Opt-ins

Opt-ins are the gold standard of increasing sign-ups: they give your target audience the ability to choose whether or not to sign up for your email newsletter. They also provide you with numerous ways to lure people in, including:

• On-page opt-ins: this option prompts site visitors to sign up while they’re browsing a page on your site.
• Slide-up opt-ins: this opt-in slides up from the bottom of a website. It is minimally intrusive, can be displayed on every page, and gives the site visitor the option of closing it or responding.
• Pop-ups: Popovers are everywhere, and for good reason—they work! With the right online tool, you can customize these pop-ups and decide what pages they appear on, when they appear and who they display for. They can take on many forms, including:
  • Standard pop-up stating the benefits of joining the list
  • Incentivized pop-up
  • Discount-led pop-up
  • Shopping cart-abandonment pop-up, encouraging the user to create an account

Remember, it’s important that no matter what type of opt-in you use, you should provide your subscribers with a double opt-in option. This means they not only opt in when they see the initial offer, but also they receive an email confirmation that they want to receive your newsletter.

By doing this, you are ensuring a loyal online newsletter reader who is more likely to remain subscribed and engaged. Additionally, it will reduce the number of people marking your email newsletters as spam.

Landing pages

Often, a potential subscriber wants to see what you have to offer before they make a decision to sign up for your email newsletter. You can create a landing page that’s specifically designed to show users what the benefits are for subscribers.

One of the best aspects of the email-specific landing page is you can direct all external traffic to this page, whether they are from web searches, social media, blogs, or another source. Keep this page short and sweet and let people know what they will be receiving in their inbox. Examples of what you can offer them include:

• Coupons
• Weekly tips
• Product reviews
• Interviews with experts
• DIY/how-to guides
• Anything else you include in your newsletter

Whether users are directed to these email-specific landing page or to other parts of your website, be sure to have call-to-action (CTA) buttons on every page. Doing so means you don’t miss out on any potential subscriber, no matter where on your site they’re browsing.

Offers

You can increase the number of sign-ups you have simply by giving potential subscribers special offers. These offers come in many forms and can be introduced on a range of platforms (e.g. your social media accounts), such as:

• Coupons
• Courses and webinars
• Content downloads, such as whitepapers
• Contests/sweepstakes
• Rewards
• Surveys
• Referral offers

The key to online newsletter effectiveness is to be creative and use the technology at your disposal. The more distinctive you make each of these methods, the more successful you’ll be in gathering those engaged subscribers.

Check out our free list acquisition cheatsheet for more advice on collecting email addresses for your database.

Since introducing email automation FAIRFX have seen:

• 17% more visits to their website
• 73% increase in conversion rates
• 103% increase in transactions
• 121% increase in revenue

But what did they do and how did they do it? We’ve picked out two ways FAIRFX have used automation in their email campaigns:

Welcome Program

All visitors to the FAIRFX site are invited to register their details. This sets in motion the automated email program and sends the customer a series of emails that explains FAIRFX services and are designed to educate the customer rather than sell directly.

“Every new customer receives three different emails as part of the welcome program, then a personal call from one of the customer services team within 48 hours of the last email being sent. This approach certainly is paying dividends – within just two months of its introduction, 60% of those who signed up converted in to actual paying customers.”

Happy Birthday campaign

FAIRFX keep their birthday messages pretty simple. While other retailers may use a voucher or offer with their birthday campaigns FAIRFX use a humorous birthday greeting with an animated cake and candle.

“This simple touch of keeping contact has proved to be a real winner – our total additional turnover generated from this campaign rose by over 300% in just eight months.”

We hope these campaign examples give you a taste of how you can use automation in your emails. For more information on FAIRFX and how they implemented email automation take a look at our case study.

1. Multiple data sources

Whatever size your data is, chances are it comes from multiple sources. Getting this data together is crucial to help move to a more targeted approach.

2. Big data doesn’t mean big insight

Translating this data into insight requires focus. Make sure to factor in time, resource and budget to do this properly.

3. What you don’t see in reports

Focusing on opens and clicks may suggest your campaigns are doing just fine, but this method can hide large groups of your audience that are unengaged.

4. Insight in to Automation

You’ve got your key insights. Now it’s time to create a segmentation strategy from this knowledge.

5. Keeping up with your campaigns

Your new customer insights means you now have more campaigns but no greater resources and time to create them. Here’s where automation is essential.

6. More segments, more content

Generic content will no longer cut it with your smart segmentation. Try creating rule-based content libraries that automatically serves content according to previous actions.

7. Keeping stakeholders onside

With potential push-back it’s important to make sure everyone is committed to the automation vision by clearly communicating the benefits.

8. Prove it with the technology

It’s much better to start with a sound planning approach than start with technology.

Right so now you know the obstacles, let’s get you past them. Download our full strategy guide: Navigating the 5 stages of marketing automation, to get you in to a more intelligent and effective automated approach.