11 Places You Need To Include Your Opt-In Form

It's important to collect email addresses to build your email marketing list. We thought it would be great to put together a quick list of where you should include the actual sign up form or a link to one on a web page. If you can include the form yourself, great! If not, hand this list over to your web designer as soon as possible. Oh, tell them to get your already-built opt-in form from your VerticalResponse account.

Your Homepage - If you don't have one on your home page, get one there now.

Your Sub-pages - All of them! If you don't have the space to put an actual form on all of your sub-pages, at least have a "Newsletter Sign Up" link on them.

Your Blog - Not everyone subscribes to RSS to get information from your blog, so you'll need to include an actual form for your readers to sign up, or a "Sign Up For Our Newsletter" link to it. You don't want to lose the opportunity to get email addresses from people who might be interested in knowing about your regular updates. If you use TypePad, you can get the free VR Opt-in Form Widget with just a few clicks.

Your Purchase Confirmation Page - Someone has just hopefully had a great experience purchasing from you, why not ask them to join your list right then and there?

A Pop-up Window - Include a pop-up window when someone leaves your website. You won't be able to use this with visitors who have their browsers set to block them, but you'll surely get some people seeing them. We've had thousands of people signing up through this form.

A Landing Page - If you have a separate landing page you send people to from your search engine pay-per-click campaigns, include a newsletter sign up form on it. If they don't purchase from you, they might at least sign up to your list, then you'll be able to attempt to get them to purchase later on.

The Footer of all Outbound Email Correspondence - Any email you personally send or any email your employees or customer service people send one on one, should have the link to your opt-in form.

Your Email Marketing Campaigns - We have many customers that include an opt-in form image or link inside their actual email marketing campaigns. If the email is forwarded to someone who isn't on your list you might get a new subscriber. You can also use Forward to a Friend links as well.

Offline

Your Counter - Don't forget to put a sign up book at your counter or somewhere prominent in your place of business. Then enter those email addresses quickly and send them a welcome email.

Taking Appointments - If your service business is centered around making appointments with your clients, ask them for their email addresses so you can confirm the times. Also ask if they would want offers from you and make a note of their answer.

Your Tradeshow Table - You've spent a lot of money to be at a tradeshow. If someone doesn't have a business card you don't want to lose the opportunity to add them to your list. So make sure you have some kind of sign up form or book at your booth.

All of these things are super easy to do so don't miss out any opportunity you have to build your email list. Oh and make sure you tell people what they'll get for giving you their information whether it's hot tips, discounts, special offers or invitations. Make it exciting!

What am I missing? Let me know!

Comments

[Elizabeth Bertani]

As a marketing consultant and professional organizer, I'll pass this along to my business clients.
Many times, we tend to overlook the concept of "opportunity cost" -- as in LOST opportunity when we don't collect email addresses.

[John Bokelmann]

Thanks for all the great ideas. We hadn't considered including a sign-up in our emails that may get forwarded or at the tradeshows we attend.

[Les]

Good ideas on optin form. Btw, I sent too many issues of my newsletter before I saw the bit about the subject line.
Changing each issure made a big difference. Thanks

[Gloria Jean]

Thank you for the great information ...I am going to put these ideas to work.

[Email Marketing Journal]

Having it in as many places as possible is vital to attaining the desired amount of subscribers. Just make sure you don't put them in places that will make visitors shy away from signing up or leave your site altogether.

[Jody Earle]

We have an e-commerce site, and we offer several ways for customers to opt-in to our list. We're starting an instant incentive program that will give customers $ off instantly. At trade shows we offer a drawing for a substantial prize for all email addresses received. These methods have been very effective for us!

[Ian Davies]

We used to have 'sign up' on our home page only. Changed it a few months ago to feature on every page and it has made a massive difference.

[Andrew S]

Excellent suggestions. But make sure you test having the form on landing pages as I've seen it - sometimes - depress sales via these pages.

[Halo Design]

Great idea. It's a cheap (free!) and effective way to extend your mailing list with people who have already shown an interest in your products or services. I, for one, will make sure I suggest it to my clients.

[John Szram]

Those are some great ideas. I run an Internet Business blog and I just want to echo the fact that although I like to have a link to my RSS feed on my page, it's much more profitable for me to capture a visitor's email address and to build a relationship with my customers over time.

Thanks for the offline tips too!

[Jim H.]

Great suggestions. Currently we just have one of those spots (homepage). We'll need to look at incorporating the opt-in form in more places. Thanks for the suggestions.

[Chris McMahon]

We build custom kiosk applications and several of our clients use them in their lobby, at trade shows, or at special events (festivals, football games, etc) to collect email addresses as part of a request for more info or for a sweepstakes entry.

It's been a pretty effective way to grow their opt-in list.