Maximising Your Opt-In Form
A common question when launching a newsletter is 'How much information can I ask for at the sign up point?'
Firstly, this is about attracting the right subscriber. Your opt-in form will generally be the first impression a potential subscriber has of your company. You want to be succinct, yet provide enough information for the reader to make a decision. The ‘right’ subscriber is someone who is interested in your products and services – and will be more likely to open (and open again), to click and to interact.
By the way, the unsubscribe function should be extremely easy – above and beyond the fact that legally it must be easy, you don’t want to annoy people. Avoid password protection. Don't ask for confirmation of unsubscribes - just let them go!
Have a privacy statement - it is both legally required and best practice. If you are looking for permission to send additional promotional mailings it must not be a soft opt-in (i.e. they have to untick the box if they don’t want the extra mailings), it must be a opt-in box that they tick.
Required fields ..... how many?
A study by Jupiter Media Metrix a couple of years ago found that 65% of Internet users don’t want to share much beyond their email addresses. There has to be a real incentive to do so. Marketers should keep this in mind when devising fields (optional and required) for their opt-in forms. The more questions you ask, the less subscribers you’ll receive. A test conducted by MarketingSherpa and Netline showed a substantial increase in registration completion - from 50% to 75% - when the number of questions was reduced from 20 to six.
Unless you have very specific reasons why you need detailed information from subscribers, and are ready to accept a lower subscribe rate, then a good rule of thumb is to keep your form to no more than 5 to 7 fields for the visitor to fill out. Explain why you need the information ('for personalisation', 'to better tailor the content you receive'). Examples of fields for a business newsletter: first name, last name, email address, title, company name and country. Keep as many of those as you can as optional.
Jakob Nielsen, who issues a bi-annual usability study of newsletters, recommends a sign up process of less than 60 seconds for free newsletters. Regarding unsubscribing, assuming that the user has a recent copy of the newsletter available, Jakob says they should be able to unsubscribe in less than 30 seconds. I’d say even less – it really should be just one click.
Test! Test! Test!
In the current MarketingSherpa Benchmark Guide, a variety of tests on opt-in forms are included. One result finds by simply changing the form from a double column into a single column, subscriptions can improve dramatically. I suspect this is because visually it seems there are fewer fields to fill out. Some of the test tweaking improved opt-in conversions on a website by 25% to 40% - so it’s well worth your time to test.
Building up a subscriber profile over time
By starting out simply – with just a small amount of information, or even just an email, you can begin to build profile on your subscribers.
Ideas for building a profile of a reader:
- Feature an occasional survey, offering a special bonus for those who complete it. In this survey you can add in (optional) demographic or relevant business questions.
- Ask readers to visit a web page to express preferences about future content for the newsletter. The final questions of the survey can ask "who" they are - again optional.
- Something I saw recently for capturing just a bit more information without intrusion: You were first asked to submit your email address. Then a pop up window came up saying, "To allow us to personalise your newsletter we'd appreciate a few details: Title, First Name, Surname, Company" - with the advisory: "We will not pass this information on to any third party."
- Offer your subscribers the ability to update their profile with every issue of the newsletter. The choices can include frequency and content.
