The industry sure has been atwitter lately with talk of the subscriber experience.  I recently blogged about one company that had impressed me with their subscription process.  Today, I’d like to start a two-part blog series about how you can improve your own process.  We’ll start with your opt-in page, and will continue with your welcome email next week.

Not to toot our own horn, but for both subjects, I’m going to refer to Blue Sky Factory’s new process.  We’ve just redesigned our website, and with that came an improved subscription process.  The opt-in form and welcome email were both set up through Publicaster, so Publicaster users will be able to mimic our process very easily.  You can check out our new subscription form here.  Notice that we’ve kept it simple, only requiring First Name, Last Name and Email.  Also, we’ve given four different email types in the subscription offerings, which cover the various content options available to subscribers.

To give your own opt-in page a revamp, you’ll first need to create a new opt-in form.  We’ve created a “how to” document for the Publicaster opt-in form builder.  This feature is found under the Account Manager section in Publicaster and is a simple three-step process.  The “how to” document will lead you through these three steps.  Once complete, Publicaster will give you HTML code for your new opt-in form, which you can simply paste onto your subscription page within your website.  Then, anyone that subscribes to your emails via this form will be automatically added to your specified mailing list within your Publicaster account.  How easy is that?!?  If you need help with the opt-in form builder, email us.

While integral, the form itself is just one part of the subscription page.  You’ll also need to include information about your emails and process on this page and throughout your site.  Here’s a list of best practices you should follow when creating your new subscription page:

• Put the form or a link to the form on every page of your website for maximum email capture.  Notice we have a link to our subscription page in the upper right-hand corner of every page throughout our website.

• Keep the form short and sweet.  Only ask for the information that you will really use in your email program.  Think of what information you might use later down the line to segment with.  Some choose to only ask for basics up front (email, first name, last name, zip), and then follow up later with an email asking for more information.  You can test different form lengths, but general opinion is to keep the initial form short and easy so you don’t get drop-offs.

• On the opt-in page, tell the subscriber what they can expect from your emails.  Include a content summary, promises of special offers and the frequency they can expect.  Setting expectations upfront and sticking to those will help keep your subscribers happy.  Also tell them the benefits of signing up for the email program … think “What’s in it for me (the subscriber)?”  You may also want to include a screenshot of a sample email so subscribers will know what to expect.  Check out the “What am I signing up for?” section to the left of our subscription form.  Subscribers can click on any of the four email screenshots to get an overview of the email content and frequency.

• When building the opt-in form in Publicaster, be sure to choose the Email Validation check so that the subscriber must enter an email address in the name@domain.com format.  This will prevent people from making a mistake or entering nonsense just to gain access to a sweepstakes, free whitepaper, etc.

• Set up your opt-in form to be a Notified opt-in form, whereby the subscriber will receive an automatic welcome email.  (This can also be set up through a Publicaster auto-response campaign, which is what we did.  More on this next week.)  This will also help to validate the email address, and will make your subscribers feel “welcomed” by your company.  In the welcome email, give them instructions on whitelisting your email address.  Feel free to link to our how-to whitelist page that we created for our clients to use. 

This should get you started on building your new opt-in form.  As always, feel free to contact us if you need help with anything.  Next week, we’ll go over the welcome email, and I’ll dive into the specifics of how we set ours up.  Check out the image to the right for a preview of our new welcome email.

Another truly eye-opening article was posted on the EMarketer site today. According to a new EEC study, 70% of online retailers send welcome emails to new subscribers, but only 9% user a Forward to a Friend or Refer a Friend link. Less than 10%? Nonsense! A timely welcome email is a great opportunity to not only keep your brand top-of-mind for your subscriber, but to also grow your list through referrals and forwards.

In case you missed our latest Factory Direct, Ben Piccone, our VP of Operations, wrote an excellent article on the power of welcoming your new email subscribers. Here is the intro:

For several years, email marketing lists have been growing at a staggering pace. This is good news for everyone. However, as email marketing matures, we can expect to see the growth rate of many lists to begin to slow. We can also expect recipients to become more discriminating in their readership. Remember, a successful campaign is a relevant one, and relevance is in the eye of the recipient.

Since you will want to maximize your performance with the precious resources that you have, you will want to get off to a good start with every new recipient. You can do this with a two-part, automatic response to every new subscriber.

To read the rest of the article click here.