Email Marketing continues to be one of the most effective ways that companies can interact with their customer, build brand awareness, and generate more sales in this digital world. The first part of maximizing the power of email marketing is building an email sign-up form, and this tutorial will walk you through it in six simple steps, using one of the most popular email marketing service providers.
1. Select an Email Marketing Service Provider
A key to designing an email sign-up form is choosing a good email marketing provider. There are dozens of options to choose from with different features and price ranges. These include Mailchimp, Constant Contact, AWeber, and GetResponse.
When selecting a service provider, keep in mind the following:
a. Easy to use: Choose a provider with an easy-to-use user interface and low learning curve.
Integration: Make sure the provider supports your website, social media, and other marketing tools.
b. Cost: Look into the pricing packages and select a provider that is the most economical for you.
c. Customer support: You want to choose a provider that provides a 24/7 customer service.
d. Deliverability: The higher the deliverability rate, the more likely it is for your emails to end up in the inbox of your customers.
Step 2: Build a List and a Signup Form
Once you have selected an email marketing provider, it is time to set up a list and a sign-up form. Lists enable you to segment your audience based on demographics or interests and offer customized messages. A signup form is how visitors can subscribe to your list.
In Mailchimp, use these instructions to create a list and a signup form:
– Open your Mailchimp account and click on “Audience” on the home page.
– Select the “Create Audience” button to import a list.
– Enter the necessary fields, like audience name, default from email address, default from name. You can even alter the audience parameters, like permissions and compliance.
– Select the “Save” button to save the audience.
– From the audience dashboard, select “Signup forms” and click “Form builder”.
– Edit the form fields to your liking, like adding a first name or last name field. You can also customize the form template, style, and submit button.
– Click the “Save & Close” button to save your changes and generate the signup form code.
In the next section, we’ll see how to embed the sign-up form code on your website, advertise the form, and test the outcome.
Step 3: Copy the Sign-Up Form Code and Paste It on Your Website.
In order to begin receiving email sign-ups, you need to embed the sign-up form code in your website. Most email marketing providers offer embedding capabilities such as inline forms, pop-up forms, or landing pages.
In Mailchimp, use these instructions to place the sign-up form code on your website:
– Click on the “Publish” tab in the signup form builder.
– Select the embedding type that you are most comfortable with — an inline form or a pop-up form.
– Copy the code of the generated signup form.
– Copy and paste the code in the HTML code of the webpage that you are building, usually within the body tag.
– Save and publish your edits.
Step 4: Publicize the Sign-Up Form.
Promoting your email sign-up form is an essential part of getting new subscribers and expanding your list. Promote the form on your website, social media, email campaigns, and offline events.
Consider the following promotion strategies:
– Create a landing page to display the form.
– Add the sign-up form in your website’s sidebar, footer or contact page.
– Post the signup form on your Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn accounts.
– Include an email signature call-to-action (CTA) for your email list.
– Give subscribers an incentive like a freebie or a discount to subscribe to your mailing list.
Step 5: Analyze the Results
It is very important to monitor and measure your email sign-up form to learn how it works and how you can improve on it. The majority of email marketing providers also provide reporting tools, including conversions, subscriber numbers, and sign-up rates.
These are the reporting tools you can use in Mailchimp to evaluate the outcome:
a. Audience dashboard: Keep track of total subscribers, unsubscribes, and sign-up origins.
b. Reporting signup forms: You can see the success of your sign-up form by analyzing the views, subscriptions and conversions.
c. Subscriber details: View subscriber profile information including contact details, sign-up date, and engagement history.
d. A/B testing: Conduct A/B testing of sign-up form variants (for example, fields, layout, or design) to see which works best.
Step 6: Keep Your Email List Updated.
Having a healthy email list plays an important role in achieving the best deliverability rates and subscribers. Keep your list swept regularly by eliminating unsubscribers or dead subscribers, fixing typos or errors, and re-updating outdated contact information.
Email marketing providers often offer other list management services like automation, segmentation, and data cleansing.
In Mailchimp, the list management tools available for managing your email list include the following:
a. Automation rules: Create automation rules to perform a specific task, like sending welcome emails or unsubscribing users.
b. Segmentation: Segment your list based on criteria like engagement, subscriber history, or demographics in order to offer personalized content.
c. Data cleansing services: You can clean your lists using the Mailchimp list cleaning tools (the “Clean My List” tool) to eliminate invalid or abandoned subscribers.
Conclusion
Creating an email sign-up form is a basic requirement to maximize the efficiency of email marketing. Using any popular email marketing platform, like Mailchimp, you can easily create and launch an effective email sign-up form in six simple steps as explained in this tutorial. Always advertise your form, review the results, and ensure your email list is kept up to date for optimal efficiency and usage. Happy email marketing!
