Making the Opt-In Process Obvious and Easy

In case it is not clear by this point, we took you through the preceding exercise to experience first-hand what your prospects, customers, and fans experience when they want to opt-in to get emails from you. These are people who are actively seeking to add themselves to your email list. Simply put: If you don’t have an obvious and easy-to-complete email sign-up form prominently placed on your website, you are going to have a tough time growing your list.

Sure, if yours is a business-to-consumer (B2C) company, you can collect email addresses during the checkout process. And yes, if yours is a business-to-business (B2B) company, you can invite your current customers to subscribe to your email list. However, you are leaving out a huge group of people who might want to hear from you through email. Do you recall that statistic from the Merckle report we discussed in the Introduction? If not, here it is again: