How to Use Opt-In Forms Successfully for Lead Generation
According to a recent study, the average email opt-in rate is 1.95%. That means around 2 conversions every 100 attempts. Many marketers would say these are great conversion rates until you learn that the top brands are getting more than twice than that from their opt-in campaigns!
According to the Sumo report, the top 10% of digital marketers have a 4.77% opt-in conversion rate. What’s more, a few elite marketers are converting up to 20% of their site traffic with opt-in forms! Using opt-in forms successfully can make all the difference in your lead generation.
4 Tips to Boost Your Opt-In Rate
You too can convert more traffic with email opt-in forms. However, you need to be smart. The following are four key tips to boost your conversions;
1. Create an offer the visitor can’t refuse
Starting today, think of email as a currency and the opt-in campaign as a transaction. The visitor is trading with their email address – something very dear to them. What do you bring to the transaction?
More importantly, does your currency (offering) match the value of the visitor’s email address? Would the visitor agree? If that’s the case, you’ll almost always get the email.
Bliss, a beauty brand, for instance, offers a 20% discount off the subscriber’s first order, and website visitors love it. Freund Container also offers a significant 10% discount on the first order.
2. Think carefully about placement
After you’ve found the perfect offer, the next step is to make the presentation stand out. Placement is the most important aspect of opt-in form presentation.
There are several placement options to consider, including top navigation, footer, sidebar, body placement, pop-up, and top bar. All of these options can work well. However, pop-up and top bar placements often work the best.
Exit-intent pop-ups are when the form pops up when it looks like the visitor is about to exit the page. These, in particular, are very effective. In one study, NutritionSecrets.com increased its opt-in rate by 400% thanks to exit-intent pop-ups.
3. Timing is everything
One of the reasons pop-up forms are so effective is timing. If you can display the form at the right time, you’ll get more opt-ins. Get the timing wrong, however, and you might have ruined everything. Timing makes a big difference when using opt-in forms successfully for lead generation.
So, how do you get the timing right? By leveraging behavior marketing! Invest in a behavior monitoring tool so you can track what visitors are doing on your website. This way, you can make the offer when they are likely to be ready for it.
Alternatively, head over to Google Analytics and analyze your highest-traffic pages to understand why people visit your site. You can then use the information to determine the best time to make the offer.
4. Build trust
Social proof is a very important aspect of marketing. People will often go with the crowd. If you’re asking visitors to sign up to an email list with zero sign-ups thus far, people will be asking just one question – if whatever you’re offering is so good, why has no one signed up yet?
The only way to eliminate that doubt is to show them how many people have already signed up and are liking your offers. So, display the sign-up numbers and, where possible, share a few positive comments or feedback from those who’ve already signed up. Share social proof whenever possible.
Time to Get Started
All of these are actions you can implement right away. If you truly want to be using opt-in forms successfully and increase your audience, this is the time to get started.