Converting the Converted, or How to Increase your Newsletter Signup Rate

Published in Marketing on Tuesday, March 13th, 2007

I can't take credit for this idea (lots of people have written about it), but I do have some nice figures to post from a recent change we made on a site that runs with the principle of what we call Converting the Converted.

Squeezing more water from the sponge

We spend a lot of time working with clients to help increase the effectiveness of their websites. Using CrazyEgg to Write More Effective Copy is one small example, and in this case we have used similar tactics with a client's newsletter signup to try and increase their newsletter signup rate.

Management wanted the signup front and center on the homepage, which we tried and tracked and found that the conversion rate was very low.
We then moved it to a more ubiquitous setting underneath the navigation on the site, which meant it would feature on every page of the website.
We also had the ability to opt into the newsletter on every point of contact available on the site, and tried various type of copy to entice the user into signing up for the very useful newsletter.

At some point these efforts topped out at a certain level, and it was at this point that we decided to apply the theory of Converting the Converted: we moved the newsletter signup to the thank you page on the site, that is, we put it on the page where users are sent after they fill out a form or register with the website. The results?

Converting the Converted: Results

The industry in question fluctuates based on the time of the year, so we compared months of 2006 to the same from 2007, and in February the sign up request rate increased by 253%, and in March, to date, it is already up by 227%, with 18 days left in the month.

Despite trying many different ways to get people to sign up, the method that worked the best was to convert the people who had already shown that they trust the company with their data.

Another interesting take away

The ability to opt in to the newsletter exists on the form that leads to the contact page. On that form, we tried positioning the opt-in at the top of the form, at the bottom of the form, with a red background, a yellow background... etc. Having tried all of that and having the signup in the sidebar of the site, it seems we were missing a tonne of people.

One last note

One last interesting note about users: we have noticed that many users who come into the website from a newsletter and subsequently convert via a form on the site will opt, again, into the newsletter when on the thank you page.

Obviously they are very interested :-)

Comments and Feedback

Respiro, the logo designer Wed, 14th of March, 2007

It's a very interesting fact and it seems that someone who already trusted you is interested in a long-term business relationship.