How to Create an Email Opt-in Form in aWeber – Part 2

by Trish Lindemood on June 22, 2010

In 15 seconds, your computer screen will darken… and an email opt-in form will fade in across your screen…

If interested, sign up and the first issue of your 5 Day Crash Course on Basic List Building Strategies will be on its way to your email in-box before you finish reading this post. (Assuming, of course, you confirm your subscription before coming back to read it! )

If not, just click on the “x” in the upper right hand corner to come back to this page – and I’ll walk you through how to set up a form like this on your own site.

(If you are just joining us, click here to read Part 1 on how to create an email opt-in form in aWeber).

First, Develop Your Call-To-Action

All this means is you want to create copy that encourages your readers to take some form of immediate action. In this case, you obviously want them to sign up for your email list. For example, you might say “Sign Up Now and Receive 50% Off Your First Order” or “Only 100 Copies Available! Act Now to Get Your Free Copy of _________.”

Notice how the call-to-action spells out exactly what you want your reader to do right now – while also offering a value-added incentive to nudge them in that direction.

(We’ll talk more about incentives later – for now, just remember: “No one wakes up in the morning thinking ‘Hey! I’d sure like to sign up for some more email today!’”)

Without question, offering something your targeted audience will value will increase your opt-in rates substantially.

Next, Add the Call-to-Action to Your Email Opt-In Form

To begin, select “Header” from the drop down menu in the web form generator (see screenshot below). Then, click on “edit header” in the template section and type in the copy you want to use. While using the edit feature, you can also alter the font, font size, alignment, and font color used in your header.

You can also change the background color. In this example, I changed the background color to orange to help it stand out a little better from the darkened screen. I later changed it to light blue because… well, I liked it better.

In addition, when you click on “Advanced” options (circled above), you can edit the amount of padding (remember this, because you may need to eliminate some of the ‘bloat’ that occurs with certain templates. This is especially useful when you are creating an inline form meant to fit in a narrow sidebar widget – see the sidebar to the right where I deleted the header completely to save valuable above-the-fold real estate).

Tomorrow, I’ll show you how to add an image to make your opt-in form more compelling. In the meantime – if you have any questions, leave a comment below and I’ll answer it as soon as possible.

Til Next Time,