Improve Your Signup Form and Get More Subscribers in 3 Steps
Posted: Thu Dec 26, 2024 10:32 am
Want to improve your signup forms in your campaigns? Try using your words first.
When we talk about optimizing signup forms in an email, we tend to forget the most fundamental and crucial element – the words we will use. We spend a lot of time designing the layout of the said signup form, the details that will need to be filled in, the size of the buttons, but few people are willing to spend the bulk of the time on the text itself.
Let’s be clear, words hold power! When Cabot Heritage Corporation put “Registration” on their registration form button, their registration numbers dropped by 22.9%. Don’t let this happen to you!
Sign up form in landing page
Here are the 3 steps to improve your form:
The power of words
Every site has its own way of handling the sign-up process. Some use greece telegram phone number list familiar elements like “Sign Up” or “Click Here” or emphasize a sense of urgency with “Sign Up Now” or are more directive with terms like “Buy”, “Download”, “Participate”, “Request a Quote” or more distant ones like “Read More”. Is there really any meaning in the choice of these words? This is what we will try to dissect.
The word “sign up” will tend to always be linked to a purchasing process , whether it’s for a product or a service. So it can be risky and can lead you to put your prospects in a situation of hesitation, of doubt about the procedure to follow. So if you want to push people to sign up for a gym or to participate in a photography course, you should use for example “Sign up” , or even better “Sign up now” if you want to maximize the click-through rate in a short time – because you have to close a program for example.
You can also be a little less directive by putting “Register” or “Register here” to show the user the way.
Even though the term registration has a transactional connotation, there is nothing to stop you from twisting its meaning by adding a term that counters it, such as “Register for free” to give the user the impression that they are gaining something by registering. This will be much more meaningful than “join for free” or another similar term that is less focused on your conversion objective.
Also try to avoid “Click here” as much as possible, which are far too vague for the context.
On the other hand, the use of the words “Participate” or “Join” is different and depends on the context. The goal of the call-to-action is to best describe the action hidden behind the button, so here we have an opportunity to do it with more appropriate words.
For example, when you send an email with the aim of getting people to sign up for a newsletter, it is much more coherent to encourage them to do so by saying “Join”, “Register”, “Discover our newsletter” or “Subscribe” than “Click” because a person who signs up for your newsletter somewhat adheres to your ideas, right?
You can also involve the Internet user by saying “I agree to the newsletter” or “I subscribe” or be more incisive “I want to subscribe” , “I want to join today” . Obviously, use the last examples with caution, you will understand why (risk of causing the opposite effect).
You can finally select even more by using terms that ensure that the Internet user is really a qualified prospect by using selective words such as “I want to become a VIP member”.
Please note, it is also important to specify that this is not an exact science. It is impossible to accurately predict the degree of involvement that the campaign will achieve. It even happens that certain elements on which we had not bet achieve unthinkable scores. This is why we should not hesitate to test several versions by doing an AB test and not eliminate a version too quickly without having tried it first.
By the way, don't be afraid to make variations on similar texts like "Try now" or "Try today".
The subject of your campaign
Are you going to call your campaign “Newsletter” or maybe “News”? The latter term implies that you have information to communicate to your mailing list. It will either be news or transactional. The word Newsletter on the other hand will be limited to the business level and will contain more textual content .
Choosing the right word will not only impact the number of new subscribers, but also their perception of your campaigns. If users expect to receive sales updates and receive professional in-depth articles, they may just regret signing up.
So try to use the label that properly reflects your campaigns . You can do this even if you don’t have enough space to describe in detail what it is about; the way you name your campaign can give users enough insight.
Etsy, a marketplace where people from all over the world come together, mentions in its newsletter signup form that you’ll receive “top trends” and “editors’ picks.” Additionally, Etsy gives its newsletter a catchy name “Etsy Finds,” which gives you an immediate sense of what you’re in for if you decide to sign up.
Etsy
Avoid gibberish
The marketing world has its own language and everyone who works in it is used to it. But to your target audience, this language may seem more like a random succession of meaningless symbols. This marketing trend leads to situations of miscommunication.
The registration form should be as intuitive and simple as possible . You are not the average user: for example, there are cases where users have no idea where to click to submit their email address. If you don’t have a clear submit button, not all users will necessarily understand that they need to click that weird arrow at the end of the form.
Another example is related to the recurrence of the number of emails you will send. If you write that your campaign is “bi-weekly”, will your users know that your campaign will be sent once every two weeks or twice a week? The correct answer is, of course, twice a week, but not all users know that!
OZY Magazine writes in its signup form exactly how many articles subscribers will receive in their inbox and when they will receive them:
When we talk about optimizing signup forms in an email, we tend to forget the most fundamental and crucial element – the words we will use. We spend a lot of time designing the layout of the said signup form, the details that will need to be filled in, the size of the buttons, but few people are willing to spend the bulk of the time on the text itself.
Let’s be clear, words hold power! When Cabot Heritage Corporation put “Registration” on their registration form button, their registration numbers dropped by 22.9%. Don’t let this happen to you!
Sign up form in landing page
Here are the 3 steps to improve your form:
The power of words
Every site has its own way of handling the sign-up process. Some use greece telegram phone number list familiar elements like “Sign Up” or “Click Here” or emphasize a sense of urgency with “Sign Up Now” or are more directive with terms like “Buy”, “Download”, “Participate”, “Request a Quote” or more distant ones like “Read More”. Is there really any meaning in the choice of these words? This is what we will try to dissect.
The word “sign up” will tend to always be linked to a purchasing process , whether it’s for a product or a service. So it can be risky and can lead you to put your prospects in a situation of hesitation, of doubt about the procedure to follow. So if you want to push people to sign up for a gym or to participate in a photography course, you should use for example “Sign up” , or even better “Sign up now” if you want to maximize the click-through rate in a short time – because you have to close a program for example.
You can also be a little less directive by putting “Register” or “Register here” to show the user the way.
Even though the term registration has a transactional connotation, there is nothing to stop you from twisting its meaning by adding a term that counters it, such as “Register for free” to give the user the impression that they are gaining something by registering. This will be much more meaningful than “join for free” or another similar term that is less focused on your conversion objective.
Also try to avoid “Click here” as much as possible, which are far too vague for the context.
On the other hand, the use of the words “Participate” or “Join” is different and depends on the context. The goal of the call-to-action is to best describe the action hidden behind the button, so here we have an opportunity to do it with more appropriate words.
For example, when you send an email with the aim of getting people to sign up for a newsletter, it is much more coherent to encourage them to do so by saying “Join”, “Register”, “Discover our newsletter” or “Subscribe” than “Click” because a person who signs up for your newsletter somewhat adheres to your ideas, right?
You can also involve the Internet user by saying “I agree to the newsletter” or “I subscribe” or be more incisive “I want to subscribe” , “I want to join today” . Obviously, use the last examples with caution, you will understand why (risk of causing the opposite effect).
You can finally select even more by using terms that ensure that the Internet user is really a qualified prospect by using selective words such as “I want to become a VIP member”.
Please note, it is also important to specify that this is not an exact science. It is impossible to accurately predict the degree of involvement that the campaign will achieve. It even happens that certain elements on which we had not bet achieve unthinkable scores. This is why we should not hesitate to test several versions by doing an AB test and not eliminate a version too quickly without having tried it first.
By the way, don't be afraid to make variations on similar texts like "Try now" or "Try today".
The subject of your campaign
Are you going to call your campaign “Newsletter” or maybe “News”? The latter term implies that you have information to communicate to your mailing list. It will either be news or transactional. The word Newsletter on the other hand will be limited to the business level and will contain more textual content .
Choosing the right word will not only impact the number of new subscribers, but also their perception of your campaigns. If users expect to receive sales updates and receive professional in-depth articles, they may just regret signing up.
So try to use the label that properly reflects your campaigns . You can do this even if you don’t have enough space to describe in detail what it is about; the way you name your campaign can give users enough insight.
Etsy, a marketplace where people from all over the world come together, mentions in its newsletter signup form that you’ll receive “top trends” and “editors’ picks.” Additionally, Etsy gives its newsletter a catchy name “Etsy Finds,” which gives you an immediate sense of what you’re in for if you decide to sign up.
Etsy
Avoid gibberish
The marketing world has its own language and everyone who works in it is used to it. But to your target audience, this language may seem more like a random succession of meaningless symbols. This marketing trend leads to situations of miscommunication.
The registration form should be as intuitive and simple as possible . You are not the average user: for example, there are cases where users have no idea where to click to submit their email address. If you don’t have a clear submit button, not all users will necessarily understand that they need to click that weird arrow at the end of the form.
Another example is related to the recurrence of the number of emails you will send. If you write that your campaign is “bi-weekly”, will your users know that your campaign will be sent once every two weeks or twice a week? The correct answer is, of course, twice a week, but not all users know that!
OZY Magazine writes in its signup form exactly how many articles subscribers will receive in their inbox and when they will receive them: