An email list is one of the valuable assets of a company. You have complete control over what you share and when you share it via email. Moreover, you can approach your audiences in an active and personal way.
Research on New York Times readers found that people who got newsletters were twice as likely to buy a product as those who didn’t [1]. Indeed, email marketing was the channel with the highest return on investment (ROI) in 2016 [2]. And it is still ranked in the top 3 in 2021.
To reach out to the compelling benefits of email newsletters, you must grow your email list first. The easiest way to do that is using signup forms. Check out this article to own nine techniques to create a great Shopify email newsletter signup form.
Table of Contents
What is the newsletter signup form?
An email newsletter is a type of email aiming to keep your audiences stay up to date with your latest product or service such as news, updates, events. The newsletters signup form is a form to ask permission of audiences to send these emails.
The sign-up form aims to generate a database of existing customer emails and potential customers, who are likely to be interested in your products.
Here is an example of a newsletter signup form from Alex and Ani – a Shopify store.
Importance of the newsletter sign-up form with Shopify stores
Email marketing is a powerful marketing tool to engage with customers and lengthen their buying journeys. It takes a personal approach to build relationships with your leads, potential customers, current customers, and past customers. Here are some statistics to prove its influences:
- Organic reach is around 4x higher on email than on social media [3].
- Email generates $38 for every $1 spent, which is an impressive 3,800% return on investment (ROI), nominating it one of the most cost-effective solutions [4].
- Also according to the above case study on New York Times readers showed that newsletter readers spend 80% more time on a website than visitors of other sources.
Yes, we understand how influential email newsletters are. However, to implement email marketing, we need to have audiences’ emails first. This job can be done only by the newsletter signup form. We need to get permission from audiences to keep in touch with them.
Techniques to create a great Shopify newsletter signup form
The research found that 78% of marketers saw an increase in email engagement during 2020. This means email marketing is the choice of most marketers and your competitors using it is easily understandable. How do you persuade customers to sign up for your email newsletter rather than thousands of other competitors?
An impressive design and punchy content of the newsletter signup form can help you stand out from other Shopify stores. The following techniques will help to create a great version of your form.
Content aspect
Let’s go through these content techniques to make your form punchy.
Offer an incentive
People are interested in gifts, free stuff, and discounts. You can take advantage of this psychology to build your newsletter email list from web visitors. For example, offer web visitors a discount or a gift code for their first order. In some circumstances, free content can be a valuable gift. A downloadable guide or checklist is a common need of web visitors.
However, the interest of these audiences may lose when you stop offering discounts or gifts. Therefore, make sure to build a long-term program to keep them stay with you.
Let’s take an example of this technique from the Motherhood store. The hidden aim of a newsletter signup form is to get visitors’ emails but the call to action (CTA) in the form orients audiences to the offer “I WANT 15% OFF”. All letters of CTA are uppercase to emphasize this desirability. As a result, web visitors will focus on this good deal, and leaving their information is an auxiliary job.
Use social proof
You need first earn their trust before turning a cold visitor into a customer. Social proof – an influential marketing strategy, and it may help your Shopify store utilize current customers to gain new visitors’ trust. Therefore, including social proofs in your newsletter sign-up form can make it more persuasive. For example, display your trusted partners, show your numbers of subscribers. Because people love to be a part of a community of like-minded individuals.
For example, the signup form of Ripped Body comes up with impressive numbers: join 1,000+ client transformations, 18,000 comments answered, 24 million page views, 100 + guides… These numbers are strong evidence for the success of this business. If you are a visitor, you will believe in a brand like this?
Tell people what emails they’ll get (and how often)
State what information you’ll be sending out will reach the right audiences then enhance the opening rate. You don’t need to specify this information. It’s fine to show general statements such as sharing special promotions, getting early access to new collections, and updating the news.
The frequency depends on your products and services and also on your email marketing campaigns. If you create substantial content resources, you can state “receive updates regularly”.
An example of this technique is PRESS Healthfoods – a brand providing plant-based quality nutrition. The big concern of the target audiences of this brand is health. Consequently, PRESS builds a community around their brand by frequently sharing concerns of potential customers through their blog and newsletters. Therefore, their newsletter signup form includes a checkbox “I want to receive regular updates from PRESS”.
Respect user’s privacy
Since you approach subscribers personally, you need to respect their privacy. People may become vulnerable when their mailbox is full of spam or advertisements. They will be vigilant and not want to leave their information on the Internet.
Therefore, the key to reassuring them is to inform them of your privacy policies, which will prevent using their information for wrong purposes. Displaying the link to your privacy policies is highly recommended.
If you visit the website Enfamil, you’ll notice a sign-up form. This form will collect your name, your email, and your birth date. No discount is offered within this form. However, you may receive samples, offers, tips through email. By entering and submitting the details, it means that visitors understand and agree to the Terms of Use, Privacy Policy, and Sweepstakes Official Rules of Enfamil. Transparency like this will build trust from visitors.
Allow users to choose email content
When your target audience is large, providing several user options is necessary. This is because no one wants to receive irrelevant information. Therefore, a good tactic is to give your audience the right to choose what content from you they receive. Since your newsletter matches with audiences’ demands and favors, they tend to open your email more.
However, don’t make it complicated. Too many options may lead them confused and take much time to choose. Less than five options are recommended. Two options as Thursdayboots store is very fine. Keep it simple, have it quick.
Design aspect
Go minimal
Minimalism is a popular design trend right now and sign-up forms should catch this trend. It is defined as a design with only the correct amount of features to retain it functional and beautiful. In other words, it doesn’t include any subsidiary elements.
Regarding designing signup forms, good practices are to use less than two types of fonts, colors, and visuals. Instead, you should focus on the functionality.
For example, Snooz – a successful store tries a minimal approach. It informs web visitors of the aim of signing up for email. Only one font is used and the call to action button is emphasized by the brand color.
Well design images and graphics
There are numerous ways to add graphics or images into your signup form. Here are some common ways.
You can introduce a simple graphic by using your colorful logo as a focal point, adding your brand font to express content ideas. This design can immediately draw attention to the main body of the type. Remember to use your brand color for the design.
If you are not a fan of a graphic, you can simply insert an overlay under the signup form to highlight this form. To avoid boredom, you can use a textured pattern to this overlay instead of only one color. However, keep it simple because it is background.
Otherwise, you can insert your product images into the form. This image will bring a unique visual flair to your signup form design. In the case of this, you can refer to My Modern Met – a Shopify store selling creative items made by top artists.
Make Call to Action clear
A call to action is a piece of text that is meant to incite movement, action, and encourage clicks. So, naturally, it is very useful when it comes to motivating newsletter sign-ups.
A good one should be a simple and punchy statement, which is positioned carefully and designed cohesively. Consequently, a stronger CTA will create a higher conversion rate.
Don’t forget that a bold call to action will balance with a bold design.
For example, Bioliteenergy – a Shopify store with the mission to bring energy everywhere. It chooses to use a friendly statement “Power up with good energy” as the form’s heading. This heading is spotlighted by bigger font size and brand color. Additionally, a bold and confirmative call to action (CTA) is emphasized by uppercase and thicker typeface.
Choose the right positions to put
It’s important to spotlight your sign-up form. There are 3 valuable places to position this form.
- Footer: Whatever is in the footer will appear on all pages. Therefore, the email newsletter signup form should be displayed in the Shopify store’s footer. Additionally, it will not interrupt the journey of web visitors.
- Pop-up: A pop-up form is a great way to catch the attention of visitors. To make it more attractive, this form should go along with an incentive such as discounts.
- Sidebar: Since pop-up forms appear once and the footer usually contains too much information, a sidebar is recommended to display this form. It will not annoy visitors but will be convenient to reach.
How to add newsletter sign-up form to Shopify store?
After going through the above sections, you are perhaps sure about how crucial newsletter signup forms are. Now, let it work for your business.
There are two main ways to add email newsletter forms to Shopify stores: using Shopify apps and outsourcing this task. You should analyze your needs to choose the most profitable option.
Apps
To add this form, the simpler way is to install a Shopify app. This task can be served by numerous apps in the Shopify app store. As a result, ensure that your requirements are met by the features of the applications. I would suggest the two most popular apps, all of which have good feedback from Shopify users.
Form Builder
POWR Form Builder enables you to create professional, user-friendly forms to collect various information for your business. You can create a custom form, which includes a newsletter signup form, contact form, contact us form without coding. This application has typical features as the following:
- Flexible positioning: position your form wherever on the page, including making it pop up or on a side tab.
- Mailchimp integration and automatic workflows by connecting to apps supported by Zapier.
- Automatic email responses – design an email autoresponder that gets sent to your audiences after completing the newsletter form. You can even send different emails based on your customer’s response.
- After submission controls – redirect users to a page after your form is submitted, limit submissions to one per user, one per page load, or hide the form.
- Limit submissions by date – only collect responses during a specified date range.
This app offers various plans from $0 to $79.99 per month with different access levels. You should consider your needs to choose a suitable plan because the lower plan will limit your ability, which affects how you can reach your audiences and goals.
Mailchimp Forms
MailChimp Form by Mailmunch helps you grow your email list with high conversion through newsletter form. It lets you create beautiful MailChimp forms for your Shopify without writing a single line of code. Here are typical features of this app:
- Available in many types of forms such as pop-ups, scroll boxes, embedded, and top bars.
- Feasible including discount coupons: offer discount coupons or free giveaways while collecting email addresses from your visitors
- Page-Level Targeting: You can choose exactly which pages to show the forms on. It will help you segment your signup email lists.
- Optional choosing displayed time: Your forms may appear immediately when a visitor opens your site, or when they tend to leave.
- Analytics: Easily find out which pages, products, or MailChimp forms are bringing in the most conversions.
A free plan is available with this app. However, to access all features, you need to charge $24.99 per month.
Outsourcing
The other option is editing the code. In this way, your newsletter form will be completely aligned with your brand identity and goals. This is a saved option for a tight budget. Because you will not be charged on a monthly or annual basis, you only pay once for using forever. Editing code, however, necessitates technical skills. Therefore, you should hire Shopify experts to do it for you.
Here are the greatest advantages of hiring a third party adding email newsletter forms to your Shopify store:
- Make your store stand out by showcasing your uniqueness rather than relying on ready-made things like applications.
- Ensure professional results: Shopify specialists will deliver a high-quality result.
- Cost-effectiveness: Pay once and use it for the rest of your life
- Reduce time consumption on technical jobs and focus on business operation activities such as preparing email marketing.
- Support your business 24/7 for any needs of urgent assistance.
Final thought
One of the most effective ways to engage with your potential customers is through email marketing. It’s critical to have a great email registration form in order to effectively reach out and capture the attention of potential subscribers.
It’s time to implement the above techniques in reality. As a certified Shopify partner, HappyPoints are happy to assist you to add a newsletter signup form for your Shopify store. Let’s start building your list today.
In addition, there are many features you can optimize to improve your Shopify store. Don’t forget to look through and see what is still missing from your website.
Feel free to contact us if you have any further concerns.
If you want to know more about useful customizations like this, feel free to grab the free eBook “Top 12 DIY Shopify customizations to drive sales”
References
[1] https://blog.parse.ly/3-stats-that-prove-just-how-valuable-newsletters-are/
[2] https://www.drip.com/blog/marketing-automation/email-marketing-tips
[3] https://ampjar.com/blog/social-media-vs-email-marketing/
[4] https://www.emailmonday.com/dma-national-client-email-report-2015/
[5] https://www.hubspot.com/state-of-marketing/email-marketing-trends