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How to Triple Your Ezine Opt-ins With a Squeeze page?

Posted on 22. Aug, 2009 by estafrofarl in E-Marketing

For years I’ve resisted the urge to cre­ate a squeeze page for my email newslet­ter. A squeeze page is a one-page site, or a land­ing page on a site, that has one call to action: con­vince the vis­i­tor to enter her name and email address to join your list and/or receive your give­away. On a tra­di­tional squeeze page, the vis­i­tor has only one option — to part with her name and email address to opt into your list. This is how the squeeze page term was coined, as the vis­i­tor is “squeezed” for her con­tact infor­ma­tion to per­mit her to con­tinue into the site.

I’ve most often seen this strat­egy used as the home page of a site, and the use of that strat­egy in that way made me hes­i­tant to adopt it. Why? Because a squeeze page home page pro­vides lit­tle con­tent for search engine spi­ders to index and may block the index­ing of the remain­der of your site. You hurt your chances of using SEO to rank high in the search engines. And, I think that requir­ing con­tact info to enter your web site will turn repeat vis­i­tors away.

In the last year or so I’ve seen more of what I term a “wussie squeeze page,” in which all of the con­cepts of a squeeze page are in place, but the site owner has placed a bypass link under­neath the opt-in box that invites the vis­i­tor to enter the site with­out being forced to opt into a list.

I’ve recently done some­thing sim­i­lar with my ezine by plac­ing a hid­den squeeze page on my site where the top nav­i­ga­tion links of the site are still vis­i­ble but the page isn’t listed and can’t be accessed via the site nav­i­ga­tion menu. So, while the invi­ta­tion to bypass the opt-in box isn’t quite as obvi­ous to the vis­i­tor, a method of bypass­ing the opt-in box is still avail­able to vis­i­tors. If they choose to bypass this page, I have two backup plans to cap­ture a visitor’s con­tact info: a sub­scrip­tion box on every page of my site, as well as an opt-in hover ad that pops up about 45 sec­onds after land­ing on my site.

Here are the 10 essen­tial com­po­nents you need to cre­ate an effec­tive squeeze page for your ezine:

1. Domain Name. Pick a com­pelling domain name that accu­rately describes the result of opt­ing into your list or the nature of the list to which the vis­i­tor is opt­ing into. You’ll want to for­ward this domain to a hid­den page on your site that is not acces­si­ble via your nav­i­ga­tion menu. Don’t mask the domain when you for­ward it (i.e. hide the inter­nal URL to which the domain is for­warded — your domain reg­is­trar usu­ally offers this as an option). If you use this domain in your resource box when you syn­di­cate your arti­cles, you want to reap the rewards of strong inbound links from high-traffic arti­cle direc­to­ries, and that won’t hap­pen if you mask the domain name of your squeeze page.

2. Client Attrac­tion Device. The most effec­tive way to entice a vis­i­tor to opt into your list is by giv­ing some­thing away. Typ­i­cally this give­away, or what I call a Client Attrac­tion Device, is in an elec­tronic down­load for­mat and helps solve a major issue faced by your tar­get mar­ket. Many savvy online busi­ness own­ers put sev­eral elec­tronic down­loads together into a kit (audio, ebook, and check­list, for exam­ple) for their give­away, as the expec­ta­tions have increased as to what vis­i­tors expect when exchang­ing their con­tact info for free information.

3. Graphic of Give­away. The adage of “a pic­ture is worth a thou­sand words” rings quite true in the Inter­net mar­ket­ing world. Have a graphic rep­re­sen­ta­tion cre­ated of your give­away, as that increases the per­ceived value of what you’re offering.

4. Value of Give­away. Plac­ing a mon­e­tary value on your give­way is another strat­egy to enhance the impor­tance of this free item in the eyes of your vis­i­tors. Don’t be out­ra­geous in your pric­ing — deter­mine what you might actu­ally charge for your give­away if you were sell­ing it as a prod­uct on your site.

5. Com­pelling Head­line. A head­line that grabs your reader’s atten­tion will go a long way in con­vinc­ing them to hang out long enough to fin­ish read­ing the con­tent on your squeeze page. Appeal­ing to some emo­tion of the vis­i­tor is the most effec­tive way to con­struct a com­pelling head­line, like fear of loss, greed, van­ity, lust, pride, envy, laziness…you get the idea.

6. Cap­ti­vat­ing Copy. It’s no longer suf­fi­cient to sim­ply invite a vis­i­tor to opt into a list. Most vis­i­tors have become too savvy for that. In order to con­vince them to opt into your list, you must answer the “WIIFM” ques­tion, or “What’s In It For Me?” This means that you need to take a page out of the copy writ­ing play­book and essen­tially cre­ate a short sales let­ter on your squeeze page. Out­line the ben­e­fits they’ll receive if they opt into your list for the giveaway.

7. Enhance with Audio and Video. It never hurts to appeal to all infor­ma­tion intake styles of your vis­i­tors. Record a quick audio or video that con­vinces your vis­i­tors that your give­away is some­thing that they can­not live with­out. Ver­bally instruct them how to opt into your list, as well.

8. Tes­ti­mo­ni­als. Read­ing (or hear­ing) glow­ing reviews of how oth­ers liked the give­away will often serve as the decid­ing fac­tor to get a vis­i­tor to take action. Request writ­ten, audio, or video tes­ti­mo­ni­als from oth­ers who’ve received your Client Attrac­tion Device or from those who’ve pur­chased other prod­ucts and ser­vices from you. Tes­ti­mo­ni­als go a long way in con­vinc­ing vis­i­tors that opt­ing into your list is worth their time and energy.

9. Opt-in Box. You need an email mar­ket­ing ser­vice to help you cre­ate an opt-in box to cap­ture your visitor’s name and pri­mary email address. If you plan on doing direct mail mar­ket­ing in the future, you may also request their mail­ing address and phone num­ber as optional fields. You’ll be sur­prised at how many vis­i­tors will com­plete the entire form with all of their con­tact info, even if the name and email address are the only two required items.

10. Informed opt-in. Let vis­i­tors know that they will also be receiv­ing a com­pli­men­tary sub­scrip­tion to your ezine when they opt into your list. Don’t hide this fact from your vis­i­tor. Give them a bit of info about your ezine, like how often you pub­lish it. You may want to cre­ate a graphic image of your ezine to add to this page, as well.

A squeeze page for your ezine is an effec­tive way to triple the opt-in rate to your email mar­ket­ing list. Fol­low these 10 steps to sky­rocket the size of your list today!

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• Inter­net Mar­ket­ing Philosophy
• Find Help­ful Info about free traffic!
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• No Search Engine Help! so How Do I Get Traffic?
• Lat­est Inter­net Mar­ket­ing Tool – E-mail Mar­ket­ing. Use­ful points to know

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