Wanna grow your 📧 list? Improve your sign-up forms

This is Inbox Hacking, a Free Newsletter for email marketers. Email marketing insights, tools, & tactics sent twice per week. If someone forwarded you our Newsletter, please sign up for your Free subscription. Today→ use these sign-up form learnings to increase subscribers, + Today’s Hack will widen your audience.

It’s been hot here in the Dirty South, but I struggle onward for you loyal readers. Plus, I’ve air conditioning.

Right now though, I’m hot on the trail of increasing your subscriber base with a behemoth stack of sign-up form insights. Read today’s feature so you can avoid missing leads and make your email list-building plan more effective.

#1 Reason to Spend Mad Time on Sign-up Forms?

Nearly ZERO percent of people visiting your site are ready to buy (96% are not).

Getting people to hand over their credit card is not the goal. Getting their email address is.

5 Facts that Should Cause You to Rethink Sign-up Forms

In a study of 1.5 million site visitors, only 49% of them added details to an online form after viewing it. Of that 49%… only 16.5% completed the form (Formisimo)

Eliminate all friction that may stop users from completing the form.

Two-column forms found to be confusing

Confused people stop reading and tap the X on their browser tab.

Removing one form field can boost conversions by as much as 26%

Inbox Hacking requires only an email address to susbscribe. If we could ask for half an address and guess the rest… we would😄.

Forms with dropdown fields have the highest form abandonment rates

This makes no sense. It would seem easier on the user. But human behavior isn’t 100% logical.

Only 25% of leads are ready to advance to sales

This sucks. Yet, it takes some pressure off. Just keep people who fill out your sign-up forms happy. Sales will come.

Don’t forget lures to get more visitors to fill out your forms.

Form-fitting Lead Magnet Insights

Give to get.

⭐50% of marketers using lead magnets to encourage sign-ups report higher conversion rates

Just know that competition for email addresses is fierce. You may have the scars to prove it. So make sure your lead magnets are not mediocre.

⭐Popular but hard-to-produce lead magnets include webinars and free tools

Even if your webinar rehashes content in your blog, don’t underestimate the power of an engaging presenter or how verbal stories enhance written content.

⭐GetResponse found video and written lead magnets had the highest conversion rate while audio magnets had the lowest (‘other’ was dead last but who the hell knows what ‘other’ means)

One more key fact on sign-up forms…

Phone Forms

45% of form data is submitted on smartphones. Make it easy and obvious that your visitor’s next action is to fill out a sign-up form.

Yesterday while reviewing crappy mobile websites, for the heck of it, I browsed a major insurance company’s Get-a-Quote page. Guess what…

They should scrap it, start over, and terminate the person who created the page, if not incarcerate them.

A visitor who clicks from their homepage to the Get-a-Quote page is ready to what? Get a quote! Not read more about the company. Especially not two paragraphs, that on a phone screen, appear longer than the US Constitution.

Sign-up forms are your friend. Make sure you let nothing get in the way of people seeing them quickly, trusting your website, and being able to easily fill the form out.

*Extra: The travel industry has the highest form abandonment rate— 81%, then nonprofits (77.9%), finance (75.7%), & retail (75.8%). Find 101 sign-up form stats at WPforms

Best CTAs in my Inbox (+why they work)

Try Stacked Marketer Pro (normally $99) for just $7 for seven days, and get your hands on the swipe file (anchored high price followed by deep discount + a specific lead magnet)
Expert podcast / curated vids / interactive content / people & work stories (McKinsey presents 4 concise link options for finicky readers like me)
Become a Pro Member Today {Button} (lead up to CTA highlights social proof of 6 Pro Members of Trends.vc)

Read on for updated segmentation options, IP warming tips, & Today’s Hack extends your marketing reach.

Trashed

🚮 Landfills contain megatons of flyers, postcards, and sales letters. Most trashed before readers even read the business name on the paper.

Same thing with marketing emails. No digital weight but still a GIANT waste.

Protect your email campaigns from being trashed before readers even see your subject line.

You can get up to 7 out of 10 emails opened and read with Inbox Mailers.

Yep, up to 70% open rates. Not only that. Click volume increases too.

Learn how Inbox Mailers is helping other email marketers like LeadMark triple their open rates. Schedule a free demo today.

*sponsored

Knowledge Base

🏋️‍♀️Knowledge is power but first, insights from a child

Not your grandpappy’s segmentation advice (20+ options)

✉The future of email marketing— 23 expert soothsayers

Adding revenue via SEO services (examples, pros, cons)

☕IP warming strategies + more deliverability factors

Missing leads? Try exit intent on phones

Following Inbox Mailers on LinkedIn yet?

Self Help

Why is interest in ChatGPT fading (traffic fell by nearly 10%)?

Human laziness. People thought the Bot Thingy would write 75 books for them in a weekend.

We’re too lazy and unfocused to even sit back and tell a Bot what to write for us!

Want to write more and better? 1. Delete your OpenAI bookmark. 2. Listen to 20 minutes of Anne Lamott writing advice. Her 2-hour course will make you better than most email writers and lead to writing a real live book if that’s your goal.

*Shout-out to Inbox Hackers:

📢Cody at Arc (document solutions)

📣Denise at Assoc. of National Advertisers

Facts and Stats

Top 3 email elements being A/B tested by marketers— 1. Personalization 2. Subject line emojis 3. Animated images (Email Insider)

The curse of knowledge can adversely affect business owners’ price setting (Behavioral Economics Guide 2023)

Foot traffic near stores in metropolitan areas remains 10 to 20 percent below pre-pandemic levels (McKinsey)

Bonus: The #1 challenge facing B2C marketers? Customers’ high expectations (63% gave this answer)

Email Marketing Graveyard

Inactive subscribers and dead email lists kill marketing campaigns.

And most re-engagement emails are awkward, if not downright desperate.

“Please come back… we’re begging…”

It’s overused and played out.

Real re-engagement is possible though and here’s how.

By getting your emails placed alongside other emails your inactive subscribers ARE opening. Via Inbox Mailers’ triggered emails. Triggered by your subscribers actively opening other emails!

Learn more with a Free Demo and see up to 30% of your dead list return to the purchase funnel.

Get Hacking

I find Facebook and Instagram repulsive.

I find dog charity Off the Chain remarkable.

But I miss 90% of this group’s kennel build alerts because I don’t check Facebook often.

A simple fix would be for them to automate an email and SMS message for anti social madness peeps like me. Because I’m not the only one missing their messages.

How many of your followers and customers only see 10% of your messages? Why not automate your social posts to go to email or vice versa to be sure you’re maximizing your reach?

*Know other email marketing go-getters? Please forward Inbox Hacking to them.