What is the best placement for your opt-in form? Which strategy should you use? What are the required elements? Classic dilemmas for an online marketer. In this blog article, we’ll offer you some ideas.
Let’s have a look at the opt-in form of Zalando, a fashion e-commerce website. In 11 topics we’ll point out the classic elements, but we’ll also have a look at some new elements for inspiration.
1 You have to look at the bottom of the image for the first one. There you’ll see what the actual opt-in screen looks like on the website. The entire width is used. Those who scroll to the bottom, won’t be able to miss the form. They also use 3 columns, to stay true to the structure of the entire website. Every column holds a part of the message, but there is always enough content to have a look at the other columns and finally subscribe.
2 A clear Call To Action. You’ll get something in return for your email address, and it is visualized in a clean button. You get a discount and they urge you with the text to subscribe NOW, in case you need a little urgency.
3 For those who scroll down and look at the middle of the page (where all the products normally are, will automatically land on the input field – try it out for yourself! The text in the input field – type in your email address – is a CTA and an instruction in one. Also notice that they only ask for the email address to make subscribing as easy and spontaneous as possible. This is probably a conscious choice.
4 Or maybe it isn’t. They do ask for a little more information. The classical “send” or “subscribe” button is being replaced by another message. It became an extra option for women and men. Your email address is being send after you click and the web shop gets to know a little bit more about you at the same time. Segmenting your subscription form is a good idea. (But what about those women who also buy clothes for their boyfriends or husbands?) You could also diversify this by looking at the buying behavior.
5 This is the right column of the form. The content is similar to the left hand column. The discount code remains the most important message. People usually tend to respond better to rewards than just a dry and simple opt-in. A piece of content works great as well. Zalando uses its right column to highlight they can be trusted with your contact data and the make sure you know you can unsubscribe when you want to. This creates trust.
6 After filling out the form, a success message will appear on the website. They use the entire width of the website again. The green color also provides recognition: “we did good”. Make sure your subscribers know that the subscription went through successfully.
7 And they continue on that road in the following notification. The promised discount is offered as a discount code which you will receive by email. this also creates trust and urges the visitor to have a look in their inbox. But there is also another reason which you’ll read in points 9 and 10…
8 They also give you a short explanation on how to use your gift. You can totally trust using it. They tell you to go to the shopping basket to use your discount code. If they already have something in their basket, they are more likely to buy.
9 This is the continuation of point 7. If you haven’t received your discount message within the next 15 minutes, something is going wrong. The web shop tells you to consult your spam box. But a subscriber who is waiting for his discount, will not only check it, but will probably also take action: like dragging the discount email to the inbox, which will improve the chance their next message will land directly in the inbox.
10 This is also a fun one, and it’s a tip that we don’t see a lot in action with large retailers. We all probably know how Gmail processes the inbox and the different tabs. So Zalando as a sender explains where their messages can be found. It increases the chance on a higher open rate, which is still the starting point for conversion.
11 As an extra service they also give you the means to use your discount. By continuing shopping the process – the subscriber stopped browsing products to subscribe – is restarted, at the place where he paused. But know you know that you have an extra discount in your pocket. Or how your opt-in form can actually get you conversions…
