Your email list is one of the most important assets of your business. You want to ensure they get what they came looking for through your signup form, and the experience is nowhere near the horrific example we discussed above.
Why are signup forms necessary?
Signup forms are your sure-shot way to leave a strong impression of your brand and get leads interested in learning from you or converting into paying customers down the link. Having a well-designed signup form with highly persuasive copy and CTA will make sure that you don’t just get subscribers but engaged subscribers who are interested in reading your emails.
Step-by-step process to create successful signup forms
Here’s a six-step process that will help you create effortless signup pages and drive conversions!|
Step 1: Choose a form builder
Form builders are no-code platforms that help you build lead-generation forms tailored to your business needs.
The best thing about these is that you can create a form from scratch or pick a pre-designed template from their library and customize it.
Another crucial thing to not miss out on is whether your form builder allows you to create GDPR compliant forms. This helps you collect visitor information most securely and gain their trust.
Step 2: Pick a registration form template
Go to your form builder and select the option to create a form using templates. You’ll see an abundance of registration form templates to choose from.
Type in the keyword for the purpose you need the form. You’ll have plenty of options. Pick the one that resonates the most with your vision and purpose.
Feel free to drag and drop form elements and remove the unnecessary ones to create the form of your choice. Once done, embed the form in a webpage. Lastly, don’t forget to set up autoresponders or a thank you page to guide users when they submit a form.
Step 3: Set up double opt-in
You need genuine and engaged subscribers on your email list. You want leads that want to hear from you and are perhaps moderately or highly interested in your products. However, people leave face emails in the form just to access the incentive you’re offering or to be spammy.
Luckily, many email providers offer double opt-in functionality to help you filter out these spammers and create a clean and warmer set of leads as your email list.
Step 4: Add the form to relevant places
Once you have a signup form in place, you want it to garner the attention of your visitors. They’ll hardly notice it if it’s only lying at the footer of your website as a link. You must strategically place the form where your visitors will most likely visit.
Homepage
The homepage is always the best place to start—it’s the first page your visitors will ever see, and chances are they won’t go beyond it. Sidebars, headers, and popups can work well.
Blogs
Analyse your high-performing blogs that receive a lot of visitors every month. It’s always a good idea to place sign-up forms where visitors hang out most often.
Contact page
Say a prospective customer wants to enquire about a product and visit your contact page. Wouldn’t it be convenient if they come across your newsletter sign-up page and instantly wish to opt-in?
Social media
Actively talk about your newsletter on social platforms and build credibility there. Place the link to your signup form on your social media profile—somewhere it’s clearly visible and accessible.
Checkout
Always give your customers an option to opt into your email list—one of the best ways to practice consent-based marketing.
Step 5: A/B test
Different sites have different conversion rates, depending on their audience and the industry they are in. The only way to determine what sign-up form placement works the best for your brand is to test it out.
Create two or more versions of your webpage and place sign-up forms in a different location. These locations could be the header, a popup window, the footer, etc. While you do that, set up Google Analytics to check the performance on each page.
Step 6: Welcome emails
Welcome emails are a great way to formally introduce your brand to the email list and create a powerful impression. Tell them what they expect and how frequently they’ll receive your emails.
