How I went from 16% to 40% of people opting in
If you’re looking to build your list more quickly, there are 2 things you want to focus on…
#1 Getting more people to your opt-in page (This is the page you use promote something for free. It’s also called a squeeze page or landing page.)
#2 Getting more of the people who land on the page to opt-in.
Today I want to focus on #2 above, and what I did to increase my conversions from 16% to 40%. There’s a surprising twist, so you’ll want to read to the end.
First, let’s look at what a typical one-step opt-in page looks like.
Here’s one of our opt-in pages:
As you can see, the opt-in fields are displayed on this page. This has been considered best-practice, because it minimizes the number of clicks someone has to make.
I recently learned from three different online marketing experts that testing now shows that a 2-step opt-in process converts better.
A 2-step opt-in process looks like this…
First, visitors get to a page like this, where they click on a call to action button.
Once your visitors click on the button, a pop-up with the opt-in fields is displayed like this…
The reason this has been shown to be more effective is that you’re getting your visitor to make a “micro commitment.” They’re saying “yes” to something and this prepares them mentally to take the next step and opt-in.
Up until about two weeks ago, all of my opt-in pages used the old fashioned one-step method. Learning about this more effective method, I decided to give it a shot and I tested it with Facebook ads.
What I learned was surprising.
In the first few days of driving traffic to the new 2-step opt-in page, only 16% of people joined my list.
As you can imagine, I was very disappointed by these results. At first I thought my poor results might be due to the offer or the text on the page. But then, my instincts told me that the 2-step opt-in process might not work well in this context.
It was easy enough to test my hypothesis.
I simply swapped out the page for one with the traditional one-step process.
By now you can probably guess what happened…. My opt-in rate sky-rocketed.
In the following few days, my opt-in rate increased from 16% to 40%.
What I learned from this experience…
- It’s important to be “in the know” about best practices, but don’t follow them blindly. It’s important to test and look at the numbers when trying something new.
- It’s important to follow your instincts about what will work well for your business.
- Different strategies work better in different contexts. I now know that the 2-step opt-in process isn’t as effective in this context, but I will continue to test it out in different contexts.
Now I’d love to hear from you.
Would you like to get more people to opt-in to your list? Where might you try the 2-step opt-in process? Are there places you think the one-step process would work better? Share your thoughts and questions below.
