How To Collect Email Subscribers With Landing Pages That Convert At 50%

Using a dedicated landing page for an email marketing list can lift conversion rates up to 50%. That’s an impressive figure! Better yet, a landing page per list, or per campaign, gives you the power to maximize the effectiveness of each individual funnel. This means you can play with all of the elements from the […]

Chat with MarTechBot

Using a dedicated landing page for an email marketing list can lift conversion rates up to 50%.

That’s an impressive figure!

Better yet, a landing page per list, or per campaign, gives you the power to maximize the effectiveness of each individual funnel. This means you can play with all of the elements from the moment the customer hits your landing page to the moment they receive and react to your emails.

Perhaps best of all, dedicated email landing pages allow you to use all of the great conversion optimization techniques that usually apply to your landing pages, so you can use the same tactics in relation to email marketing.

This post shares examples and provides guidance on how you can use dedicated landing pages to increase your subscriber conversions rates. 

The Rise Of The Dedicated Email Marketing Landing Page

Over the last 12 months, there seems to have been a big lift in the number of online businesses using dedicated landing pages to drive an increased number of leads into their email marketing funnels.

Take this example from Unbounce for its dedicated educational course on better landing pages:

unbounce

Another example comes from AWeber, which used this dedicated landing page to collect subscribers for its blog newsletter:

aweber-landing-page

Net-a-Porter also used a dedicated landing page to collect leads for its marketing newsletter:

net-a-porter-landing-page

If you have a B2B software company then this example from HubSpot is one of the purest you’ll find. HubSpot has hundreds of landing pages driving lead generation for a whole series of email marketing campaigns:

hubspot

Each of the above examples employs a number of tricks that you must use if you are setting up a landing page dedicated to collecting leads for your email marketing.

The three tips below will help you nail this strategy the first time around.

1. Have A Clear Call-To-Action

All of the examples above make it very clear how to subscribe. This sounds super obvious but having a really crisp, clear call-to-action is a must, no matter what you are selling on your landing page.

The Unbounce example above uses arrows to further highlight its already obvious call-to-action (CTA).

unbounce-landing-arrows

Having a big, colorful button is a no-brainer and a standard landing page optimisation strategy, so make sure you do it, too!

For another example, WPEngine makes very clear on its dedicated educational email course landing page how you should subscribe and what benefits you get:

wpengine

It’s short, sweet and to the point. Ignore at your peril.

2. Use Copy To Sell Your List

A key benefit of using a landing page over a simple subscribe form in your footer or sidebar is that you can really sell your email marketing campaigns.

Write copy that addresses the key why of your marketing list and answers customers’ key questions or doubts about why they should subscribe.

You don’t have to make it long, the AWeber example above does a great job with seven clear points and great copy as to why you should subscribe to its blog newsletter.

3. Use Social Proof

People hate missing out!

Social proof shows visitors that they need to subscribe; otherwise, they’ll miss out on what the crowd is getting!

The most common forms of social proof are social media “likes” (Twitter and Facebook) or a subscriber count (e.g., “Join 10,000 other subscribers on our email marketing list”). Buffer uses social proof any time it mentions their blog newsletter:

buffer-social-proof

Note: These three tips are just the basics. Each new landing page (or series of pages) you create is, in essence, a new funnel.

Once you do some initial testing and determine that a funnel is going to be successful you should A/B test those pages until they are as effective as they can be. There are a ton of guides out there on optimizing landing pages, and a landing page for email marketing is no different.

Getting Traffic To Your Pages

One of the biggest questions you will undoubtedly ask when considering email marketing landing pages is, “How do I get traffic to my new landing page?”

There are a bunch of ways and some of the most effective include:

Advertising Your Landing Page Within Your Own Properties

Unbounce does a great job of this on its blog. Using a display-style ad in the sidebar they drive traffic to their educational email course. This means they can easily track the source and the effectiveness of the landing page.

unbounce-blog-sidebar

Neil Patel’s QuickSprout employs a HelloBar to drive users to his own lead generation page:

quicksproutheader

Both of these tactics are great as they help you drive otherwise “dead” traffic (traffic that may not convert to your primary call-to-action) into potential subscribers that you can then educate, earn their trust and convert into customers!

Using Display Remarketing

Display remarketing is relatively cheap. Using AdRoll, Perfect Audience or other remarketing software makes it easy to retarget blog or site visitors on Google and Facebook. Using ads, you can drive traffic to one of your dedicated landing pages without spending a lot of money.

Here’s an example of an ad used by Vero for its educational email marketing course:

vero-remarketing-ad

Remarketing is also powerful, as you can create useful, targeted segments to advertise to. For example, you could send blog readers that don’t subscribe to your blog to the subscription page, whilst you could send subscribers that aren’t on your educational email course to your educational email course landing page.

Mention It Everywhere!

A dedicated landing page is just that: dedicated!

Any time you do a webinar, share a slideshow, use social media, or even just send emails with a signature, you can easily drive customers to one of your dedicated landing pages (preferably the most targeted one) and get extra subscribers without additional effort.

Having the right landing page for the right content will also dramatically increase your conversions. If you have a slideshow on sending targeted email marketing, and then follow up with a link to a landing page that sells an educational email course on the same content, it’ll work very well!

Conclusion

This guide will give you the knowledge you need to set up at least one dedicated landing page for an email marketing list.

For even more detailed tips on this tactic, you should check out parts 1 and 2 of Vero’s guide to using landing pages in conjunction with educational content to maximize the number of leads that turn into paying customers.

Let us know your thoughts in the comments. If you have any questions on how to get this set up, I’d be happy to help you get going!


Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily MarTech. Staff authors are listed here.


About the author

Chris Hexton
Contributor
Chris Hexton is the CEO and Co-Founder of Vero. Chris spends his time working with Vero's customers to send smarter emails based on what their customers do and don't do on their website.

Get the must-read newsletter for marketers.