If you’re one of the many direct marketers scrutinizing your email marketing metrics, chances are you’re looking closely at the difference between email click-through rates and actual website sign-ups.
Click-throughs, of course, are reason to celebrate. They mean that your email offer was compelling enough to lead the potential customer to your site. But, once there, did something happen to discourage them from signing up, opting in, or otherwise continuing down the path toward a relationship with your company?
Of course, the problem could be something as simple as an interruption or distraction that took them away from their computer. But all too often, the disconnect is caused by a website or web page that fails to live up to the promise of the email marketing and scares off the potential customer you worked hard to get.
Before you launch your next email marketing campaign, carefully review these three aspects of your company’s website experience and make sure they’re as visitor-friendly as you can make them:
- An offer-specific landing page. You don’t want visitors to have to hunt for your offer on the all-purpose homepage or (worse!) have to guess where the offer might be elsewhere on your site. If you can’t feature the email offer prominently on the homepage, you’ll want to create a dedicated landing page. Even if your company’s web production team requires that you plan for this weeks in advance, the results will be well worth it.
- An inviting sign-up form. If people responding to your campaign need to complete a sign-up form to receive freebies such as downloads, make that form attractive and simple. Of course you want as much information about people as possible, but keep in mind that visitors don’t like filling out long forms. And that they’ll be wary of extensive or intrusive questions.
- A special thank you page. You want a sign-up to to be followed by a click-through, but what should then follow a sign-up? Ideally, a special thank you page that includes links leading your new customer not just to their free download or other incentive, but to other parts of your site. Think of the thank you page as an opportunity to demonstrate what doing business with your company will be like.
Addressing these factors before sending out your email marketing campaign can greatly improve its effectiveness.