4 Marketing Strategies That Can Increase the Effectiveness of Your Email Opt-in Forms

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The following excerpt is from Susan Gunelius’ book Ultimate Guide to Email Marketing for Business. Buy it now from Amazon | Barnes & Noble | iTunes | IndieBound

Creating and displaying opt-in forms might not deliver instant results. If your results are less than what you expect, consider increasing your marketing efforts to drive more traffic to your forms (if low traffic is the problem) or changing your offer (if conversion is the problem). In addition, try some of the following tactics to improve the results of your online opt-in forms:

1. Display multiple opt-in forms. One of the biggest mistakes you can make when building your email list is to assume people will find your opt-in form. Give them a variety of ways to find your forms, or you’ll lose opportunities to grow your list. For example, you can show the same offer on the same page or on different pages throughout your site. You can also display different offers on the same page or on different pages using page-level targeting techniques. You can also consider using a welcome mat form, a sidebar form, an exit-intent pop-up form, and an inline form in your blog posts.

2. Use calls to action (CTAs) to guide visitors to your opt-in forms. Sometimes, you won’t be able to include a full opt-in form in certain areas of your website. Instead, you can use CTAs that guide visitors to your opt-in forms. For example, include a link with a CTA next to the submit button within the comment area of your blog posts. Add a CTA in your blog or website header as well as to your social media pages and profiles. You can even add a sign-up button to your Facebook…