A great deal of thought must go into your Opt In strategy, as you already know your opt in list will become the most valuable part of your business and on average potential customers will require 7 point of contact from you before they make a purchase.

It therefore stands to reason that more Opt Ins, over time, will result in more sales.

Some time ago you could gather a huge amount of Opt Ins simply by offering a free subscription to a newsletter. However, these days you’ll get better results if you offer a little more incentive for you visitors to opt in. This could be a free report, audio download or even something sent through the post.

In another article I’ll cover some ideas you can offer to your visitors but for this issue I’d like to talk about the different kinds of Opt In tactics.

The Static On Page Opt In Form

The static Opt In Form will usually sit on a web page, always visible, containing your Opt In offer. This usually appears either at the top right or top left of a web page and should immediately be visible to a visitor on your website.

If not then you’ll get far more Opt Ins if you move your opt in form up to the top left or top right of your web page, if visitors have to scroll to see you’re your opt in form then you’ll be loosing a huge amount of potential subscribers and customers.

You should expect to sign up aprox 10% of your visitors into subscribers using this kind of form

Hover, Drop In Opt In Forms

The Hover Ad or Drop In Form drops in over the top of your web page and contains your Opt In offer and Opt In form. The visitor is then clearly presented with your Opt In Offer & Opt In Form. They can then either close your drop in ad or subscribe.

We’ve found that a drop in Opt In form seriously out performs the statics version and saves you extra space on the web page itself, although you may want to use both.

You can decide weather or not the drop in ad shows only onece per visitor or each time a visitor lands on the page and is definitely something you should test.

You should expect to sign up aprox 10% to 20% of your visitors into subscribers using this kind of form

The Squeeze Page

The squeeze page is designed to do one thing and one thing only and that is to collect opt ins from visitors.

The squeeze page is a page dedicated to your opt in offer and visitors have only 2 options. A) Sign up for your newsletter. B) Leave your website.

Now although that might sound a bit harsh they collect far more opt ins than any other strategy and is something you should definitely test.

Usually the squeeze page contains a video & a freebie for signing up or entering their data and is usually used as a pay per click landing page rather than the home page.

You should expect to sign up aprox 15% to 40% of your visitors into subscribers using this kind of form. I’ve even heard from people who experienced 50%.

Try testing the different opt in strategies and see which works best for you.

Probably one of the most misunderstood areas of marketing and internet marketing.

Pick up the local paper today and throughout it you’ll see plenty of expensive advertisements from all kinds of companies in varying industries.

Many of these, including the larger supposedly more experienced companies will simply feature their web address in small print at the bottom of the ad.

The one major problem with this is the only visitors your likely to get are the ones that we call “Hot for what you’ve got”. This will be a very tiny portion of your “Target audience” and your target audience, in turn, is probably only a small fraction of the readership of the publication.

Instead of copying what “the big boys do” try to be more imaginative.

For example:-

Let’s say I own a dog boarding kennels and I’ve been running a basic ad in some kind of dog owner magazine.

Now assuming I’ve not had much space to work with and I want people who are going on holiday “THIS YEAR” not next week, to take action and enter my marketing funnel.

Rather than run an ad simply stating Dog Boarding with a contact number address and website address, hoping to get those at the last minute trying to sort out somewhere to put the family pets, I’d get far better results asking those who are going on holiday this year to visit my website to claim a free DVD or CD showing & explaining exactly how I care and look after their pets.

At the very least I should be asking them to visit the site to claim a free broucher along with a pre booking discount.

This way not only will I attract more potential customers to visit my site, by collecting their details in exchange for the information, I can continue to build a relationship with them until they’re ready to go on holiday.

TIP) You must compel reader to visit the site, there has to be something in it for them and you must clearly state it within the ad.

TIP) Change the URL for each publication so that you can monitor results eg:-

www.mysite.com/freebrochure for one advertisement
www.mysite.com/freedvd for another advertisement etc…

Try changing some of your existing ads and I’m sure you’ll see far better results.