One of the challenges businesses face with email marketing is capturing subscribers. If you write your opt-in form the right way, you can get many more sign-ups from contacts who are interested in what you sell.
And anyone can do it. You don’t even need a lead magnet.
You just need to spend some time writing the text that goes before the form provided by your email marketing tool.
Luckily, there are copywriting strategies and structures you can follow that will increase your chances of success.
That’s what we’re going to look at today.
With more interested contacts, wouldn’t it be easier to make more sales?
Opt-in form for email marketing: with or without a lead magnet?
At first glance, if you have a good lead magnet, the results may be better, of course:
· It’s something that can catch visitors’ attention
· You’re offering something “free”, and that tends to work (not always)
· You give something in exchange for something, the customer’s email, so it looks like a fairer trade
The thing is, while a lead magnet can be useful for getting your contacts’ emails, that doesn’t mean:
· That those contacts are more willing to buy. They may just want what you’re giving away for free.
· Or even that they’ll stay subscribed. Once they have what they want, they may unsubscribe or ignore your emails.
The only sure thing is that, for now, the lead magnet you used has caught their attention.
► The truth is that many contacts end up never downloading or using the lead magnet
This may depend on your industry and, of course, on the lead magnet.
In my tests, we offered an ebook with the subscription for a while.
The results showed that in the end few contacts downloaded it, and I imagine the number of contacts who actually finished reading it was much lower.
In the end, it’s something that catches people’s attention but doesn’t really end up being used.
So why spend money creating a lead magnet?
It’s worth thinking carefully about when to use a lead magnet, whether it’s an ebook, a discount or whatever we want to offer.
Maybe you don’t actually need any “extra” at all, and it all depends on how you write your “subscription offer”.
In other words, you can always have an opt-in form that’s effective enough.
► It’s not all about having an expensive lead magnet
If that’s what’s holding you back, don’t worry.
Many businesses don’t want to or can’t invest in creating an ebook or any other resource that’s expensive and has uncertain results.
What matters is that you use the resources you have available, and there are always some, even if it doesn’t seem like it.
Avoid the “empty” opt-in form
Many websites have a form similar to the one you can see below.
► Example of a pretty bad opt-in form
This form on its own doesn’t give the contact any information, doesn’t try to convince them in any way and offers nothing of interest.
And if we place this form in the footer, where it’s barely visible, it’s even worse: if it can’t be seen and doesn’t motivate either, it can’t deliver much in the way of results.
► No lead magnet, no persuasive copy…
The result is an opt-in form that won’t get many results.
It won’t get many subscriptions.
This means:
· That if we’re investing money in traffic campaigns, most of that traffic won’t turn into subscribers
· And if we’re not even investing in traffic, the chances of getting subscribers are even lower
It costs nothing to spend a while improving the form’s text. Well, it takes some time, but the increase in business opportunities is definitely worth it.
► On the other hand, here’s another form example, this one more effective:
To give you another example, here’s our own form. In case something has changed since then, I’ve left a screenshot below:
It’s a newsletter opt-in form that doesn’t have a lead magnet as such, but of course we do make smart use of other resources we have available.
Since we have lots of articles on our blog, over time they become somewhat inaccessible. Well, rather than inaccessible, buried under hundreds of other posts.
They’re out of sight.
That’s a shame in general, but in some cases subscribers are missing out on really useful information.
Information that could serve them very well.
Why not give those posts a new lease of life?
As you can see, I’ve organized what the contact will receive over 3 days: a simple autoresponder in which the contact gets one email each day.
Each email includes a link to one of those articles that are useful to the contact and that we’ve put a lot of effort into.
The result is positive for both sides.
The new subscriber receives information that will be useful to them.
And we get traffic to those posts.
If you don’t have any articles on your blog, videos or anything else, then write one or more emails to send to the contact.
Whatever you sell, it’s almost certain that a good number of potential customers will have questions:
· How can they solve their problems?
· What alternatives are there and how do they differ?
· How can they make sure they won’t waste their time / money?
In short, whatever you sell, your potential customers will have questions, and if you put the answers within their reach, many of them will be interested.
Now what matters is writing it the right way.
We’ll look at that now.
How to write the copy for your opt-in form well and easily
There are many copywriting strategies, some of them very complex and effective, which of course require experience.
We’re not going to go that far, but what we will look at is a simple way to write the text for your form so that it’s much more effective
There are two simple strategies:
► Feature + Advantage + Benefit + Reason
In this case, think of a standout feature of your product, or of what you’re offering in exchange for the subscription.
Imagine you run a business consultancy and you’d like to attract more potential contacts. Well, as a consultant you’re probably up to date on legislative changes, legal information, the Official State Gazette, etc. These are very important aspects of a company’s day-to-day running, but most companies either don’t have time for them or don’t understand them (they’re a real headache).
As a consultant, you very likely already send updates to your clients, right?
Well, you can send a mailing both to clients and to subscribers who aren’t clients yet. The work is the same. So you can capture contacts, send them the same thing and give yourself a chance of turning them into clients.
The form’s text could be something like this:
“Keeping up with business law is complex. That’s our job, and it shouldn’t have to be yours. If you subscribe, you’ll stay up to date on what matters while saving time, money and mistakes, so you can focus on running your business with peace of mind.”
Clearly, this could be improved a lot.
But there’s a world of difference between just writing “Subscribe” and this short text I put together in a few minutes.
► Understanding the customer’s problem + Solution
This is a slightly different approach: first you need to identify the customer’s problem.
Then see whether we have or know the solution, and offer it.
Now let’s use the example of our own opt-in form:
“There’s one reason, just one, why your customers don’t buy, even if you have the perfect solution for what they need. And it isn’t the price. In this email, you’ll see the solution.”
This is a common problem for businesses.
Even when they have the perfect product, the customer ends up not buying, and often price has nothing to do with it.
So how do you solve that?
Clearly, many businesses want to know, so they subscribe and receive the answer by email, along with the different strategies they can adopt.
(If you want to know the answer, you can subscribe. It’s no secret, but hardly anyone thinks of it.)
In short: writing the copy for your opt-in form
It doesn’t have to take you too long, and if you follow either of the two strategies we’ve discussed, you’ll also get good results, much better than if you leave a form with just the word “subscribe”.
You don’t need to spend money on a lead magnet either. Use the resources within your reach, whether that’s articles from your blog, an email you write or the regular communications you already send.
You just need to make the most of what you already have and make it more profitable.
If you don’t have the form technically set up on your website yet, here’s the guide to adding a Mailrelay opt-in form in WordPress, and if you want to complement it later on, our glossary explains what a lead magnet is.
Jose Argudo
CMO at Mailrelay. Writes about email marketing, copywriting, and conversion for small businesses and entrepreneurs.