Newsletters are a great way to stay in touch with customers keeping your business front and centre.
Following are some great tips to help increase those conversion rates for your online newsletters.
Segment your users
Those people that joined based on the newsletter sign up should be dealt with differently from those that joined your newsletter sign up through a checklist at the end of a form. Those people that have actively wanted to join your newsletter and much more likely to be engaged with your company ( and thereby convert to a customer) than those who had not clicked the ‘ non subscribe’ box at the end of a quote or form they have received from you. These people should have more targeted newsletters, perhaps with a more sales-driven slant. Perhaps offer them incentives and giveaways as an encouragement to buy from you.
Be sure to make the newsletter box sign up area as prominent as you can without being ‘ too in your face’
It can be above the fold on the home page, but if you are crammed for space then the footer area is just fine. Pop-ups are OK, if you are into that kind of thing, but be prepared to take it down if you are not getting the sign up numbers.
Ensure that users know what they are going to be receiving in every newsletter
This will tempt them, even more, to sign up and they may actually be looking forward to receiving it (which is an added bonus). If this newsletter is GEO targeted, then it is probably a good idea to localise it. What this means, is like with Hopping Mad Designs we would say ‘ sign up to receive information on graphic and website design in Sydney’, where the area is customised depending on the location of the user. Make this headline-grabbing without adding too much text into the heading. Simplicity is the key here.
Keep fields to a maximum of two
Newsletter form completion is a real pain, so make this as easy and simple as you can. A name and email address are all you need. Once they become a client, obviously you can then get more details from them. Getting too much personal information upfront can seem somewhat obtrusive and an invasion of their privacy… a total turn off. Canva explains this in detail in their article 10 highly-effective trends in newsletter signup form design. They even go on to say that Minimalism is a big trend in the current design, and that includes sign up pages. So you have to make the signup process for a newsletter simple, easy and as pain and hassle-free as possible.
Also Read: You MUST Construct Landing Pages that Convert
Give them something for their trouble for signing up
In Hopping Mad’s case we would offer something like; ‘sign up for a free web design consultation’. This is a great incentive offer, and most people looking for more marketing information and advice will be keen to sign up for this. You never want to cheapen your offering with too many give away’s but this tactic works only if you are able to follow up on this.
Make sure that your newsletter sign up box is designed properly
This will encourage users to signup and in turn, your subscription numbers should increase. Never have flashing lights or moving images – rather keep it stylish and simple. After all, you just want them to commit to signing up.