Sign up Form Best Practices (and some things to avoid)

Email newsletters are one of the most important design elements of a web site.

The easier you make it for people to find, become interested, and sign up for you email newsletter, the faster you will grow your permission based list.

Value proposition: aka "What's in it for me?"
Do you give your email address to any business that asks for it? No, you don't. Most people give out their email address based on an implicit value equation.

There is a cost to giving out your email address because you risk receiving more spam. So what is the benefit? As a marketer, your goal is to convince the person that the benefit of receiving your marketing emails is greater than the cost/risk of providing their email address.

DO These

Link to the sign up form in multiple places
Eye tracking studies have shown that people look for the link to your newsletter sign up in 3 places.

1. Upper right
   
2. Main navigation
3. Footer of every page
   

There is no rule against linking to a web page multiple times from a different page. Also, by using several different links, you can use different words in the text.

Use important words in links to the sign up form
People scan web sites. Different people might scan for different words. The following are the most common phrases when people are scanning for a newsletter sign up. (The best link is usually "Email Newsletter Sign up".)

• Sign up
• Newsletter
• Email
  

Do not use just the branded name of the newsletter. Most people are scanning for the words in the list, so if your sign up link says something like "market watch" and nothing else, it is likely they will miss the link.

Link to the newsletter archive
If you have an archive, link to it so people can make a better decision about whether to subscribe. If you don't have an archive, describe a sample newsletter and include an image.

Say how often newsletters are sent
And if possible, let your subscribers choose how often. Most importantly, tell them the maximum frequency they will receive emails from you. (It is OK to send less frequent.)

State your privacy policy
If you have a privacy policy page, then link to it. Otherwise, have some text near the sign up form that describes the privacy of the subscriber's email address.

Sell a little
Tell them why signing up for your newsletter will make their life better. Focus on benefits, not features.

DON'T Do These

Don't rely only on a sign up box
Remember, first you need to convince the person they should sign up. Having only a sign up box for their email address provides no convincing. It's just plain lazy.


Don't require too much information (at the start)
You can always ask for more information after you have established a relationship. Remember, it's a value proposition. You show that you can provide value, your subscribers will offer up more of their information (about who they are and what they want). Then you can use those details to send them a more targeted message.

At sign up, ask for email address, first name, and last name. Only ask for more if you absolutely, positively need it. I recommend not just asking for email address because then you have absolutely no chance of adding any personalization.

Over time, you can use surveys to build out a subscriber's profile.

Don't offer a sign up gift
Many organizations offer up a sign up promotion. I'm not big on these as they can be abused. The value from the email should be what convinces someone to subscribe, not the freebie upon sign up.

With that said, one gift I advocate for is a birthday gift or other "anniversary" type of gift. This is an excellent way to distinguish email marketing from interruption marketing. Just think how personal the "Happy Birthday Philip" email feels to your subscribers. Restaurants are one of the main beneficiaries of this strategy.