Part 23 … Why and How to Create Name Squeeze Pages.

For as long as I’ve been active in Internet marketing, and probably for a lot longer still, the mantra has been ‘The money’s in the list!’

In other words, if you can build a good email list, that is responsive to your recommendations, you should never starve.

How you make your list responsive is beyond the scope of this report, (hint: be personal, be personable, be unique and be prompt), but one way of building your list in the first place is what this report is all about.

As an Internet marketer, your email list is your most treasured possession. It needs to be nurtured. But how do you get people onto that list in the first place?

You can set up a website with a name capture form on it – you’ve seen them many times, they usually say ‘Subscribe here’ or something similar.

You can also put a pop up on your page to remind people to subscribe.

Both are effective strategies, but there is one method that is much superior – so good in fact that from the same number of unique visitors to your site you could easily get two or three times the subscribers.

It is called a name capture, or name squeeze, page. Its purpose is to entice your visitor with the promise of great content in your website, or other lovely incentives and then block access to all that good stuff until they have given you their name and email address.

That is the key difference between name squeeze and other type of ‘requested’ email address capture: the visitor has no choice. They must hand over their details or they have to click away.
Not just about building a list.

While building an email list is the end result of a name squeeze page, email marketing isn’t necessarily the objective. For many people who successfully use this technique, the objective is to make their website more responsive.

Forcing your visitor to hand over their email address before they can read the content of your site may seem a paradoxical way to make your site more responsive, but it really does work – for a number of reasons:

1. It weeds out the tire kickers. Many people surf to websites without a clear idea of what they want. Yes, they are traffic, but traffic of a very low quality. Their true interest in what you have to offer is negligible and the likelihood of them responding to your offer is minimal. Forcing those people to actively enter your site will do one of two things – it will crystallize their thoughts sufficiently to make them more aware of your message, or it will turn them away. Either way, the people who get through to your site will be far higher quality, and your conversion rate should increase.

2. If you ‘sell’ the idea of parting with their email address effectively you can create a feeling of exclusivity that makes the visitor feel special. This is a powerful emotion which, if carried through into the website itself, creates a feeling of belonging to a special club.

3. Dr Robert Cialdini, in his book ‘Influence, Science and Practice’, makes the point that one of the strongest ‘influencers’ on people’s buying behaviour is reciprocation. In summary, that means that when you give a person a gift before you try to sell them something, they sub-consciously feel obligated. This sense of obligation can hugely increase their likelihood to buy from you when you do make them an offer. You can easily use this concept in your name squeeze page by offering them a special gift – an ebook, a special report, access to a hidden part of your website, an exclusive tip – the potential is almost endless – for which, incidentally, they have to give you their email address to receive.

Name squeeze pages work because you make a compelling offer to the visitor:

• You offer then a free report for instant download
• You offer them the #1 answer to their most pressing problem
• You pre-sell them on the fantastic content that is within your website

Then, instead of just giving them the download link, or the #1 answer, or a navigation button to the rest of your site, you put up a name capture form that they must fill in to get the reward.

If you are really clever you will make it clear that the next step (whether it is the download, the answer, the entry code to read the rest of the site or some other ‘bribe’ that you have devised) will be immediately emailed to them.

Simply by doing that one thing you disincentivize many of the time wasters from giving fake email addresses just to get your information or your ‘bribe’.

This form of reward-based subscription is extremely effective.

Having said that – there is power in that thar list!

There are two additional truths that make the enforced capture of your website’s visitors email address so important:

“People do business with people they like.”

“It takes up to 7 contacts before people feel confident enough to buy.”

These may be generalizations, but they are based on hard-won experience from many successful marketers.

By capturing the name and email address of your site’s visitor, you gain the ability to begin a relationship with them. You can start to show them that you care about them, that you understand their needs and that you are more responsive and generous than the owners of other competing sites that they may have visited.

Your autoresponder can begin to send them regular tips, personal stories and other suggestions. Each one can have a call to action built in that will drive that person back to your website. And every time they follow that call, their return to your site will be with less and less resistance to your offers.

Over time, as you gain their trust and become more of a friend, you will have earned the right to make other offers too – providing you don’t overdo it!

Avoid spam accusations

These days, it has become increasingly important to make your email lists double opt-in.

What this means is that after the person fills in the form to subscribe to your list, they are sent an email that asks them to click on a link to confirm that they really want to subscribe. Only after performing that second action, the ‘double opt-in’, should they be actually added to your list.

The reason to do this is to protect yourself, as far as possible, from spam accusations.

There are lots of reasons why people yell spam. They may have forgotten that they signed up, or their email address may have been subscribed to your list without their knowledge.

When you can prove that your subscribers have double opted in to your list, you can show anyone who asks that the person positively and deliberately signed up, and, because the confirmation email was sent to their own address, that they were not signed up by anyone else.

When you run a name squeeze page it is important that you make the process double opt in. If possible, your name squeeze script should also log the time and date and the IP address of the computer from which the request was made.

These additional pieces of information are captured in the background – the visitor is unaware that they have been gathered, but are often necessary if you ever wish to transfer your list to a new autoresponder service in the future.

If the incentive that you are offering is good enough, they won’t be able to click on the confirmation link fast enough. They will be yearning for your ‘bribe’!
Factors that can make your name squeeze page even more effective.

An effective name squeeze page is a very simple thing. Too much information can just lead to confusion, and any actions for the visitor to take other than filling in their name and email address defeat the object.

Here are a few things that your page should include – but as with any Internet marketing advise, you should test each one to see how it affects responses in your own specific situation.

1. The page should make it clear who is behind it.

This is generally done with a header graphic or a strong pre-headline. Too many sites are hesitant to say outright who they are and what they do, but with a name squeeze page this is disastrous. You need your visitor to get the point of your site the instant they land.

2. The headline has to ‘sell’ a very clear benefit.

The WII-FM (what’s in it for me?) factor has to be particularly strong in a name capture page. Take time over crafting the perfect headline that pre-sells the content of your site and what it can do for the visitor. Make them salivate.

Only then will they part with their email address willingly.

3. Sales copy.

I have seen name capture pages that used very long sales copy, but they are rare. In the main, the copy you need should be just enough to whet the visitor’s appetite for the content of your site (or for the ‘bribes’ you are offering) and no more. Tell then enough to start them yearning for more – and then make them take action to get more.

4. The opt in form.
 
It may sound strange, but there are name squeeze pages out there that make you hunt for where to type in your details. Don’t do it. Make your opt-in form highly visible and impossible to miss.

5. Audio or video.

There is an increasing use of audio or video on name squeeze pages for the simple reason that they work.

On one of my own name squeeze pages (a sign up page for a newsletter) the simple addition of an audio testimonial increased my visitor-to-signup conversion by almost 300%.

6. Only one possible action.

Never, ever give visitors to your name squeeze page any other choices other than sign up, or go away.

There can be no compromise on that. As soon as you offer any other possible action, some of those visitors will take it and you will have lost them forever.

And that means no other offers, no AdSense ads, no tasters, no links of any kind whatsoever.

Name squeeze works because it forces visitors to declare their interest in what you have to say (by inputting their name and email address) or declare that they have no interest by hitting the back button.

Name capture or name squeeze pages, whatever you choose to call them, are the perfect way to ensure that all the traffic your sites get is targeted, focused on the message you have to give and motivated enough to take action to read it. It may reduce the overall numbers of people who move through your websites, but it will ensure that those who do are the highest quality traffic that you can get.

What you do with them after that is entirely up to you, but my advice is to treat them with respect, never abuse their trust, work as hard as you can to build a good relationship with them and over deliver in as many ways as you can.

That way your name squeeze pages will be among your most valuable tools for your long term Internet business.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

1 Comment »