5 Tips to Increase Email Subscription Rates

The most effective (and by effective I mean responsive) email lists are those grown organically, in house and over time. But growing an in-house email list doesn’t happen overnight. For that reason, some email marketers get impatient and take shortcuts like renting email lists. In email marketing, faster doesn’t necessarily translate into better. We’ve talked about the value of building your own in-house email lists on this blog in the past.

Here are 5 tips to help turbo-charge your email subscription rates:

1. Provide an incentive, and promote the incentive rather than the email subscription itself. Many people might be reluctant to sign up for yet another email newsletter; but everyone wants something for free. A link to “get a free book” will encourage more people to sign up for an email than the presence of a subscription form on your website will. Don’t make the incentive too attractive, or you will attract a lot of people who are solely interested in the prize. Ideally, make the incentive attractive to the type of subscribers you are looking for (i.e. related to your industry, products or services)
2. Make your incentive offer/subscription form available on all entry points to your website (not just on the main page.) Also, place it in the same place on each page, preferably on the top, right-hand corner of the page.
3. Make signing up easy to do. If you ask for too much information on the initial subscription form, you will lose some potential subscribers to form fatigue. You can always collect more information from your subscribers later. Initially, you just need an email address and a first name to personalize your message.
4. Explain clearly and briefly on the subscription form what the email will consist of (content) and how often they will receive it (frequency). This establishes trust from the start as it provides transparency about the offer.
5. Design is divine. Make the subscription form or incentive link to your form prominent on your website. Set it apart from the rest of the content on your page with an attractive border or a different color/style. Don’t make potential subscribers look too hard to find a way to subscribe to your content.

In-house email lists regularly outperform 3rd party rental lists simply because those people who subscribe directly on your website know what they are signing up for and are requesting to hear from you first-hand. When renting an email list, you are assuming that the people on that list are interested in what you have to say and sell. And you know what assuming does.