Email today has become one of the most popular and easiest ways to reach out to people. For businesses, email is an important technique in building your customer base. As a business owner, you want to attract potential customers to your email list – and you do this through an email sign-up sheet.
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Email Sign Up Sheets
What is an email sign-up sheet?
Businesses use an email sign-up sheet to gather email addresses from potential customers and potential leads. Usually, you can find these forms embedded on the business’ website and once a visitor gets interested, they can input their email address in the sheet so they get added to the email newsletter.
One thing great about email opt-ins is that you can create a pipeline of leads to communicate with and nurture. If you’re convincing enough, your email list can become a valuable revenue source. As cold prospects get to know you better and start trusting you, the more they learn about you.
Email List Sign Up Sheets
Why do you need this sheet?
When people who visit your website go through your content, like what they see, and want to learn more, they can decide to input their email on your email sign-up sheet. This means that they feel truly interested and engaged in what you have to say and these are the type of contacts that you want to deal with.
The people who join your email list sign-up sheet are most likely to get converted. When making this sheet, consider the following:
- Your signup process should be as simple as possible to convert users into subscribers in just a couple of seconds.
- Your form should create a great first impression of your business. Users typically think twice or even reconsider their decision should they encounter an over-complicated or confusing form
- Your form should provide you insights about your users. It gives you a chance to learn about your target audience and what interests them.
Customer Email Sign Up Sheets
How to create an email sign-up sheet?
For every email marketing strategy, you need an email list sign-up sheet. For your email list to grow, you need an interesting form presented in the right places. A well-designed customer email sign-up sheet can be a powerful tool although this is only one aspect of the process. To maximize results, follow these steps:
- Create your email sign-up sheet template
You can create the form using a builder tool, and in most cases, this may already be part of your email marketing software. - Design your template
You can personalize the different elements of your form like the form fields, the text, background, the call-to-action text, and even the success message that confirms that the user has subscribed successfully.
After designing the basic elements, proceed to personalize the finer details like the font, the width of your form, button colors, and so on. Here are some suggestions on how to make your template stand out:
For the design, opt for minimal and clean.
Stick to using one column as much as possible. Too many columns make your sign-up process look confusing and a lot longer, which can be a surefire way to discourage potential subscribers.
Keep your form clutter-free.
Also, consider the order in which you present the fields in your form. Since the email field is the most important, make sure this stands out along with your CTA.
This form is an extension of your brand and this makes the tone and wordings crucial.
Always be both concise and clear with your language. Make sure that you leave the users knowing exactly what they should do next.
As to your CTA, don’t just furnish this button with the common “Subscribe.” Instead, share benefits with the users. For instance, you can tell the users what they can gain if they subscribe to your newsletter to sound more convincing.
Next, decide what fields you should include. Of course, the email address is a MUST, although you might also want to collect information about the new subscribers. To this by adding some contact attribute fields. Fields like their name, date of birth, and such can be very useful, especially when it comes to personalizing your emails and categorizing your audience. But when asking for this information, remember that user experience must be your priority. If your users have to answer up too many fields, they will probably abandon the whole process altogether.
If you want to add fields, pick only a few then make these optional. This way, users can skip over these but you still get the crucial email address. You can build user profiles up later but for now, getting them on the email list is your top priority.
You also have the option to add multi-list subscriptions. This allows the subscribers to share their preferences or interests at sign-up then place these on the corresponding lists. - Choose your contact list
You may select one or more lists into which you save your subscribers. You can even make a new list if you need to. - Create a confirmation email
With this setup, you can manage how you will communicate the subscription confirmation to the potential subscribers. You can do this in either one of two ways. First, use an on-page confirmation. Second, send a personalized confirmation email. You can even do both. - Add the form to your business’ website and in other strategic places
Location is everything. The same applies when you want to grow your email list. Your form should be as visible as possible so that when a user browses through your website or reads your blog, they won’t miss it.
The best place to place your form is your website’s homepage. The homepage may already sound too obvious but this obvious location is still often overlooked. There is a possibility that a user will just leave your website without exploring what lies beyond your homepage. Of course, This doesn’t mean that they aren’t interested but they might already have found what they wanted from your site.
To make sure that you provide the users with the chance to subscribe to your newsletter before they leave your website, place the signup form in other visible locations too. Some of the best places are the header, the footer or in the sidebar.
