Not that you’ve ever done this, but sometimes people type their email address wrong.
Picture this: Sally goes to creativeyarns.com to shop around and sees their prominently displayed invitation to opt-in for email marketing news and offers. She types in her email address: sallyjones@hotmail,cmo.
Days turn into weeks. Weeks turn into a month and Sally never gets her newsletter on the new canary yellow and pink striped yarn she was hoping to learn more about. It’s a sad tale.
The point is, you know your valid email addresses have value. So why let a potential customer disappear accidentally? Sally knows her real email address, and she really did want to receive the creativeyarn.com email newsletter. So let’s talk about how to make sure she gets her real address on your list.
When was the last time you checked out your own opt-in process? Do you know if your form will accept these common input mistakes as valid entries?
- ??@gmail.com
- sally@hotmail,com
- sjones@yahoo.cmo
According to the email validation experts at FreshAddress, email addresses are typed inaccurately 2-20% of the time. That doesn’t just include the mistakes above, this also includes accidentally swapped characters that may be valid email addresses, but not for the person that signed up. For example, sallyhones@hotmail.com may be a valid email address, but it won’t reach Sally Jones if she’s at sallyjones@hotmail.com.
Here are a few quick tips on getting the best opt-in you can:
1)Make the entry box big enough to read their entire email address and make sure it’s legible after they type it. Seems like a no brainer, but how many “really cool” opt-in forms use gray type on white boxes for their opt-in? Also, leave room for at least 40-character email addresses. thecoolestmominthewholeworld@gmail.com wants her emails, too!
2)Validate when they hit that submit button. Things like the common input mistakes above can be validated with simple form rules. If it’s an invalid entry, tell the subscriber why it’s wrong. “Oops! Your email address doesn’t match the something@something.com format.”
3)Validate with a second page instead of making them type their address twice. “You entered sally@acme.com. Is that correct?” Then offer ‘Yes’ and ‘Edit’ buttons. If you have the technology available, offer corrections this way, too. “You entered sally@hotmai.com. Did you mean sally@hotmail.com?”
4)In offline forms, leave plenty of room for longer addresses. Remember the 40-character rule. In store, train your staff to repeat back the email address to be sure they got it right.
5)Be sure you’re in the right mailbox with a double opt-in method: when an email address is signed up on your site, send an email to it with a link that users have to click to confirm the subscription. This may trim your final list size, but will result in the highest possible list quality.
Special bonus tip? The best way to get the primary email address of your new subscriber (and not their “junk account”) is to send your marketing offer to the inbox. Rather than displaying a coupon on the webpage once they’ve opted in, ask them to check their inbox to get the deal. They’ll be on the lookout for your email and more likely to open and click.
Now that you know some ways to better validate your email opt-ins, which will you start with for your own sign up form? Do you already do any of these? We’d love to hear your feedback!
