Email marketing continues to be one of the best techniques for nurturing and converting leads. It helps you directly connect with your potential and existing customers. That makes it an excellent tool for improving customer retention and loyalty too. But successful email marketing is more than sending a bunch of emails to a random database you bought from a third-party vendor. If you want to reap the benefits of email marketing, you need to start with a targeted email list.

So, how do you get started with building an email list?

While there are plenty of ways to populate your mailing list with qualified leads, one of the biggest assets is your company website.

Think about it! You’re already investing your energy and resources to drive traffic to your website. Wouldn’t it be great if you could get these website visitors to signup for your newsletter as well?

What You Might Be Doing Wrong

When it comes to building an email list, most website owners assume that adding an opt-in form or a popup box will do the trick. You might even have created a groundbreaking lead magnet that’ll compel visitors to share their contact information with you.

You can’t wait for leads to start pouring in.

However, what you don’t realize is that the appearance, placement, and accessibility of an opt-in form determine how useful it’s going to be. If your website and opt-in forms aren’t optimized for conversions, even the most attractive lead magnet will fail to yield any email signups.

How to Get More Email Opt-Ins from Your Website?

If you’re already working with a full-service marketing agency, like Sievers Creative, they’ll help you modify your website’s design and layout to get more email subscribers. They’ll even help you create the right lead magnets that’ll grab the attention of your target audience. 

Additionally, you can use the following tactics to grow your mailing list:

1. Highlight Your Opt-In Form

Most websites make the mistake of showcasing the opt-in form on the homepage. Even if you add the form to other web pages, it often appears in the footer section. If visitors don’t scroll that far, they won’t even come across your opt-in form.

So, how do you ensure that the form catches the attention of every visitor?

The key is to add it to the best-performing pages on your website. Use a web analytics tool to identify pages that attract the maximum traffic. Common examples include the “About Us”, “Contact Us”, and product/service pages. You could also include the form on the main blog page.

2. Improve Form Design

The secret sauce for skyrocketing email signups is to make the opt-in form stand out from other elements. An easy way of doing that is to choose a color scheme that’s in contrast with the overall palette of your website. Consider using your secondary brand colors for the opt-in form.

Make sure the call-to-action (CTA) button stands out from the rest of the form. Use a striking color that immediately grabs a visitor’s attention.

Leverage popups and animation to ensure that the form grabs eyeballs as soon as it appears on the screen. For instance, it could slide up from the bottom-right corner of a web page. Or it could slide in from the right side of the screen.

3. Simplify the Opt-In Form

Is your opt-in form cluttered with too many fields? It’s easy to feel tempted to gather a ton of information from website visitors while they’re signing up for your mailing list. But keep in mind that the more fields in your opt-in form, the longer it’ll take them to submit their contact details.

The general rule of thumb is to only ask for a subscriber’s name and email address. Depending on your product/service, industry, and target audience, you could also collect additional information about their occupation, family, etc.

It is, however, important to evaluate the relevance and utility of each field. If it isn’t absolutely necessary for your email campaign, consider omitting the field from your form.

4. Don’t Ignore the Copy

The visual appearance of your opt-in form isn’t the only factor that influences its performance. Crisp and compelling copy also goes a long way to entice visitors to submit their contact information. The key is to highlight the benefits that they’ll get by signing up for your newsletter.

5. Leverage A/B Testing

Here’s the thing – no one has cracked the code for maximizing email signups from a website. You need to constantly test different layouts, color palettes, CTAs, and copies to identify the best-performing combination.

In Conclusion

Amplifying email opt-ins on your website takes more than adding a form to the home page. Optimize the position, appearance, and content of your opt-in form to find out what’s working for your audience.