The opt-in page: What is it?
An opt-in page is just a landing page that has one goal: to get someone to exchange their email address for some type of free content. A question I get asked a lot is this: what is the difference between a page on your website and a landing or opt-in page?
A page on your website is where people can find information about you (like your ‘About’ page, testimonials page, services page, and so on). A landing page is a web page that has one specific goal in mind, with one specific call to action on it: you want people to come to that page and either opt-in to your list or make a purchase.
There are many landing page builders to choose from these days: ClickFunnels, LeadPages Thrive, Thrive pages. And with all the different landing page plugins and themes available now, you can opt for creating a landing page or an opt-in page on your website, instead. Just make sure the page does not display your navigation bar or anything else that is going to distract people from what you want them to do on that page- which is to give you their email address.
https://vimeo.com/499706938
Here are the four elements of a conversion-ready opt-in page:
- Your offer: This is by far the most important element. You need an offer that speaks to your ideal client. If not, chances are they are not going to opt-in to whatever it is that you are sharing with them.
A great offer should do a couple of things: Firstly, it should solve a problem for your ideal client. Think about a pain point or a challenge that your ideal client is having. What expert piece of advice/strategy/tip can you share that will help them solve that problem?
Secondly, you want it to be something that can create a quick win or give them an aha moment- something that could not be discovered on their own; something only you could have provided them with.
Why would you want to give something that provides visitors to your opt-in page a quick win? Because first off, we are in the practice of serving and want to get people results. Also, wowing people with free content that gets them results creates greater opportunities. People start thinking along the lines of: “If I invested a little bit of money with this person, I could get even better results”.
You also want to think about how your ideal client consumes content. If you are a yoga practice offering a free yoga exercise session, you probably want to do video training; If you are a mindset coach, you would probably want to do audio visualization. If you are someone who works with software like me, you may want to do a step-by-step video training. In the same vein, think about what medium makes the most sense to share your free content with your ideal client.
There are different mediums to consider: You can do PDFs, video training, audio training, checklists, and so on.
- Your headline: The biggest mistake people tend to make is with their headlines- more specifically the COPY for the headlines. The headline is the biggest, boldest, most obvious piece of text on your opt-in page and people underestimate the importance of it.
To get the most out of your headline, you need to make sure it is results-focused. For example, a headline that simply says, “Watch this video training” is really vague. Your page visitor is going to want to know what that means for them.
Instead, you want your headline to tell them exactly what they are going to get from doing this training or getting this free piece of content.
Here is a great example of a result-focused headline:
What is really great about this headline is that it contains a specific result that the reader will get from watching this training:
(and who would not want that kind of result in just 5 days)?
What if you are just starting out in say, coaching and you do not have numbers to back up on your page? Check out this opt-in page by Tarzan Kay:
“What if you could send a copywriter-approved sales-ready email in half the time?”
You can see that this is not as specific, but is STILL results-driven. It tells you what you are going to get (copywriter-approved sales-ready emails), and in how long (half the time). So if you are someone who hates writing copy or feels like they do not have time to write copy, then you know that this is going to save you time and will give you high-level copy that is going to convert.
Here is another one that is even a little less specific, but still works:
Discover the one shift I helped Brooke make that scaled her coaching business from $30,000 per month to $200,000 per month in less than 18 months…
Again, this opt-in page tells you exactly what you are going to get and the possibilities (generate online appointments, close multiple six figures).
Those are examples of really strong headlines that you could use on an opt-in page to really dial into a pain point that your ideal client is feeling.
- Your input fields: Obviously, the input field you are always going to have on your opt-in page is the email address field- it is even a required element on most landing page builders. But if you are going to be following up with your leads (which you absolutely should), then you would want to include some personalization. By personalization, I mean simply including a first name input field in your opt-in page so that later, when you go to email your client this deliverable (and all future marketing and nurturing emails), you can ‘personalize’ that email by using their first name. You do this by simply inserting ‘first name’ using a merge field.
Those are the two kinds of standard fields most people have on their opt-ins. Some people include the last name field; others will have a phone field because mobile text marketing is highly effective (text read rates are way higher than email read rates).
A quick note about mobile marketing: Texts are a great marketing tool. But be mindful that it is also another level of personal information that people may not be willing to divulge. So think carefully about whether you want to include a mobile phone field on your opt-in page.
If you do decide to include it, I highly recommend making it an optional field. That would prevent people from giving wrong numbers (so it costs you less in text-message payments) or even worse, not giving you their information at all.
Generally speaking, the fewer fields that you have on your page, the better because it is one less thing to prevent someone from opting in.
- Your call to action: By call to action, I am referring to the button on your page. Here are a few things about the call to action button to pay attention to:
A, Make it stand out. Do not let it look like anything else on your page. You want page visitors to know without any doubt that they are supposed to click on that button. Consider using a bright color- orange and yellow buttons convert really well.
It doesn’t have to be orange or yellow though. It can be anything as long as it pops from your branding so that it stands out. You can also put arrows pointing to the text within it.
B, Make full use of the actual copy on your button. Stay away from copy like, “Subscribe here”, or even “Sign up” Why? Because it gives the impression of being locked into something. And if you no longer want that thing, you will have to put in effort to get unlocked. You don’t want to run the risk of putting people in the mental space of being overly committed to something.
Here are some examples of good verbiage you can use on your call to action:
“Get instant access to (your offer)”
“Instantly download your PDFs” or
“Yes, I want that result”.
Use action words like ‘grab’, ‘get’, ‘download’ in conjunction with the result, like this: “Yes, I want to get your ideal clients right now”.
‘Get’- verb
‘Ideal clients right now’- a result
That way, your page visitor feels they are going to get a result from taking action instead of feeling locked into something.
These four main elements- your offer, your headline, your input fields, and your call to action or your button are the main essentials that you want on your page.
It is good practice to make sure that these four main elements are above the fold. When we say something is ‘above the fold’ it means page visitors do not have to scroll down to get all the necessary information required to take action. It is all right there within view when they get on the page.
Finally, know that it takes a little tweaking to get it right, sometimes. If you can, consider running split tests between two pages to see which one resonates with your ideal client and gets more opt-ins. You can test 2 different sets of headlines, offers, copy on your button, and even the color of the button itself. You can run Facebook ads for the different sets to the same audiences and see which one converts better. Remember to only run split tests one thing at a time so you know which thing is working better or not.
So now that you have this great opt-in page and are starting to collect all these leads into your list, then what? Then, it is time to start nurturing that relationship so that when the time comes to invite them into your program or sell a product like a digital course, they will be primed to buy from you.
Your leads will feel like they are being sold and will not want to buy anything from you if they get on your list and never hear from you again. That is why I created this next phase of training: 3 Powerful Types of Email Marketing For Your Business I’m sure the title speaks for itself. You can check it out here!
