Transcription
All right. All right. All right. And welcome to Send Better Emails. Yeah. Episode something. We're running out of excuses to be rubbish. Yeah. We're not improving quickly enough.
Um, I said, just before we pressed record on this, I said to James, "Well, we're going to talk about website forms today." And James said, "Well, I hope we can keep this under 15 minutes 'cause it's boring." Um, and I, I want to prove him. And well, hopefully, I do. I need to prove it wrong to the listener 'cause if the listener's clicked on this episode and it's called "Website Forms," maybe they don't think it is boring. But if you think it is boring, I'm going to convince you otherwise 'cause this is one. This has got autoplay written all over it. You know how, like, when you play a song and then, like, some weird album track comes on afterwards and you're like, "Oh, I didn't sign up for this." Yeah. This is what anyone listening to this has has done so because maybe they had a previous episode on and it's like queued this one up. Yeah.
"What's what previous episode do you think was the, like, the headline episode?"
"Well, I don't know."
"Well, I can tell you 'cause I know which one's got the most downloads."
"Oh, all right. Go on then."
"Sorry. Um, so it's "Face Hot Yourself First" episode. Oh, sure. Okay. Well, this one. Yeah. So, yeah, that's got the most. And then the one, the personalization episode, got second most. It's really close, actually."
Well, in any case, yeah, I, it's not, I don't, it's not that I think they're boring necessarily, Jamie. I do. I, I can appreciate their importance enough to like have agreed to do an episode on them. I just don't think that I would hate for the sign-up form to be the thing that prevent someone from just starting a newsletter. And I think that this ought to be more of an afterthought than like something that you really need to spend time stressing over.
Okay, let's paint the picture then. Let's paint the scene. So, um, someone has already got their newsletter up and running. Yeah. They've already followed a bunch of steps from previous episodes that we've launched. Um, they are in a good rhythm. It's pretty solid. The engagement metrics are solid. And the question they have now is, "I need to get this in front of more people. I want more high-quality subscribers." And when they're in that position, there are a bunch of levers that they can pull to to bring people onto their list. And I think before we, before we pull many of those levers, what we want to make sure is the first one that we pull is our website forms and to make sure that they are, they, that they exist, firstly, uh, and that they're optimized, secondly.
So, um, if you're, if you find yourself in that position, great. Uh, but like James said, just because your website form isn't ready or isn't done or it's not on the horizon, that doesn't mean you should, uh, hold off launching a newsletter or getting newsletter sent.
"Happy with that?"
"I'm happy with that. Happy with that little caveat. Health warning."
"I am. Yeah. Thank you. Right. Can you cheer up now?"
"Sorry. Yeah. Sign-up forms. Let's go."
Um, okay. I think we, we do want to keep this one snappy. I think mostly we want to keep this one snappy because we aren't website experts, right? And this is one of those areas of email marketing where, like, we talk about it with some authority, but not complete authority, because we aren't web people.
"That's fair."
"Yeah, I completely agree. We usually work in tandem with whoever is responsible for building the website of a client in order to action a lot of the recommendations that we have around sign-up forms. Um, it's not to say that we can't, we just would prefer not to. Our time is better spent elsewhere."
"Yeah. Yeah. Like recording episodes of Send Better Emails."
"Exactly. Okay. So, um, let's, let's talk about there's two forms really that I want to speak about that should be on most websites. And we're, we're going real back to basics here. And I think we want to talk about this mostly for B2B because I think most B2C or at least e-commerce brands are fully aware of forms that they should have live and they're pretty good at making sure that those forms are, are in a good place, that they're optimized. Um, I mean, you'll go on an e-commerce site and I'd be surprised if you don't get a pop-up with some kind of offer for your first purchase, right? You know, it's pretty standard now. Uh, and whether that is actually back best practice or not is is for an another episode. But we want to talk mostly about, I would say, uh, B2B and, uh, B2C non-e-commerce here because I think they probably fall into this bracket as well of of not really not realizing the true value of good sign-up forms on your website. Uh, and so those two forms, the first one is an embedded form. Uh, and you can go to any website, um, any B2B website, and I can guarantee you that the, that the sign-up form, if it exists, the embedded one, it's in the footer of the website, and it says something like, "Sign up for the latest news."
"Classic."
"Yeah, a classic one. Um, which is, you know, I appreciate you kind of finding interest in this, James, but stay with me."
"Oh, I'm, I'm here, man. Okay, good. I'm on your, I'm hanging on your every word."
"Yeah. Okay, good. Um, and so when we think about that, um, it's, it's, right? We don't want a form like that because, uh, it's probably only there because whoever did your website put it there and forgot about it and you've not bothered to change it since. Uh, and it's not uncommon to find that that form doesn't actually lead anywhere anyway. So someone could submit it and it doesn't even populate, uh, an ESP. Um, so what we want to do is we want to take a look at that embedded form first as the, as the first, um, port of call. Now, what we want to do is we want to create this form. We wanted to change it so that it, it speaks about our newsletter in a more meaningful way. So, we want our newsletter to be a point of pride. We want to be able to speak to prospects. We want our team to be able to speak to clients or prospects, we want, and their network, and to say, "By the way, you should sign up for our newsletter because it's bloody great. It's great because it has this in, uh, and you're the exactly the kind of person that would benefit from reading it, right?" And if we can get our newsletter into a place like that, um, then all of a sudden, "Sign up for the latest news" just isn't good enough. That's not a good enough, uh, or compelling enough headline for our form. And we've spoken on previous episodes about creating personas for, um, the readers of your, of your newsletter. So, someone who, you're picturing someone in your mind who, um, is exactly the kind of person who, who will benefit from reading your newsletter, creating that persona in, in your mind, and you understand the problems and the challenges that that person's having. Then we go back to our footer form and again, it says, "Sign up for the latest news," and we realize that's just nowhere near good enough. And if we think about, okay, I'm signed up to newsletters. Um, if you're listening to this podcast, there's a good chance you're signed up to a newsletter. If you're a human being with an inbox, there's a good chance you're signed up to a newsletter. And if we ask ourselves, you know, why did I sign up to it? Uh, why do I continue to stay signed up to it? And why do I occasionally open it and read it? It's because I know I gain some value out of it. Whether it's entertaining, whether I learn something, whether it has insights on trends, or it's keeping me updated with something. And if we think about that, and we then look at the footer form on our website and it says, "Sign up for the latest news," we realize it's just not good enough. And so, we have to think about what the copy on that form says. We have to really do our newsletter justice. And we have to convince people that there is a proposition, there is a reason to sign up for this because the newsletter is so good and that we're proud of the kind of content that we're putting out.
And so for us, um, I guess the, the best thing we can do is take an example of our own and say, okay, well, what does our footer form say? Um, and I didn't check it prior to this, this, uh, this podcast, and we hardly ever work on a website, so I hope it is in a good place. Um, but the proposition for our email newsletter is something along the lines of, "Weekly email tips." Right? So, that's what the proposition is. Every week we send out free email tips. It takes somewhere between two and four minutes to read or something, I think it says on the website, and there's an actionable tip every, every week in there. Okay. So, we're being really descriptive, um, of what our newsletter is, and so, uh, people know what to expect when they sign up. Uh, and when people know what to expect when they sign up, it means they're a better quality subscriber as well.
Um, one thing that I really like also, which actually isn't on our website, but we have them, so they should be, is a testimonial for your newsletter. If you can add some social proof in quotation marks of one of your readers that says, um, you know, if you've encouraged people to reply, they might have replied to your newsletter before. Um, and it might be something as simple as, "Really enjoyed this, Jamie. Thanks." Or, um, "Smashed it as always, Jamie. Thanks." You know, that's enough. We don't need this huge paragraph of testimonial about how wonderful your newsletter is. The fact that someone's bothered to reply and say anything at all, uh, remotely positive is, you'll be in the top 1% of newsletter senders if you've had that. And so, putting that short testimonial on a form would be, would be awesome.
And then the final thing I want to say about embedded forms, uh, actually no, there's two. Two there's, lied, I lied. The first thing is, um, the button that says "Sign Up" doesn't need to say "Sign Up." It can say anything. You know, it can say something more convincing, uh, than than "Sign Up." Um, so if we, if we think, uh, if we're sending weekly email tips, it could say, "Give me the, give me the tips," or, you know, "Send me the tips," or whatever it is. You know, it doesn't need to be just "Sign Up."
"Because that's just the tip."
"Just the tip."
"Yeah. Well done, James. That's your contribution for this episode. Well done."
"Yeah. See you later, guys."
Um, it doesn't need to just say "Sign Up" because if we see a footer form that says "Sign up for latest news" and the button says "Sign Up," and then, you know, all of that stuff is wallpaper. It doesn't mean anything. People just glaze over when they read that, and it's not really making any impact whatsoever. So, let's use the opportunity there to be more compelling with our copy.
And the last thing I want to say about embedded forms is that it doesn't have to be in the footer on your website either. If everything is true about your newsletter that I've just described, if it's a compelling piece of content, if it solves people's problems, if it's valuable, if it's entertaining, uh, and it's a point of pride for you, then why not put it further up? That it could be a, a slim bar in the header that says, you know, "Get this email once a week because it's great." Uh, and all those reasons, and there's a testimonial in it there. Um, it could, it could be in the middle of the page. Uh, it, you know, it could be the main thing that's that's on your website. Um, you know, if it's, if you're putting as much effort and you believe in your newsletter as much as I've described, don't hide it in the footer.
"Anything to say on that, James?"
"Yeah. So I think one important variable here and one of the reasons why I think a lot of people who are designing their websites put the email entry form right at the bottom is because if you listen to any landing page builder 101, it will say, 'Choose one CTA that you want your audience to complete and focus and focus exclusively on that CTA.'" So, if your CTA is that you want your website visitor to fill out a contact form and get in touch with you about your services, that needs to be front and center. Forget email entry, forget about your newsletter. Um, shove it all down to the bottom because front and center, you need people to fill out your contact form, right? And so, to be devil's advocate, I would say that there is an excuse. There is a reason why someone might not want to put their email newsletter sign-up above the fold. If it's competing with another CTA that's really important, and the question here comes down to your business priorities. There are some agencies out there. We love these types of agencies that have their newsletter sign-up as the front and center CTA. It is the answer to the question, "What do we most want our audience to do?" And the answer is obviously, "Sign up to our newsletter." They rate their newsletter so much that they think sending them through the newsletter funnel is the sure-fire way of turning website visitors into clients in the end. We, however, don't have our agency, our newsletter sign-up front and center, and we are a newsletter agency. And so, you know, there is a, there is a discussion here to be had about, okay, how important do we consider our newsletter? Um, and if the answer is, "All right, our newsletter is great, we do take pride in it, we do put thought and effort into the content," for sure, your, your, the phrasing around your newsletter sign-up CTA needs to be excellent. But the actual positioning of where it sits on your website might need to change. Might not be a, it might, it might not be able to sit above the fold because there might be other things that you, you need the website to do first. But that's where a different type of sign-up form comes. And Jamie, I don't know if you were intending to talk about this type of sign-up form, but this is where pop-ups come in. Um, and pop-ups are a great way, particularly exit-intent pop-ups, which only show if the user is showing behavior that looks like they're going to exit the website. There's software that can, can then show a pop-up, um, that will say, you know, "Before you go, sign up to the newsletter." And so it's that Hail Mary attempt at retaining that website traffic before they clear off back into the abyss of the worldwide web. Um, so that is a way of, uh, if, if you're not the sort of business that wants to have your newsletter front and center because there are other priorities, consider an exit-intent pop-up. Something that pops up as a, because ultimately the newsletter is your best chance of keeping some of that traffic that you've worked hard to get to your website, and most of it will just disappear. You know, I, we don't know what your bounce rate is going to be, but it's likely to be quite high. Uh, and most of it's just going to disappear. If you can retain even 5% of that via a newsletter pop-up, that's a huge win, particularly if you're getting quite high numbers to your website. So, yeah, um, your, your, your pop-up is, is, is therefore super important as well."
"Nice. Yeah, pop-ups were on the agenda. Um, I think embedded was the first one. Pop-up is the second kind of website form that we wanted to talk about. And um, I think most of the things that we've said so far apply to, uh, pop-ups as they do embedded forms, and when we're talking about copy and we're talking about, um, what they say, etc. James is right. Exit-intent is nice. Um, we also might want to think about, um, a delay or, um, showing up after someone's scrolled so far. Um, you know, both of those work fine. We, what we don't want to do is make it pop up straight away because that's annoying. Um, especially for mobile users. Um, you know, you get the cookie pop-up and then you get the email pop-up, and you know, before you know it, you've thrown your phone in the bin or something 'cause it's, you can't even access the website. So we want to make sure that that's, there's a delay there. Um, we also want to make sure that it doesn't pop up on certain pages that we deem to be more important than grabbing a, uh, grabbing an email sign-up. And from, for the B2B market, there are, there will be pages where, um, nuances for different pages that would apply to different businesses, but I think universally, we don't necessarily want the, the pop-up to appear on the contact us page. If someone's clicked to that page, we don't want to get in the way of them getting in touch with us because that's, uh, um, you know, that's what we want them to do. And so, think about that. If we're going to have a pop-up, we don't want it popping up on over the top of something that's more important, um, than, than an email sign-up. Um, so, if you have a landing page for a webinar sign-up, for instance, or an event sign-up, maybe that's more important. You don't want a pop-up to get in the way. So, make sure you exclude that pop-up from, from, um, appearing on those pages. Nice.
Um, and, yeah, I think the only other thing that I would say apart from those things is that if you have a sign-up form and it's, uh, it's working as you expect, make sure you've got a welcome email. But we can't talk too much about welcome emails because then we're stealing content from a potential another episode. So, yeah, when you're making that promise in your sign-up, uh, your pop-up or your embedded form, the welcome email is the thing that delivers that right off the bat. It's the thing that delivers on that promise. It gives that instant gratification to the person that's just signed up. Um, so whether it's B2C and you're offering a 10% discount, the welcome email is where you, you, you give them the code. Or if it's B2B and you're promising value, you deliver some value in the welcome email and you tell them what they're going to get moving forward, etc. So you reinforce, you, you, you, you minimize that chance of buyer's remorse or subscriber's remorse in this case, and you, you reinforce why it was a great decision for them to sign up with the, the welcome email.
Um, I want to finally just add, um, gamification when it comes to sign-up forms because this is, um, it's, it's technology that's been around for ages, but it's only recently been adopted by big email service providers. Um, and more and more of them are adding, um, gamified sign-up forms to their roster. So, I think Klaviyo have recently done it, uh, where they've introduced "spin the wheel" sign-up forms. So this is maybe more of a consumer-facing tactic, but I actually love it for B2B as well. Um, so the, the simple premise is that you have a wheel, like a wheel of fortune, and there will be various rewards on this wheel. Um, and for B2B, you know, that might be a free audit of your account. It might be an ebook that we've written. It might be, uh, you know, a discovery call, or, or something like that. There are, uh, loads of different ones that you could do. Um, and, uh, you, you enter your email, then you hit spin, and it spins the wheel, and then depending on what it lands on, you obviously get it, and there's a different welcome funnel for each thing that it lands on. Um, so it's quite fun. I mean, people are smart enough to know that, like, they're always going to win a prize, right? And, um, it's slightly easier to think of really exciting prizes if you, if you're in the B2C space because you can theoretically give away free products, you know, that maybe are only won one in a thousand times. Uh, whereas for B2B, you know, is someone going to be like that excited about an invite webinar that they can almost certainly get for free if they just look around your website? I'm not sure. But there is something compelling about spinning a, a wheel, just that taps into something about our human nature. Um, and so actually, I think to a large extent, the actual rewards you're offering aren't that important. And there are, there are reports that introducing a "spin the wheel" sign-up versus just a regular sign-up have improved, have over doubled sign-up, uh, conversion rates for some websites. So, uh, that's, that's one to look into. Like I say, it may be that your email service provider doesn't yet offer them. I imagine in the next year or so, they will. So keep your eyes peeled because, uh, they're becoming more and more popular, and for good reason.
"Nice. I think the only other thing I would say, uh, on that is, is, uh, quiz funnels are becoming more popular as well. Um, so grabbing a sign-up through a quiz funnel, um, works really well for B2B. Um, you know, if it's almost like a, giving someone a health score based on their answers for, I don't know, what, what it is, you know, maybe it's, um, maybe it's SEO, or maybe it's, they're looking to buy a house, and so you're asking questions about that, or, you know, whatever it happens to be. I'm not struggling for examples, but, you know, a quiz funnel that, that highlights pain points and then allows you to target them on those pain points afterwards can be really good as well. Um, you could just use, you can use something like ScoreApp to put that together. Um, so, yeah, that, that's another powerful way to grab not just email addresses, but you're grabbing more data points on people there as well."
"Definitely. And just like personality quizzes as well, like I think pain points are one thing. Another, another example, if you're struggling for pain points, just like, you know, if you're trying to reach social media managers, what's, what kind of social media manager are you? You know, that that kind of stuff. Like, yeah, you can also use ScoreApp for for those, and, and, yeah, it does work really well."
"Nice. I forgot to mention actually, when it comes to website forms, when it comes to pop-up and embedded forms, we need to think about what information we're grabbing during those, during that. And I think, you know, we want to grab first name. Uh, last name is optional for me, unless you want that information so you can pass it to your sales team. Uh, email is obviously important. Uh, phone number, phone number depends really. I think it's not important for me if it's a newsletter sign-up. Um, unless you're going to start using SMS, but that's a, that's a whole different conversation, a different, uh, different episode perhaps. Um, so I think first name, um, email address, and then for me, what I would like to see on more forms is some kind of checkbox or dropdown list that identifies, um, maybe like the job title or industry of the, of the contact as well. Um, and if we're talking about doing those three, that's three data points. That's not too much friction for a, for a form. I would say if you're getting towards four plus, then you're, you're going to start to impact your conversion rates. Yeah. Um, and we want to think about, okay, well, I'm not just going to chuck job title or or industry in there for no reason. Um, you know, I'm doing it because I know I'm going to use it in my email efforts. So, if you don't feel like you're ready to use that yet, don't put it in. Just, you know, minimize the friction. Grab first name and email address."
"Yeah, totally. I think you're right. Uh, three is, is, is good, as you say, anything sort of four and above, you start to see some drop-off. I think this is highly, highly dependent on who you're going for. So, you know, if you are, let's use social media management again, just because we've used it already. Let's say you're going for social, you're going for social media managers that work for brands, let's say you're, you're an agency that helps out that kind of demographic. You might ask something like, "What is your Facebook following?" or "What, what platforms are you on?" Or, um, "What's your budget for social media management?" Or, you know, something like that. So, uh, or, you know, "What size is your business?" Like, how much, how much, how much revenue do you do, or how many employees do you have? Like, all of these different, um, all of these different data points can be really helpful depending on how you're going to use it. And I think that's imperative. Every single question that you ask should be seen as another opportunity for them to not fill out the form. So if you're asking it, it, it, it better be worth it for you."
"Yeah, absolutely. Okay. I accomplished my mission by making this a regular length episode, pretty much."
"Well done."
"Yeah, it was good. It was, it was juicier than I envisioned it might be. So, okay. Nice. Should we do, should we do a very quick hot take?"
"Oh, yeah. Okay. If I go first."
"Yes, please."
"Okay. Uh, I'm just going to choose something that I've already said in the episode. That's what we normally do for hot take."
"Yeah. True. True. Um, yeah, I think my hot take will be, um, craft a really compelling, uh, header for your sign-up form. Um, and be more descriptive of your newsletter. And my action point here is, if you're struggling for that, reach out to us, and we'll, we'll write it for you for free."
"Nice. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Or James will write it for free. I'm busy."
"Yeah. Yeah. I'm joking. Yeah, that's good. That's good. Um, yeah, I'm struggling for a hot take actually. Um, that is just a sign of how comprehensive we were in the episode itself. Um, I'm going to say, um, I'm going to, I'm going to go back to simplicity here. Uh, not in terms of, um, how much data you're asking for, but in terms of how the sign-up forms actually look. I would say that there's there's a compulsion to try and add lots of little shiny bits to your pop-ups and your, your footer forms, um, and to, you know, add images and stuff like that. And, and mostly it's just clutter. Uh, there's no compelling evidence to suggest that any of this stuff actually, even that goes for testimonials as well, Jamie. I'm afraid, as, as much as I do, as much as I did really like your suggestion, I think for smaller lists, it's, it's quite helpful. Um, there's no, there's no tangible evidence to suggest that, like, newsletter landing pages that have testimonials on actually perform better than those without. So, um, all of which is to say, um, as with email design itself, uh, sign-up form design works on similar principles. So, simplicity over complexity usually ends up with better performance."
"Nice. Cool. Um, not even a little testimonial. I, I liked your suggestion of a little testimonial."
"Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, that's fine. I'll, I'll, I'll be taking this up with you offer."
"Uh, no, James is right. Keeping it, keeping it simple where we can. I think simple is compelling in a lot of ways. Um, and I think the, the testimonial can be great if you're struggling for, like, other compelling pieces of information. Um, I quite like the setup of having like a, um, like underneath the button, like a bit of italic or italic text, um, underneath there. Maybe that, maybe it can go in there. I'm not sure."
"Yeah. No, that is, that would be the place to put it, I think. Yeah, for sure. Um, maybe even in the button, Jamie. Maybe a little, 'Find out why Candice loves these emails.'"
"Candice."
"It's one long button."
"Where did Candice come from?"
"I don't know. It just came out of nowhere."
"I'd be, do you know how shocked I'd be if we have a Candice listener? I mean, based on our listener stats, the, the odds of that would be astronomically small. I might ask Chat GPT how many Candices there are in the UK and work out that mass. Anyway, thanks for listening. It's been Send Better Emails. Uh, you know where to find us."
"Yeah. Right. Bye."
"Cheers. Bye. Bye."
[Music]