HOW TO CREATE AN EFFECTIVE OPT-IN FORM

Published: May 20, 2010

The main purpose of an opt-in form is to gain quality and targeted leads to your website or product. It’s important to keep the form itself simple and concise, especially for new leads. You don’t want to scare the surfer or potential customer/client away by requesting too much information. Asking for a first name and primary email address is sufficient enough. First time visitors might be hesitent to fill in fields such as last name and phone number for example. You want to gain instant trust, allow the surfer to maintain some level of anonymity and avoid driving them away from your site.

THERE ARE 3 BASIC COMPONENTS TO AN OPT-IN FORM

1) Call to Action
2) Contact Fields
3) Privacy Statement

CALL TO ACTION

Let the visitor know right away what they are being offered. Call to Action examples include:

“Get 20 FREE Proven SEO Tips, just fill in your name and email address below and we’ll deliver the first 10 to your inbox immediately”

“Get 10 quick & easy proven methods on how to increase traffic to your blog, simply fill in your name and email address and have them sent instantly”

So, you get the idea.

CONTACT FIELDS

As mentioned earlier in this article you want to keep this section simple. Surfers nowadays are much more educated and are not so quick to give out personal information to strangers in fear that their email or other personal information my end up on someone else’s list, ultimately resulting in spam. Once you have the prospects trust, you can send follow-up emails to keep them interested in any current and future products you may have to offer.

PRIVACY STATEMENT

A privacy statement is critical and a must have. You want to ensure that any collected information will not be shared with anyone else and let them know their information is safe and confidential. A well written privacy statement does not have to be complex, again simple and to the point.

Below is a basic example of an opt-in form.

opt-in form example