Email List Building Series: Step 3 - Create a Sign-up Form

Over the past two weeks, I've shared the first two steps of building your email list. If you missed those, be sure to go back and read those blog posts first!

This week, we're going to go over Step 3: Create a Sign-up Form. What is a sign-up form? It is how people sign-up to join/subscribe to your email list and receive the opt-in you have created. I'm sure you have filled one out before when you've completed a form with your name and email to receive a free resource or guide.

All Email Marketing Platforms have a sign-up form template you can use. You can keep it simple or you can customize it to match your brand, the choice is completely up to you!

There are a few tips you need to know when setting up your sign-up form:

1. Decide what information you want to collect. The job of a sign-up form is to collect the information you need to effectively market to your subscribers. But, you DO NOT want it to be a long, detailed form - people do not want to share a ton of information on a sign-up form!

The very basic information you need to collect is their First Name and Email Address. You could choose to ask for their last name, too, if you'd like to personalize your marketing even more.

Decide if you want to ask for the industry they work in. If you want to market to specific industries, this may be good information to have on hand. To make it even easier, you can provide a list of industries they can choose from, with an option for "Other" that they can add their own.

Decide if there is any other information you would like to collect. You may want to know another piece of information to help you with target marketing, but you might make the additional information optional, not required, to complete the sign-up process.

2. Explain how your opt-in is going to solve their problem or meet their need. In my blog post covering Step 1 - Create and Opt-in, I shared that your opt-in should solve a problem your ideal client/customer faces or meet a need they have. Your Sign-up Form is the perfect place to explain HOW your opt-in is going to help them. Remember to make it about THEM, not you! Keep it brief, but informative.

3. Link your Opt-In to your sign-up form. Once someone has filled out your Sign-up Form, they are going to expect to receive the opt-in you promised. There are a couple of ways you can do this:

Link your Opt-In directly to the sign-up form. When setting up your Sign-up Form, you will have the option to attach your opt-in. With this option, as soon as someone submits the form, they will immediately receive the Opt-In you created. Some Email Marketing Platforms even allow you to choose when they'll receive it - immediately or a day later.

Send an email with a link to your Opt-In. Another option is to create a Welcome Email that goes into more detail on how your Opt-In is going to help them.

You can go another step further and create a series of emails that go into even more detail about your Opt-In. For example: Let's say your Opt-In has several steps to take to achieve a goal. Your Welcome Email will introduce your Opt-In and give them the opportunity to download it. Then, over the next several days or weeks, you can send emails that break down the steps even more by explaining them even further. This is a great way to make sure they are using your Opt-In, by reminding them to take action each day/week!

4. Perform a Test Run. Now that everything is in place and ready to go, send the Sign-Up Form link to a few friends as a test run! This is the best way to check for any problems or tweak the wording as needed.

5. Publish your Sign-up Form. Once you have decided what information you want to collect, customized your form, and linked your Opt-In, it's time to publish your Sign-Up Form! Most Email Marketing Platforms have the capability to publish to your website and share a link on social media.

Publishing to your website is as easy as copy/pasting a bit of HTML code to your website. Most Email Marketing Platforms explain how to do this with easy, step-by-step instructions. You can choose to publish your form as a pop-up on your website or as a standing form on a specific page of your website.

Publishing to Social Media is a great way to get immediate results! Your Email Marketing Platform should provide a link to share on social media in the same area you designed your sign-up form. Simply share that link on your social media, along with a compelling post stating how your Opt-In is going to meet their needs or solve a problem they face.

Once you have done all of the above, you can sit back and watch your email list grow! Be sure to take time each week to promote your Opt-In on Social Media and ask others to share.

What's Next?

Next week I'll cover Step 4 - Create an Email List Strategy. Don't know what to send out to your email list? No worries! I'll share an easy way to stay in contact with your list and keep them coming back.

Are you needing help building your email list? I'd love to help you grow your email list! Whether you don't know how to get started or you just don't have the time to invest in building your list, I can help. Visit my website or send an email to stacey@staceysvaservices to let me know how I can help you!