Using a form on your website to collect email addresses is a classic – and a good one. You can go for the fast approach of simply asking the email address – without asking your future subscriber anything more. But you can also do things differently.
If you’re only asking for an email address, then you’re in for a long and difficult balancing act. You should observe the clicks and reading habits of the new subscriber for a while to get a feel about his profile: his interests and needs. But you can take this first step before even sending your first campaign when creating your opt-in form. Be careful to not take it too far, because of the threshold to subscribe becomes too high for people to actually leave their email address. We’ll share three interesting examples with you.
Francetv
In this opt-in they give the new subscriber a simple choice. Would you like to receive the daily newsletter, or just a weekly overview of the best articles? The reader can even choose what kind of content he wants to receive. Every day they talk about beauty, health and decoration. The weekly newsletter brings you links to actua videos. The reader can also choose to receive both.
It doesn’t expose the entire soul of the subscriber, but it gives FranceTV the possibility to mail more focused. The rest is kept quite simple, you just have to fill in an email address and click send. The button has an extra arrow to suggest action. In the fine print subscribers are suddenly reassured that Francetv is very carefyl with the submitted email address. It’s the more classical approach.
Zappybaby
At Zappybaby they choose for a more modern and double approach. The form is a lot more appealing design wise. Appearance does matter. In comparison with the FranceTV example, the reader is immediately seduces with a gift. Once again there is an explanation of what the reader can expect. Segmentation can’t be done based on frequency or content, but based on the personal situation of the subscriber.
There is a desire to have kids, the baby is on its way or has already been born. It’s a different starting point, but also one that can be used to send customized email messages. In this form they ask for a tad more data. In addition to the email address they would also like to know the name. Please pay attention to the action button as well. The message is different from the classic subscribe or sign up. With ‘unwrap gifts’ and ‘we’re never spamming moms’ they immediately try to leave a cozy impression.
Barcelona
On the tourism website of Barcelona they take their opt-in form one step further than the previous two versions. Like the one form France TV, they also present a number of options. It is remarkable that there are still no entry fields. These will only emerge after the new subscriber has made a choice. The fields have a common root where name and of course email address are mandatory. But after that step is where the opt-in form is different.
Depending on the choice you made they ask you for more information. They are not mandatory fields, but obviously refine the profile of the new reader. This method we hadn’t seen a lot before and is worth trying. Using this type of form, you can work ‘a la carte’ with limited data sets. Also notice the small print at the bottom. You can see this more and more. The new reader is expected to accept the terms. It is a required field.
