Get 1000% Increase in Email Newsletter Opt-ins

Marketing Sherpa released a new case study on how one company increased their email newsletter opt-ins by 1000%.

AskLeo.com tested the use of a hover box asking visitors to sign up for their newsletter. What was interesting about this case study to me was that the site tested to see how long they should wait before the hover box appeared.

What a great idea!

I know a lot of times I’ve visited a blog or website, and immediately one of these hover boxes appears on the site, getting in my way so I can’t read the post or page I was looking at. It’s an interruption when I haven’t even looked at the site yet…. but AskLeo.com found the sweet spot, the best possible time to slide in the box asking for the subscription.

http://www.marketingsherpa.com/article.php?ident=30692&pop=no

You can read the entire email marketing case study here until July 9, 2008. After that the report becomes paid.

Here are a few more things you can do to increase opt-ins:

• Trade a report, audio or other content for the visitors’ name and email address.
• Make sure your freebie has the “Wow” factor. Something that your visitor will go back to all his or her friends and say, “You’ve got to go get this.”
• Don’t ask for too much information initially (name and email is all you need to get started).
• Make sure you have a subscription box in the same place on every page of your website (you never know when a visitor is ready to sign up, and it needs to be easy for them).
• Create a separate page just describing your newsletter, your freebie and encouraging people to subscribe. Buy a separate domain and then you can tell people to “Go to www.mysite.com to get my free stuff.”

We’ve got more email marketing tips and case studies to come!