To Better Email Campaigns
By Michaleen McGarry
Published in Club Solutions Magazine / November 2005
You created an eye-catching, motivating online marketing campaign aimed at increasing visitors to your site, and ultimately increasing leads for your sales team. You spent hours with the art work, tweaked the fonts, photos and copy until it was perfect. You bought the best, most targeted email list from a trusted source. And then, at the last minute, you slapped up an online lead form on your website. Sound familiar? If it does, you may also find a poor response rate to your email campaign familiar, as well.
It’s a bit like promoting a grand opening celebration for your club, but failing to staff it correctly. It lacks follow-through. And that’s why more than 75% of prospects who actually want more information from your email campaign, click to find out more, but leave without ever completing your prospect lead form. That’s right; more than 75% take one look at your online lead form and bail as fast as they can.
For starters, you might want to consider these quick fixes:
- Get rid of every question that you don’t desperately need right away. If you plan on calling your prospects, don’t ask for an address. You know you don’t need a fax, so why do you ask for it?
- Add a reassuring line of copy immediately next to the box asking for the email address, explaining that you won’t abuse the email address. AND THEN DON’T. Don’t rely on the privacy link at the very bottom of the originating web page to be reassuring.
- Include information regarding your campaign special. Just because you described the offer on the marketing piece they clicked from, doesn’t mean they remember. They need to see it again.
Let’s delve a bit deeper to understand how your lead form can help or hinder your email marketing campaign.
THE PROBLEM
Simply put, most of us really don't like filling out forms, especially not while we are online. Most forms are daunting and complicated and require users to make more effort than they want to. It doesn't matter if we're talking about an online survey, a lead-generation form, or a sign-up form; all require crucial but tedious elements, and all must motivate users to complete the task.
THE AUDIENCE
Forms face a “Veruca Salt” audience: Internet surfers want things NOW—instantaneously. If end-users feel something will take too much time, they won't complete it. And because there is undoubtedly a health club down the street or a few clicks away on the internet, the end-user can easily find out information about some other club rather easily. And what is worse is that you gave them the idea to look at a health club in the area through your email campaign!
THE PERCEPTION
Potential members to your facility will scan the page of your lead form, and decide whether or not it is going to take a long time to fill out. Peripherally, their eyes will scan that scrollbar and tell them if the page is potentially long. What can hurt the page is the perception of the time it will take to complete. If you look at the account sign-up on BestBuy.com, it does a nice job of making you feel like this form will not be overwhelming. But if you look at the account sign-up page on HomeDepot.com, you might unfairly decide it is too arduous to fill out. Both forms actually ask for a similar amount of information, but are laid out differently. And that layout can affect the results of your email campaign efforts. Let’s face it, first impressions count.
THE SOLUTION
If your lead form has multiple pages, be sure to specify how many pages or steps there are. If someone fills out the first and second page of your form and sees no end in sight, the odds of them leaving your site increase significantly.
If your lead form requires the end-user to do something, be obvious. For example, if the end-user needs to click “SAVE” to continue and receive your 7-day trial offer—let them know. This is not the time for cute and creative; it is the time for a blunt call to action.
If your lead form is long, cut it down. It is just not worth your time or money to create an email campaign, purchase an email list, and send it out—only to end with a lead form that is too long, and results in a poor response rate.
