Top Tips from Holistic Live! Together With Pure 360

We recently had another fantastic Holistic Live! Together event in London and Manchester.  Thanks to everyone who attended – it was great to see you all!  For those who couldn’t make it, or those who just want a reminder, here are a couple of top tips from our presentation: Optimising your forms for Increased Conversions and GDPR

Introduction

At first glance, the GDPR legislations seem to be causing headaches for businesses all-round. However, we believe this is a great opportunity to foster a more meaningful, respectful relationship with our consumers as well as streamline some of our in-house email marketing processes.

Once GDPR is live, it will raise the bar of consent. It will mean businesses will not be able to rely on the following:

• Pre-Ticked Boxes
• No Opt-Out Marketing
• Relying on our Terms and Conditions to also have our Privacy Policy or include consent from a consumer
• Unclear, confusing and muddy wording on our privacy policies

Business will need more:

• Clear and Provable Consent
• Persuasive Copy
• Transparency about what we do with someone’s information

Here are some things which will help us retain email subscriptions while following the new GDPR legislation.

Make it Easy

As marketers, we all want to build healthy lists of customers eager to hear from us, but all too often we make it unreasonably difficult for them to do this.  87% of brands we researched put the email signup below the fold on their website, losing out on the majority of consumers who don’t scroll down any further.

We know that there is only a 1 in 9 chance a first time visitor will make a purchase on your site. But while a first time visitor may not be ready to purchase a service or product, it does not mean they are not ready to stay in touch with you.

The solution is to make it obvious for a potential customer as to how they can join your email list.  Putting your signup button above the fold is one straightforward way to encourage more signups.

Another option would be to have a popup sign up when a user visits your website.

Once your costumer has clicked to sign up, try not to confuse them or complicate a sign up form. As soon as a consumer is confused, they’re gone.

• Don’t complicate the GDPR process for the consumer
• Be explicit about how easy it can be to sign up
• And remind them that GDPR is for their sake, to protect their information and make you accountable to them over how it’s used

This may take a little effort to get right, but if you test the copy and experiment with ways to make it easier for your customers to sign up to your email newsletters, you will find what works best for you and your business.

Make it Beneficial

When a customer gives us their information for us to stay in touch with them, the benefits to us are clear.  But to get that signup it’s important to remember, what’s in it for the client?

Being explicit about the sort of information and materials you’re going to be sending them is important. Make it useful and appealing.  Only 46% of signup forms explained the benefits of signing up to the potential customer.  Keep that 1-in-9 statistic in mind. A consumer may not be ready to buy, but they may be ready to stay in touch and buy later. And the fact that subscribers order at least 25% more frequently than non-subscribers should be enough encouragement for email marketer to come up with ways we can make our email marketing useful for the consumer as well.

A good example is Laura Ashley, who offers 10% off for those who sign up to their email newsletters.  Other companies turn their email subscription lists into clubs, where special deals and exclusive news are shared.

Summary

If you thought the tips we presented here were useful, why not sign up to receive your free copy of our Report on Email sign-ups and GDPR?

We host several Holistic Live! Together events through the year between London and Manchester, we make them as useful for email marketers as we can, so take the opportunity to sign up to our newsletter and find out when we are next hosting these free events!