In today's competitive world of internet marketing, it is essential to be able to communicate with your prospects. Any visitor that has found your website is probably already interested in your product or service, so to convince them to buy you need to get their email addresses on your newsletter. This is a simple 2-step process. 1) Set up a form to captureyour visitors email addresses. 2) Set up a system to distribute your newsletter.
SETTING UP A FORM
If you don't you will be losing 70% of your potential customers. You need to be able to remind them to come back to your site and to inform them of special offers or new products or services.
You should place your form strategically on your home page where it will be noticed. It does not have to be large. A simple box on
side of page will do fine.
Something I learnt from Mark Joyner (ForeverWeb and ROIBOT) is that if you include word "BECAUSE" your newsletter subscription will skyrocket. Give your visitors a reason to subscribe. You could offer them free information, access to a members area, or something that will be of real value to them. You can get some ideas from our "free" page on our website.
Remember, don't ask for too many details or you will scare your prospects away. However you can easily ask them for their name and email address. You should also clearly state your privacy policy - let your visitors know that you are not going to distribute their addresses to third parties.
If you are paying for website hosting you almost certainly have a cgi-bin which will allow you to set up a form. Some free website hosts however do not give you a cgi bin because of security issues.
If cgi scripts are beyond you at moment, you can get a free form at Bravenet.com. With this option you don't need to know how to upload scripts. All you will have to do is copy and paste some HTML code onto your webpage. Bravenet hosts your form and sends you a notification whenever someone submits it.
For those who don't know, a form works like this. You upload a form script to "cgi-bin" on your website server (where you host your site). You then put some HTML code on your webpage. When someone fills in form and clicks on "Submit" or "Send" button, information is sent to "cgi bin" on your website server. The script you have put on your server (form handler) "handles" this information and sends you results of form. It will take you a few hours to get it to work properly, but believe me, if you are getting website traffic and don't yet have a form, you are certainly losing sales.
A form will also allow you to redirect visitor to a thank-you page. Take advantage of this and make sure you redirect them to your special offer page.
