Are you ready to take a good look at your list and email follow-ups to find out what’s working, what isn’t, and where there’s room for improvement?
After hosting many giveaway events over the years, I have tested A LOT of opt-in forms and free gift offers. I have seen some that were put together beautifully, like the provider was holding my hand the entire way. However, the majority of the ones I have tested (even my own in all honesty) leave room for improvement.
And, since your free offer often is the first impression of you to a potential future client, you definitely want it to be a good experience for them. So, let’s start by taking a closer look at what you have in place right now.
Let’s get started… When was the last time you’ve really taken a good look at your opt-in form? Maybe you just did because you participated in a list building event. (Or maybe you are like me and set your opt-in up a while ago and haven’t looked at it in a long time.)
How about your welcome email? Do you know what it says and how you’re welcoming your new subscribers?
How about the free gift / lead magnet you’re using? It’s time to really take a look at all of that and the first step is to sign up for your own list.
Ideally, you should sign up with a different email address for testing purposes. Using a testing email account will allow you to see all your auto-responder emails for various lists in one place.
SECRET TIP: If you sign up for your own list with the same email address that you use to send the list from, many spam filters will just delete that email before you ever get it. This can be very frustrating and make it look like your autoresponder isn’t working, even though it is!
I use Gmail as my test email account. It’s free and easy to access anytime, anywhere, and it’s very searchable. This comes in handy when you’re trying to find one particular email. You can search for it in your Gmail account using a keyword. Then you can go find it easily instead of digging through all your emails.
Make sure you keep a notebook or at least a pen and paper next to you as you begin this process because you will want to make notes throughout the week as we go along.
O.K. So, go ahead and sign up for our own list.
Pretend to be a new subscriber. The key is to really become that new subscriber, someone who doesn’t know anything about you or what you do. They may not even know much about technology or how email follow-ups (Autoresponders) work. Don’t assume they know anything!
We’ll address some of these things in more detail later, but for now, pay attention and try to look at each piece of the process from your subscribers’ point of few.
- How attractive is the opt-in offer?
- Is the headline catchy?
- Do you help your readers solve a problem with your free gift (lead magnet) and the content you provide in your emails?
- Are you hitting on pain points in your copy?
- How attractive is the graphic?
As you’re signing up, look at how easy and smooth the process is. Look at and reevaluate how much information you’re asking for. Does the landing page and the opt-in welcome email make sense? Are there things you could improve or clarify? Does it fit with the overall look and feel of the rest of your site? Do you have any distractions on the opt-in page, or on the confirmation page? Do your readers know what to expect next?
Once you confirm your opt-in (and yes… you should be using Double Opt-in), you should land on a Thank You or download page. Make sure you have it set up and are using it to your advantage.
First of all, it should be easy to find the free gift/lead magnet download link.
However, this isn’t the only thing you can do with your Thank You page. This week, start to think about using this space to create a relationship with your readers and to turn them into customers. We’ll go into more detail on this on day 3.
Second, make sure all the links on this page work. You don’t want to make a bad first impression.
Finally, head to your email account and review the welcome email you received. Going forward, look at each message in your follow-up email sequence as it comes in. Make sure all the links are working, the offers are still valid, and the messages make sense. Change and tweak as needed.
Oh, and one more thing… (and I admit this is a pet peeve of mine) sign up for your opt-in a second time with the same email you just used. Make sure you are still taken to the thank you / download page. You don’t want to penalize your subscribers for forgetting that they signed up for you gift previously by having your email system show them a very unhelpful message like “Sorry, you are already subscribed!” Most email service providers have a setting where you can send someone who is already subscribed directly to your thank you page.
OK, That’s it for day one. Tomorrow we’ll take a closer look at your free gift / lead magnet and how well it’s working when it comes to drawing new subscribers into your funnel.