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Ideas from Campaign 08: Get the email address |
(This post is part of an eight part series focused on lessons learned from the 08 Campaign. Read the parent article published in Convio Connections)
Idea#1 Get the email address!
Wait a second, didn’t we already learn that in 2003?
Yes, but Barack Obama, Mitt Romney, Hillary Clinton and others have taken it to a new level, by imposing a splash page registration form on their web site that visitors will not miss and likely complete, adding their email to your list before even reading the first description about your organization. Obama has done this very effectively, hmmm… do you think that has anything to do with the fact his email list is now over 2 million records? Here are some specifics tactics to consider:
- Test it first. Set a timeframe for the test, not too short, but not too long. If you can ascertain from your web site analytics how frequently unique visitors come to your site, a test timeframe that barely overlaps that average visit delta might be a good idea. Regardless, set a timeframe that gives you sufficient data to analyze (e.g. one week is probably not enough).
- Make it easy to skip the splash form – this is important because you don’t want to be obnoxious about it. Remember the old AOL pop-up and pop-under ads that seemed to defy your request to close them? Argh, that was so annoying.
- If possible, set a persistent cookie that remembers each visitor upon return, so they would only see the splash page upon first encountering your website. Using this tactic is debatable, so consider it based on your technical capabilities and organization’s appetite for this growth campaign.
- Limit the fields to collect to name and email, and consider making only the email address a required field.
- Acknowledge and thank each subscriber immediately on your web site, don’t simply return them to your normal home page. They need to know that providing their precious email address is appreciated.
- Keep a prominent and position persistent email registration form on your web site for those visitors who skipped the splash page. You never, ever, ever want to subject new subscribers to a hunting expedition just so they can give you their email address!
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I totally agree with your second bullet point - it needs to be possible to skip the splash form. If people don't really want to be on your list, you're not going to do yourself any favors by forcing them to sign up - it could actually drive up your spam complaint rates if you don't let people skip the form.