Step #1: Determine Your Potential Customer

This first step is the most critical.  You don’t want to plow ahead creating your page without a clear understanding of exactly the type of person you want on your email list and to be your potential customer (sometimes called a prospect or an avatar).

Without a concise understanding of who you want as your customer, you can’t create a message that will resonate strong enough to spark their interest and gain their trust.

Don’t target individuals that are looking to “Get Rich Quickly”, but instead, focus on individuals who are willing to work at their business and put in the effort into achieving success.

Take your time and determine who you really want on your list in terms of your ultimate goal (which should be converting enough of your prospects into customers or clients).

Once you have defined your potential customer, then you will know how to communicate with them through your opt-in copy and future emails.

Step #2:  Your Opt-in Page Goal

Your opt-in (sometimes called a squeeze page or landing page) page has one goal:  get your prospects email address. 

Every element and generated copy (the words or text) on your opt-in page should support this single goal.  If it doesn’t, remove it!  Remove things like:

• your typical sidebar
• any banner ads or affiliate links
• any images that are stock or distract a prospect from giving you their email address
• any links in your copy that will take prospects off your page without obtaining their email address
  • Depending on you traffic source, you may be required to add such as Terms of Service, Privacy, etc.  If you must include these links, then set them to open them in a new browser window so the opt-in page is still visible and easily accessible.
  • if your page does not require Terms of Service, Privacy, … due to your traffic source, then leave them off.

You want nothing to distract your prospects from clicking the button or completing the opt-in section of your page and obtaining their email address. 

Step #3:   The Essential Opt-in Page Elements

There are certain elements that an opt-in page must contain.  There are 4 required elements and one optional. They are:

1. The headline:  The headline’s job is to grab the reader’s attention and keep them interested in the page or article that you are trying to highlight.  A great headline will keep your prospect on your opt-in page allowing them to absorb the rest of the elements on your page.
2. The benefits:  You need to persuade your prospect that they need what you are offering by teasing them the benefits of your product, usually done through targeted bullet points.
3. The call to action:  Some prospects require that you hold their hand held every step of the way.  To include these prospects in your targeting, you must explicitly tell them to enter their email address and press the appropriate button.
4. The opt-in section:  This is the section of your opt-in page where the prospect enters their email address.
   • Sometimes this information may be included in a pop up
   • Your opt-in form and button, should be visible above the fold (visible when your browser opens the page and you shouldn’t have to scroll to see it).
5. Proof (optional):  Whether or not you need to add proof on your email opt-in page depends on a number of criteria, including the strength of your brand and the source of your traffic.  There are a number of ways to address proof and they are not limited to:  your number of subscribers, subscriber testimonials, reviews, or media mentions.

Don’t forget to reassure people that you respect their privacy.

Step #4:  Your Incentive

It is always a smart tactic to offer an up-front incentive, or “ethical bribe” to convince people to sign up for your list.

This could be any of the following free electronic deliverable items:  a report, an eBook, an audio lesson, an educational video, access to a membership site, training webinar, …

You usually deliver your free electronic incentive via a follow-up email to your new subscriber. 

This way the prospect must give you a valid email address to receive their freebie. 

Some people may supply you with a bogus email address in an attempt to receive the incentive, but not any other emails.

They are betting that you will deliver your electronic incentive by another method, like a download off a web page, or a link from a thank-you page.

However, this method is not as fool-proof as it sounds for retaining a real email address. 

One method of failure for collecting a real email address could be:  after receiving their email with the link to retrieve your incentive, the prospect can immediately unsubscribe from your email list.

A better approach is to create your incentive so that it focuses on keeping your prospect staying subscribed.

There is also the option of releasing your report over time as a series of emails in an automated email sequence.

You can break the video or audio into parts, and always entice subscribers with “what’s coming next”.

The key is to over-deliver on your promises, incentive, or content to your prospects and they’ll happily stay with you longer.

Step #5: Length of Your Copy

I am often asked “How long should my copy be?” My typical answer is “As long as it needs to be to cover what you feel is required”, and no longer.

Get rid of the fluff and keep to the details.

In the case of an opt-in page, the essentials have to be there – headline, benefits, and call to action.

If you find that your page does not get a good opt-in rate, you may have to “tweak” your copy for the essentials, mainly:  the headline, the benefits, and the call to action.  This will probably require some split testing.

Step #6: The Perfect Amount of Form Data

The less form data you ask for on your email opt-in page, the more people will sign up.

If you want the highest rate for your opt-ins, ask for the email address only.  Obviously, the more information you require your prospect to enter, the opt-in rate drops off very quickly.

If your objective of your opt-in page is to obtain other lead information like a mailing address and phone number, along with their email address, then there is no reason why you can’t request them right on the opt-in page.  However, keep in mind prospects do not like giving away a lot of their personal information at the same time, especially if they don’t know you, and you may turn off a lot of people from opting into your page.

In this situation if the amount of time required to obtain a lead is not critical, it may be best to get the prospect on your list first with a simple email address.  Through follow-up value-based emails, you can build trust with your new subscriber and then ask for more information on future surveys, contests or additional giveaways.

The more value you give to a subscriber, the more trust you build, and the more recognition of your name or brand will be solidify in their mind. 

Once brand or name recognition has happened, communication and exchanging of information with your prospects becomes easier.

Step #7: The Combination of Elements That Work the Best

Everything above represents tried-and-tested wisdom for email opt-in pages.  But you are probably asking what combination of elements work the best for my brand, product or niche?

But when it comes down to what specifically works for you and your brand, product or niche, only your split-testing will tell the whole truth.

Changes to headlines, copy, benefits, call-to-action copy, button colors, button size, background vs no background, page font colors, font sizes, etc. and sometimes tiny tweaks all may make a big difference when it comes to your opt-in rate.

Remember, don’t forget about defining your potential customer (prospect) from step 1. 

Manipulating the elements of your opt-in page to get the positively best opt-in rate should not be a surprise nor unexpected. However, if your final goal is to make a future sale, then you have to be sure you are attracting the right prospects from your optimized opt-in page. In other words, the opt-in page should match the niche of the products you are trying to sell or market.