• Make Your Sign-Up Forms Visible – “My number one top tip is not to hide the sign-up option. Many websites hide it at the very bottom of the site, without any explicit call to action or enticing copy to encourage new sign-ups. Make your sign up form stand out and give your customer a reason to subscribe. That doesn’t necessarily mean that you need to provide a discount or an offer; it could be that you’ll provide your subscribers with sneak previews, personalised content, or reward them for their loyalty to your brand.”
• A/B Test Your Pop-Up Boxes and Optimize – “A/B test the variety of ways that you capture new sign-ups. For example, a lightbox which is a pop-up box that appears on your website promoting your email sign up is an incredibly useful technique to not only driving new sign ups but also in promoting your email marketing activity. A/B test different designs of this lightbox, the time in which it is displayed and the amount of information you’re asking for to optimise this form. And if you’re asking for more than the email address at this stage, question how clear the value to the new subscriber is? What benefit does the new subscriber receive in providing all of that information?”
• Provide Relevant and Valuable Content – “It’s great to grow your email marketing list continuously, but that won’t be effective if you don’t optimise the campaigns that are sending. Make sure that the content you are sending is relevant, as personalised as possible and adds value to your subscribers. The best way to assess this is to review the performance of your email marketing campaigns over time. This can also be correlated to the length of time your recipients have been subscribed. I’ve consulted with brands that were experiencing a steady decline in their email marketing performance over time. When analysing their performance it was clear that recipients that had been subscribed for more than 4 months began to lose interest, their engagement waned, and after six months more than half of the email marketing list was no longer opening emails. So make sure your content is optimised and continuously measure your email marketing performance.”

• “What’s in it for Me?” – “Your list building efforts should address two key elements, how badly do you want my opt-in and what’s in it for me? To that end, approach list building as you would a potential romantic interest. You know the attraction is there, but what distinguishes you (your messaging) from every other strategically placed suitor on the web? Laser specific, easy to digest content that solves my issue and gives me something extra for my time. In other words, make me swipe right. For example: I’m looking for discount tickets to a specific theme park. I google “discount tickets to ” and within my search results is your offer for $25 off and free parking. In exchange for your email address, I promise to never spam you, sell your information and I will only contact you to offer exclusive discounts that you can only receive by dating me. Enticed? I thought you might be.”
• Make Your Lead Magnet Ridiculously Human – “Your offering (also known as a lead magnet) should come across as ridiculously human. Building upon what’s in it for me, in the world of sometimes creepy laser targeting, your lead magnet should directly connect to your audience in a very specific and intimate way. Your potential audience wants to know that you not only get them, but you’ve provided so much value, that you’ve distinguished yourself as the go-to expert, when it comes to solving their very specific issues. Quite literally like a magnet, your offering should have an irresistible element to it.”
• “Where” Really Matters – “When using social media outlets to generate leads, choose industry specific, laser targeted social channels. Location, location, location. There are literally tons of highly trafficked social outlets. When targeting a specific audience, while your prospects are likely on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, if they’re looking for specific solutions they’re definitely visiting industry specific outlets. Example: You’ve got a hankering for a salad and walk down the isle of your favorite local neighborhood health food store. You come across a strategically placed, gluten-free dressing that’s all the rage. The potential of purchase and definitely your interest just dramatically increased because this store is your staple and if they’re displaying this dressing, they’ve already gained your trust, it may be worth a try. The same is true for your list building prospects, so meet them where they live and work and the likelihood of them opting in to your list increases exponentially.”

• Give to Get – “People are unlikely to join your mailing list without some evidence that you have something worth their time to share. Be clear and upfront about what that is, and give them a sample of it before they even sign up or receive your first email. Examples are:

  Free blogs/articles. These don’t have to be anything different from what you’ll provide after they sign up. People are pretty lazy, so the idea of having your content sent to them, rather than needing to return to your site to find it, is enough to get quite a few registrations for your list.

  Downloadable guide. An oldie-but-goodie, a downloadable report or guide is a great sign up incentive. Pick one of your customers top issues and put it together. It doesn’t have to be long, but if you can include a worksheet, template or case study, your audience will love it.

  Sign up discount. Retailers and B2C businesses will always do well by offering a discount for signing up. There’s a reason you see this everywhere online – it just works. If you have an online shop, there’s usually a function in your shopping cart system that allows you to set up discount vouchers and codes, so it’s not hard. 10% seems to be the most common discount currently, but that will vary in effectiveness by product type and price-range.

  It used to be that sign-up incentives were delivered AFTER someone joined your list. Although that’s still true for discount incentives, it’s different now with content incentives. People want proof that what you have is worth exchanging their details for, so try giving away the articles or guides without requiring an email address. Instead, let them see it and THEN tell them there’s more where that came from IF they sign up.

  N.B. None of these will work if your content is terrible! Make sure that written content is worth reading, and that any discounts offered are worth having.”

• Make the Ask – “No one joins your list by osmosis. You must actually ask them to sign up – and do it several times on one page. It needs to be easy for people to sign up from any page of your website as well, because no-one is reading every page of your site (except you).

  Examples are:

  Popups – Use these sparingly and at the right time, as people can find them annoying

  Header forms – A box, button or link in your header. This can sit above your main navigation, if you’re short of space.

  Footer forms – As with a header form, this is always there. As sites often have fat footers (with multiple lines of navigation) you can usually make a footer form bigger and more prominent than a header form.

  In-content boxes – Create a break just after the introduction of any blog article (or similar) and pop in a sign up box. Then continue the article after the box. Include text in a bold font to say something like: ‘Enjoying this post? Get our articles sent to your inbox every month. Sign up here’.

  Side-bar panels – If your site has a side bar for navigation (which many e-commerce sites do), add in a signup box there too.

  Thank you pages – If a person makes it to your thank you page, it’s pretty certain that they like your content and/or products. On that page, offer them the opportunity to keep in touch and tell them what they’ll receive if they do.

  Account set-up pages – If people have to set up an account to use your site or buy your products, add a tick-box on the set up page for people to keep in touch. A short line of text with that saying ‘you can unsubscribe at any time’ will increase the number of people who opt in.

  Contact us pages – Although folks normally visit your contact page because they want to get in touch with you, there’s no harm in also asking them on the same page if they’d like you to stay in touch with them. However, don’t let this be the only place your sign-up box lives, as it’s a lower-response page.

  Resource pages – Do you have a page on your site full of whitepapers, guides, case studies or videos? If so, add a sign up box here. Make it prominent and near the top. Add text that says ‘to get our resources direct to your inbox, sign up here’ (or something similar) so it makes a connection for them. If you have individual pages for each resource, include a sign up form there too as standard practice.”

• Less is More – “For every field you add to your sign-up form, the number of people completing the form diminishes by 30%. So, ask your potential subscribers for the minimum amount of information you need to stay in touch. First name and email address is plenty, as you’ll collect other data (like address) if they go on to become a customer.

  Exceptions to this are optional tick-boxes like region, or interest preferences, but only use these if you are actually going to send different emails to different groups of subscribers. For example, retailers who have different pricing or product lines for different regions may not want to send the same offers to US subscribers as they do to UK subscribers.

  Despite the warning, I give you a 50% of ‘just adding one more field’ to your first sign up form. Please resist! Go for the bare minimum and collect additional information later with an interests survey that you can send to engaged subscribers or give them the opportunity to update in their account.”

• Make Your Email Sign-Up Ubiquitous – “Be sure to leverage every customer contact point—not only on your web site but in your stores, contact centers, and points of sale—to invite your customers and prospects to opt-in to your emails. This may sound obvious, but many companies fail to leverage every customer contact as a list-building opportunity. I have seen consistent double-digit list growth from restaurants that promote their email lists on-site, and from travel companies that make opting in clear and obvious through their web sites.”
• Provide a Specific Benefit to Signing Up – “Being ubiquitous by itself isn’t enough, however. You also have to make sure that your customers and prospects are given a clear incentive for opting in. Examples: retailers who offer a discount off a first order after signing up see consistent list growth, and travel companies who provide email-only offers and “insider” information via email.”
• Integrate Email Sign-Ups with Your Paid Search Campaigns – “If you’re spending money to drive search traffic to landing pages for your marketing campaigns, but have not included email opt-in that is specific to the campaign, chances are you are leaving money on the table. I have seen time and again, especially for products and services with a longer purchase cycle, how intelligently placed email opt-in forms on a landing page can capture customer intent and build a sales funnel. BUT, the emails sent to those subscribers need to be very targeted to the specific campaign and search terms that generated the user session–don’t just start sending these folks your weekly newsletter. That is a big snooze and they are likely to just opt-out or, worse, simply ignore you.”

• Turn Buyers Into Subscribers – “Whenever you have contact with your customers it presents an opportunity to gather their email address. A newsletter sign-up form at the bottom of websites is common place and increasingly you’ll see a pop-up with a sign-up form. These are good and a best practice, make sure though that the pop-up isn’t too obtrusive, just have it happen once.

  Remember, the best value email address to capture is someone who has just completed a purchase or converted on your site so make sure there’s an opportunity to subscribe to your list in your shopping cart.

  Another customer interaction is either in-store or over the phone. At the register, for example, asking for an email address is a good opportunity to capture a highly engaged customer’s email. Staff who are informed about the benefits of being a subscriber can help win people over to provide their details.”

• Quality Information is Much Better than Quantity – “Incomplete or inaccurate addresses are costly, 1) because of the time wasted capturing details, 2) to your reputation as a sender and 3) you’re still charged for sending to a non-existent email address by your provider.

  If you’re often on the move as a rep or at trade shows, or even in-store you can use a tablet with a subscription form pre-loaded so people can enter their details themselves. People are much more likely to enter their own details more accurately than your team member.

  Do make sure people know why they are handing over their email address, that you’re taking it with the intention of sending them emails – you don’t want recipients to think they’ve been tricked into subscribing, that only leads to a very bad perception of your brand and a poor sender reputation when they hit the SPAM button!”

• Offer an Incentive – “Offering an incentive is a good way to increase your overall subscriber list, however, quality over quantity comes into play again. Think about what the incentive is and whether that is really what your customer wants – no sense running a competition to win a caravan if you’re running a motel, you’ll end up with lots of people interested in caravans but probably not your motel!

  For competitions, in Australia, there are rules and legislation to adhere to, each state and territory has different rules so watch out you don’t fall fowl of these! ADMA has some good guidance on this subject on their blog. https://www.andmine.com/blogs/competition-permit-australia/

  A common incentive is to give a % discount on subscribing which is often sent in the “welcome” email. Sending the voucher or discount code in an email ensures people are giving you a valid address in order to get the discount. The welcome email also provides a great opportunity to engage with your new subscriber, set their expectations on when they’ll next hear from you and start building an advocate out of them.”

• Offer Something of Value – “Many companies spend a lot of money to drive traffic to their site – but if a person leaves without buying anything or without you capturing any information on them – all that money has been wasted. One of the best ways to try and capture information such as email addresses is to use a Conversion rate optimization (CRO) tool. When implementing user acquisition campaigns one of the most important factors is what you can provide in exchange for getting a potential customer’s email. There are numerous CRO tools out there and I had an opportunity to work with a few: Picreel, Bounce Exchange, Sumo Me, as well as built-in modals of email platforms like Emarsys, to name a few. I listed below what my US customers and I tried using the Picreel tool (not everything described below may be supported by other tools).

  Offer a discount – a discount encourages shoppers to go through with a purchase they were on the fence about. Even if they don’t buy today, offering a coupon rarely fails to at least collect their email address, so you can market to them in the future. The increase in conversion has a direct correlation with the discount size and price elasticity of a product.

  Offer free shipping – did you know that shipping costs are the #1 reason for shopping cart abandonment? Offer free shipping in your exit popup, and you stand to recover 44% of shoppers who are about to abandon their carts.

  Offer a free trial – it takes approximately 7 touches to make a sale. Offering a free trial gives you the opportunity to get your foot in the door and warm up your leads with multiple touches. About two thirds of B2B trials successfully convert and about a half of B2C do the same if done right.

  Offer downloadable content that has to do with the product or service you provide. Example: if you are an advertising agency, you can provide an E-book that goes over SEO tips for increasing visibility and traffic to a potential client’s website.

  Offer an entrance into a giveaway or sweepstakes – Sometimes visitors need a little extra incentive to take action. Free digital downloads are increasingly common, however physical items tend to have a higher perceived value. You don’t need to give everyone a physical gift. Just give them a chance to win the gift when they sign up for your newsletter. This one is my favorite – it is very cost effective (you don’t have to give something away to every subscriber rather just a few of them and once in a while).”

• Use Overlays Wisely – “It is important to understand your customer journey and when it is appropriate and non-invasive to serve overlays to your viewers. Overlays have gotten a bad reputation because most of them interrupt your customer consuming your content or navigating your website. An effective overlay or drop down should: i) Respect the customer journey, ii) Capture the viewer’s attention, and finally iii) Provide value in return for the visitor providing their information.

  Serving an overlay on exit (aka exit intent) is the last effort to interact with a viewer before they leave but there are other strategies such as serving the overlay after a customer has spent a certain amount of time on page, if they have visited X number of pages or if they have scrolled to a certain percentage of a page. This means you will need to understand what your viewers are doing on your website. Website analytics can give great insight on how long viewers are staying on your website and the average page views.”

• Optimize Your Email Capture Forms – “Every day, we are exposed to thousands of ads so it is incredibly important to effectively capture your viewers’ attention. Images are a great way to help visually impact your viewers. Our eyes can take in way more information than our brain can actually process. Therefore, people look for visual cues to tell them what’s important and what they can ignore.

  Call to action – Your call to action needs to be very simple and straightforward while enticing your viewers if you want to maximize conversions. Don’t make visitors read a lengthy message, fill out multiple fields, go to their email to retrieve a code, then come back to your site to redeem their offer. Optimizing CTA area and personalizing CTAs themselves can yield conversion increases anywhere between 40%-230% or even more.

  Create urgency – It is human nature to procrastinate. Whether it’s deciding to enter an email address or to make a large purchase, people tend to avoid or postpone making difficult decisions. Urgency gets the ball rolling by defining a deadline: either you get the offer before this time or you miss out. Having the urgency aspect in your campaigns can triple your conversion rates in certain cases.

  Powerful words – Power words subconsciously evoke an emotional or psychological response in a reader. A reader thinks they need what you’ve got. You reel them in with simple, albeit effective, words that speak to the power of Curiosity, Greed, Urgency, Trust/Logic, Simplicity, Exclusivity. Here is an example of simplicity: “Get our simple step-by-step guide to align your sales and marketing teams in less than 1 week.”

  Be creative, be different! Use humor if you can and remember to ask yourself: “If I was served my own overlay would I convert?”

• In-Depth Articles + PDF Downloads – “Write in-depth articles that appeal to either your potential customers or competitors who are in the process of learning about digital marketing techniques that will give them a deeper understanding on how to go about attracting more traffic and converting that traffic into sales. Always be sure to add as many insights that cut through general marketing techniques and give practical information on how to achieve their goals, whether that be via bullet points that list the exact process of how to implement such strategies or by including screenshots of the implementation process. Take the best of these articles and turn them into pdf downloads that users can access when they sign up to your list.”
• Subscribe Forms + Pop-Ups – “Include a range of subscribe forms including simple static forms in the sidebar of your blog posts to popups that list the downloads they can access once they have signed up. Popups should redirect to a “thanks” or “download” page that is tracked as a goal in Google Analytics. I currently use a range of MailChimp forms and those that pull contact 7 forms into popups that appear once the user has scrolled down the page. This can be done with WordPress plugins that not only add the form but also automatically add the subscriber to my MailChimp lists.”
• Personalize Your Emails – “Create a set of auto responder emails that are worded personally to build up a rapport with your subscribers, but also bring them back to the most popular articles on the site via links. Best also to make a brief bulleted list of the things they will learn from the article and also include an invite for them to ask any question. This set of Auto responders is a great way to get in their inboxes for the next few weeks after they signed up and ensures they know about the articles that others have found of use on your site.”

WordPress Plugins to Use:

1. Contact form 7 – to create the forms that appear in popups
2. Contact form 7 Controls – to redirect the form to a tracked download page
3. Contact Form 7 MailChimp Extension – to automatically add subscribers to your list
4. Slick Popup Pro – to create and design popups
5. Flamingo – to keep a record of all your form submitters in case you find emails have not been sent or subscribers have not been added to your MailChimp lists

• Get to Know WHO You’re Targeting – “So, you’re looking to build a list? Well first things first, you need to narrow down WHO your potential follower will be. Typically, someone who can benefit and/or needs your service. Once you do your demographics, start looking in areas you can find these people! Facebook groups, Instagram, Twitter, Live speaking events, business events, etc. Do this and you’re well on your way to building a list.”
• Create a Free Offer Product – “Alright my friend, once you figure out WHO you want on your list, you need to create what we call a “free offer product”. This could be an e-booklet, pdf guide, or short video training. Once your product is created and ready to be launched, you’ll need to set-up some type of business funnel to draw in traffic. This can be done by using ClickFunnels or any other site you can set funnels up with. Now, all you have to do is advertise your free offer & start capturing information!”
• Use Paid Advertising to Send Traffic to Your Funnel – “Last but not least, using paid advertising to get traffic drawn to your funnel is the FASTEST way to start building a list. With my clients, I use referrals systems & word of mouth to continue adding onto the list. If you found this information helpful, share this article! Good luck!”

• Reward People Who Sign Up and Provide Their Details – “One of the best ways to get customer information for your email lists for your email marketing initiatives is to run an offer. Provide discounts, or any sort of reward for customers who provide their details.

  I have used this tactic and it really works. In fact, I am currently running one such offer on my website. I provide people with a free report on their mobile app or a website analysis, but ask them to enter their information first.”



• Add Opt-Ins and Email Registration Forms on All Main Pages – “Optimizing your website to include opt-ins and registration forms on all main pages is another great way to build email lists.

  I have multiple such forms on my website, across various web pages. I also include an option to subscribe to my newsletter at the bottom of the page on several landing pages.”



• Add CTAs and Email Registration Forms to Your Blog Posts – “Blog posts are a good place to engage with your audience and get their details. People who visit your blog are already interested in your brand or content and have a high likelihood of signing-up for future content.
  Use multiple calls-to-action on your blog posts to get readers to sign-up or provide their details. Use these CTAs to link to your website’s registration forms and opt-ins.
  You can also ask for an email address before a reader can comment on your blog posts. Anyone who engages with your content and wants to comment will likely be happy to provide their email. But make sure that you limit the form to 2-3 fields, otherwise it will be a hassle for your readers to comment.”

• Great Content – “In my opinion, it all starts with great content. Whether it is on your website, weblog, YouTube channel, a live presentation, or whatever other platform you have. If you’re content is great and it leaves me begging for more, I’m willing to share my email address with you. Good examples to me are www.benlcollins.com (about data analysis) and https://conversion-rate-experts.com/ (self-explanatory address). This way new great content will find its way to me without me having to check every great website every day. This is not the easy way, since you have to make great content first, but it will pay off in the end. www.emailmonday.com, my friend Jordy’s international blog about email marketing and more, is another great example.”
• Give Something Away – “Yes, I know, it’s a cliché: give away something in exchange for an email address. But hey, it works. Keep whatever you give away close to your other services / business though. So no free iPads for every 100th subscriber. Unless your business is selling iPads of course. You want to attract the proper audience, not people who are more interested in your free goodie than in the value your business really ads. A good giveaway could be a whitepaper, an hour of free consulting or an exclusive video with tips. Again Ben Collins’s website is a good example, he provides you with a free eBook packed with ‘35 unusual tips & tricks for Excel & Google Sheets’. Conversion Rate Experts give you a free CRO Toolkit. And the aforementioned Jordy holds back his best tips and shares them exclusively with his newsletter subscribers.”
• Ask Everywhere! – “Ask for an email address in as many places as possible. In your web shop. In your blog. But also offline. The worst thing you can do is hide your email address sign up form in the caverns of your website, although I see this happen all too often. Also do not use the caption ‘stay up to date’. This is way too vague. People don’t care about staying up to date most of the time. Tell them why you deserve a place in their crammed inboxes. (It starts with Tip #1 actually: great content). If you’re allergic to the concept of ‘newsletters’ get creative. www.wildaudience.com promises to ‘help 6 and 7-figure entrepreneurs automate their processes to accelerate growth. They send you emails on a regular basis but never call their program ‘a newsletter’.

  I teach about email marketing and marketing automation a few times every month. To help my students-and myself-prepare for class I use Typeform to ask them a few questions about their situation, behavior, needs and wishes. I email them their answers as a future reference. At the end of the questionnaire, when they know more about me and how I can help them, I also ask them for their consent. This way I can keep them informed about email marketing developments. I get a 95-100% opt-in score every time.”

• Feature Your Signup Form in as Many Visible Places as Possible – “If your website visitors can’t see the sign up form, then they won’t subscribe to your mailing list. Sounds logical, doesn’t it? You should try to highlight your signup form as much as possible.

  ● A pop-up or exit overlay
  ● In the sidebar of your website
  ● Below or in between your blog posts
  ● A notification bar at the top of your website
  ● A link to your sign up form on your social media channels
  ● An opt-in box with each form on your website”

• Offer an Irresistible Welcome Gift – “Seduce your website visitors with a valuable gift. This could be an ebook, video training, worksheet, template, blueprint… about your industry. When your gift offers a solution to your target group, you attract those who are looking for information. Or in other words: potential customers! In order to download the gift, you request your visitors to enter their email address and subscribe to your mailing list.”
• Be Crystal Clear and Transparent About Your Email Communication – “Tell your readers exactly what will happen when they sign up:

  ● What happens when I leave my email address?
  ● Is my data safe with you?
  ● How often will you email me?
  ● What are you going to send me? The free gift? Promotions? A monthly
  newsletter?”