Businesses worldwide use emails for many purposes: communicating with employees, promoting products, and reaching out to potential clients. Emails are a top choice for business promotion, but sending them without permission isn't just bad practice; it's even against the law sometimes.
So, how do you get that permission? How do you know which of your prospects want to hear from you? How do you determine what kind of content they want to receive from you and how often do they want to receive your emails?
In this guide, we'll learn more about email subscriptions, how to make people want to subscribe, how the process works, and how to set one up for yourself. Let’s get started!
What is an email subscription?
An email subscription is a process by which people can sign up for updates, newsletters, promotions, and other content sent via email from a business, organization, or individual.
When people sign up for these emails, they share their email addresses and sometimes details like their names or preferences. This helps the sender create and send relevant content directly to the subscribers.
Why would anyone want to subscribe to your emails?
That’s a question you should be asking yourself. People won’t want to subscribe to your emails if they’re not getting any value from them. You can't force someone to subscribe to your emails. However, you can always encourage subscriptions using smart tactics and appealing incentives. Here are some incentives you can offer them in exchange for their emails:
Offer special deals, discount codes, or freebies like ebooks to motivate people to subscribe.
Provide access to unique content, such as articles on current events, guides, or resources unavailable on the main site.
Offer early access to new products or services before the general public.
How to utilize email subscriptions for your business
Now you know how you can make people want to subscribe to your business emails. But how does that help your business? Here are a few ways to use email subscriptions for your business.
1. Promote new products or services
You can strategically announce new products and services to your subscribers, such as offering exclusive sneak peeks or early access. This approach helps create excitement and buzz even before your new offerings go public, ensuring you have an eager audience ready to buy.
2. Nurture leads
Email subscriptions are great for nurturing leads after lead generation. They help you educate subscribers about your brand, share stories of your impact, email updates and provide useful information to guide their decisions.
3. Offer educational content
Educational content like tutorials, podcasts, webinars, or informative articles can teach your subscribers something new. By offering valuable knowledge, you'll position your business as a credible source of information. This establishes your brand as a thought leader in your field and enhances your brand image.
4. Highlight customer testimonials
In your emails, you can share customer testimonials from satisfied customers and local communities. This strengthens the trust and encourages other subscribers to engage with your business. It also creates a positive image of your brand and your products.
The anatomy of an email subscription process
The entire email subscription can be divided into 3 steps. We’ll take you through these steps and discuss each one in detail.
1. Collect subscriber information
The first step is to gather subscriber information. As a business, you can start by collecting the user's email address. You might also ask for extra details like their name, city, or date of birth. This can be done online or offline.
If you have an offline presence like a store or are conducting seminars, you can collect email addresses of the attendees. If your company doesn’t have offline touchpoints, then you can use forms.
Forms are tools on your website where visitors can enter their information, such as their email address and other details. They act as a bridge between you and your potential subscribers, allowing you to capture valuable data for your email list. These forms can come in different formats.
- Popups: Popups are overlays that appear when visitors land on your website, browse through it, or plan to leave. You can use different types of popups and experiment with different strategies for best results.
Inline forms: These forms are embedded within one of the pages of your website, making it seamless for visitors to subscribe to your emails without leaving the page they’re on.
Landing page: You can also create a dedicated page with a great user experience for users to land on and subscribe to your emails. This page can discuss all the perks they get when they subscribe and include a form to fill out and submit.
2. Add to email list
After you get the information, you must store all the subscriber data in one place or list, called an email list. This way, you have all the emails and their details together, which helps when you want to sort or filter them by different attributes. You can either upload the details manually to your mailing list in the email service provider (ESP) you use, or set up an automatic trigger to add the emails to your email list. We'll explain how to do this later in the article.
3. Send welcome/confirmation email
After someone submits your form, you need to send them an email confirming their subscription. The email you send can vary depending on whether you use a single or double opt-in process.
Welcome email for single-opt-in process: A welcome email confirms their subscription and welcomes them to your list. It often includes a friendly greeting and perhaps a special offer or introductory content and the incentive you had promised them.
Confirmation email for double opt-in process: The confirmation email contains a link to verify the subscriber's subscription. This step ensures the email address is valid, and the subscriber is genuinely interested. Additionally, you should still send the user a welcome email after the user confirms the subscription.
How to set up your email subscription process with Mailmodo
Setting up your email subscription process is easier when you’re already using an ESP. We’ll show you how you can set up the process using Mailmodo.
Step 1: Sign up on Mailmodo
First, you need to create an account on Mailmodo. Go to the website, click the sign-up button, and follow the easy registration process. You can start for free as Mailmodo offers a 21-day free trial.
Step 2: Create or connect a form
Now, you need a form that will collect the details of your subscribers. You can use Mailmodo in 3 different ways for this:
- Create a form from scratch: Use Mailmodo to create a popup from scratch and embed it on your website.
If you want to learn how to create popup forms from scratch in Mailmodo, read the article below.
- Integrate with an existing form: If you already have a form built by your development team or any other tool, you can integrate it with Mailmodo by adding the action URL from Mailmodo to your HTML form. This lets you capture form submissions and save them as a list in Mailmodo.
You can check out the video below to see how to use form integration.
If you want a detailed step-by-step guide on how to do it, check out the article below.
- Third-party integrations: Mailmodo also supports integrations and workflow with popular form-building tools like Google Forms, Typeform, and JotForm. You can easily connect these tools to Mailmodo, enabling you to import form data and manage your subscriber lists within the platform.
Step 3: Create an email
With Mailmodo's email builder, creating an email is simple and intuitive. Easily design a welcome sequence for a single opt-in process, greeting new subscribers and making a great first impression. For a double opt-in process, set up a confirmation email right after someone submits the form to verify their subscription.
You can create your email from scratch or use their customizable templates and edit them to suit your needs with the drag-and-drop editor.
Step 4: Set up the trigger email
Once you've created the email, you must set up a trigger email. This automated email will be sent whenever a user submits a form and their email address is added to your email list.
You can follow the article below to see how you can set up a trigger campaign.
Step 5: Test, launch and monitor
Once you’ve tested your email campaign, you can launch it. Additionally, with Mailmodo’s analytics dashboard, you can track its performance and measure subscriber engagement.
With these steps, you'll have a robust email subscription process using Mailmodo, ensuring you capture and engage your audience effectively.
Mistakes to avoid in email subscription process
While setting up your email subscription, certain pitfalls can hinder your success. Here are some mistakes to steer clear of:
Overloading the form: Asking for too much information during sign-up can deter users. Keep it simple—email addresses and one optional detail like a name should suffice.
Skipping the welcome email: Not sending a welcome email can miss the chance to make a positive first impression.
Ignoring mobile optimization: A poorly formatted mobile form or email can discourage mobile users from subscribing.
Inconsistent sending frequency: Bombarding subscribers with emails or going silent for months can both lead to unsubscribes. Stick to a consistent schedule.
If you don’t steer clear of these mistakes, your email subscriptions may not be as high as you’d like them to be. Some mistakes would also lead you to unsubscriptions and even worse.
What's worse than unsubscriptions?
An unsubscription hurts, but being marked as spam is worse. It can damage your sender reputation and email deliverability.
Every spam report sends a negative signal to mailbox providers and ISPs, which affects your sender reputation and decreases your email deliverability. This increases the likelihood of your emails landing in the spam folder.
So, what do you do?
Making it easy for users to unsubscribe might seem counterintuitive, but it’s a good practice because it prevents you from being marked as spam.
Subscribers appreciate the simplicity of managing their preferences without jumping through hoops. This is because subscribers find it easy and appreciate the fact that they can unsubscribe from your emails with a single click, which reduces friction and frustration
A quick and easy unsubscribe option discourages frustrated users from marking your emails as spam.
Demonstrating respect for subscribers’ decisions fosters a positive brand image, even if they leave your list.
What to do when someone unsubscribes from your email
Unsubscribes are a natural part of email marketing. Instead of seeing them as setbacks, treat them as opportunities to improve. Here’s what you can do:
Include an optional feedback form on the unsubscribe page to understand why the subscriber is leaving. Common reasons include too many emails, irrelevant content, or a change in preferences. You can use this information to avoid similar mistakes in future.
Use the final email to thank them for their time and invite them to rejoin in the future. Keep the tone positive and professional.
Remember, while it’s disappointing to lose a subscriber, their feedback can help you refine your email campaigns.
How to retain your subscribers
Subscriber retention is vital for long-term email marketing success. Here are some strategies to reduce unsubscriptions and keep your audience engaged:
Personalize emails based on subscriber preferences, purchase history, and engagement patterns. Use segmentation and dynamic content to deliver tailored messages.
Regularly offer exclusive content, discounts, or insights that make staying in your email list worthwhile.
Allow users to adjust their email preferences (e.g., frequency or content type) instead of unsubscribing entirely.
Use re-engagement campaigns to win back subscribers who haven’t interacted with your emails in a while.
Show social proof by highlighting your number of subscribers, sharing testimonials, or showcasing success stories. This is a great way to encourage others to sign up.
Make your call-to-action (CTA) irresistible. Use clear, compelling words that create a sense of urgency and make the CTA stand out.
Use timed pop-ups or slide-ins strategically. They should capture attention without intruding, appearing when visitors have spent time on your site or are about to leave.
Conclusion
In this blog, we understood unlocking the potential of email subscriptions can transform how you engage with customers. With the right strategies and an email marketing tool like Mailmodo, you can keep your email subscribers engaged and make your email marketing dynamic and personalized.
It’s not just about growing your email list; it’s about building strong connections that drive loyalty and boost your business. So, use email subscriptions to grow your audience and your business simultaneously.
