Another important aspect of the words you use for your signup form is the incentive. Potential subscribers need to understand the value in opting into your list. Tell them what they have to look forward to!

00:22 Andy Shore: Welcome back everybody, we’re gonna continue talking about writing compelling copy as a way to grow your list on those sign-up forms, and the aspects of it we’re gonna focus on this time is the incentive. Daniel kinda alluded to it last time, but it’s making sure that you’re making a convincing argument for signing up for your sign-up form.

00:41 Daniel Miller: Exactly. So we are overlapping in a lot of these episodes here, but the reason why we’re doing that is because we’re talking a lot about the similar things, but we’re giving a slightly different perspective and trying to give you different ideas as to what your customer may be going through or what you may be going through. So when it comes to the right incentive, I can’t say this enough, but it’s adding value. And, again, if that is the little bit of push that they need to finalize that purchase or it’s the little bit of push that they may need to earn… I’m sorry, for you to earn trust, whatever that is, what is the value that you’re giving your subscriber in exchange of the email address? We’ve talked about if you have a restaurant, if you have a retail store, sometimes the discount, the coupon, the buy one get one free kinda deal, those help a lot to give that last push to get them back into your door. If you are a service, you may need to earn a little bit more trust. So whatever that is, I think it’s important for every company to do their own testing and to figure out, “Okay, people that tend to come to the pricing page, they think it’s too expensive. So how can we have a pop-up form that’s an exit intent, whatever that is, that addresses that problem that the visitor has?”

01:51 AS: Yeah. Like we’ve talked about before, it’s easing any of those frictions, anxieties, whatever a potential customer might have, and erasing those for them. So if you’re explaining the incentive of drawing that list, it’s the same thing of erasing any “Oh, I don’t wanna hear or get emails every day or twice a day,” or whatever that is, it’s the incentive of, “Hey, we’re not gonna bug you more than once a month or once a week,” or whatever that is.

02:18 DM: And stick to that. I’ve had companies before that say, “We will bug you but once a month,” then before I know it, they’ve added me to six other lists, and it’s… Yeah, that’s not fun. That gives me a bad taste in mouth.

02:27 AS: Exactly. So what you just wanna do is let them know that there’s a benefit for that action of subscribing. It’s gonna pay off to them, and then tell them why and what that is, and what they’re gonna benefit from. And as we mentioned before, make sure it’s something that makes sense, and like we said, don’t just… Not a free iPad or a free Apple Watch, or whatever that is, because that’s gonna be everybody, but it’s gonna be something that is of value to the type of customers you’re trying to attract. And just telling them why they should care to sign up for what you’ve got.

03:00 DM: Exactly. To give you a good example… And by the way, I wanna go back and I wanna say something ’cause we have been talking a lot about coupons and discounts. Something to mention as well, it’s not always about discounting your product, that incentive may also be, “Hey, let us show you the value here.” It’s not just about providing a discount, ’cause if you set a price, I’m sure there’s a good reason as to why you put that price there, and I’m sure you have staff and servers or a brick and mortar store that you need to pay for. So not always discounts is a good idea, but also that incentive can be flipped to say, “Hey, if you’re not convinced about the value here, boy, do we have some case studies to show you, do we have examples, do we… ” Schedule a one-on-one demo, whatever that could be, add the incentive to show the value.

03:46 AS: Exactly, and I’m gonna run down just the steps you should take in writing this copy, in explaining your incentive, how to do that. So tell them why they should care, make it loud and clear, don’t hide the value in there, it should be on the forefront. Explain to them exactly how they’re gonna benefit from it, whether it’s get a demo and answer all your questions, or this webinar that’s gonna teach you this, this PDF that’s gonna help you do this. Make it very obvious to them why they need to give you your email address. And don’t be vague about it, don’t keep them guessing. You’re gonna kinda hit them over the head with the value, and that’s the way you’re gonna get them to subscribe.

04:27 DM: Yep.

04:27 AS: Alright, thanks everyone for listening. We’ve got one more episode where we’re gonna talk about writing compelling copy to grow the list, and that’s gonna conclude this section, for now, on focusing on growing your email list. It’ll be our first 21 episodes, which is exciting, we’re off to a great start. We appreciate all of you for listening, and we’ll catch you next time.