subscribed, a recap of the advantages they will get, or the content they were promised to get when they submitted the form, but you must always include a thank you message.
Find the best spot
The placement of the form can make the difference. There many different places where you can implement your e-mail form, and you can even determine when it has to be displayed: it can be above the fold, or at the bottom of the page, it can be hidden and appear when clicking a button, or it can pop out in a modal when loading the page or right before the exit.
You will need a few tests, and good monitoring tools to determine your users’ habits, but once you get it right, you will see a significant increase in conversions.
Hotjar and its recordings can be very helpful, if examined carefully.
A good copy
The first thing a user wants to know when they see an e-mail form is your Unique Selling Proposition, i.e. what advantages they get, and no matter how many times you mention them, it is crucial that you do it above or next to the form. A short descriptive text will do the job, but it has to be persuasive: remember that it is your last chance to capture the lead, and if they are not convinced of your message, they will just close the page, regardless of the incentives you give.
The call to action also plays an important role: it is the final touch that engages the user and makes them take action. You might think that a Submit button is enough, but it is just not true: sometimes, the more you are implicit, the more likely your form is to convert, while for specific brands and businesses you can make an original, themed, and more creative call to action that will surely get the attention of your target, for instance, a couple of years ago I worked on the website of a shipyard, and I changed the CTA of their e-mail form from Submit to Let’s sail off, and conversions increased significantly.
Simplicity is the way
People think fast, you have to act fast: a form with a lot of fields can be a lead-stopper, and can make your conversions drop.
I do know the importance of getting as more information as possible, but no one ever said you have to get them immediately. Starting a follow-up series, and guiding your lead to new landing pages where you can ask for further data might be a good strategy, just keep the main e-mail form essential, with as few fields as possible: it is not a secret that the average user is a bit lazy when it comes to giving their information, and we do not mean to attribute a pejorative epithet to anyone, but it is just how our brain works, so if you want to increase conversions of an e-mail form, keep it simple, and do not make the mistake of presenting a form with still a lot of fields, but only a few mandatory, because it won’t work: the visual impact is an important factor, and too many fields, no matter if you must fill them or not, are still too many fields.
Confirmation e-mail
Not only the number of leads, but the quality is important too: I bet you do not want a list with thousands of e-mail addresses with half of them being junk leads, and that is not the only risk: if you send e-mails to uninterested people, they will likely move your messages to the spam folder, and if this happens too many times, you could be blacklisted, and that would be a knockout blow to your chances of generating revenues with e-mail marketing.
These problems can be solved by sending a confirmation e-mail right after you convert a lead from your e-mail form, so they don’t have time to forget you. Nothing special, just a brief reminder of you you are and what you do with a confirmation link to click.
Use a lead magnet
Users need a good reason to do anything on the internet, especially when it comes to their personal data, and probably the overused phrase “receive exclusive offers” is no longer enough, but the principle is still the same: the stronger the incentive, the higher your chances to convert.
A freebie is always a good lead magnet: an e-book, a coupon, a premium access, and many other things. As long as it’s free, people will easily give up their data in order to get it.
How would you increase conversions of an e-mail form?
We told you our most common tactics, but there are a lot of ways to get this result. What are yours? What advice can you give to those who want to exploit the power of e-mail marketing?
