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Ask Aunt May,
I hired some programmers to put an opt in form on my website but no one is signing up, why?
- Listless in Seattle
Dear Listless,
Your old Aunt ain’t as young as she used to be, you know. My back was givin’ me a heap of trouble last week, so I went down and got the guy who fixed my oven to look it over for me.
Why the heck would I want my appliance repairman to do my doctor’s job? Well, why are you lettin’ your programmers do your marketers’ job? That sign-up form you’re using has to sell your newsletter to your customers, so use the right tools for the job!
Programmers may be great for makin’ stuff work, but they don’t know a hoot about making people work! So put on your marketer hat with your good ole Aunt May, and let’s see what you can do right for a change.
First of all, nobody’s gonna buy your product if they can’t find it. Your Aunt May makes one mean butter tart, but nobody’s gonna eat ‘em if I hide ‘em under my sink next to the bleach! Put links to your sign-up form on every page of your site – heck, even add it to your main navigation! Put a link to your sign-up before and after articles that relate to your newsletter, so your customers don’t have to go far to get clickin’.
And making it worthwhile for them certainly won’t hurt – your old Aunt here will admit that she can get the grandkids to come visit a lot more often when there’s fresh baking and sweets to go along with her company. So give your customers some treats too – relevant information, coupons for in-store or on-site, or ebooks with tips and tricks. You may think your site is the best thing since sliced bread, but your customers don’t give two shakes about you – only what you have to offer them!
Just like with baking, you can’t please everybody all the time, so it doesn’t hurt to have a couple of options to seal the deal. My butter tarts may be as sweet as I am, but sometimes it’s my shortbread that gets the family through my door. Do the same with your sign-up sheet!
Create two landing pages with different a layout and look, and A/B test them to see which goes over better. And don’t forget how you got them there in the first place! Trying out different graphics, text links, or even calls to action certainly can’t hurt. And just because your Aunt is feeling particularly sweet this month, I’m even going to share some tips on how to design that sign-up sheet – click here to check out the Kinetix Toolbox.
So get crackin’ and fix that lousy sign-up sheet of yours, and let your customers know about it. If what you’ve got on your site is even half as good as what I’ve got in my kitchen, your customers won’t know what hit ‘em.
Aunt May
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