Acquire More Email Subscribers: 11 Optimization Tips For Exit-Intent Popups

Do you want to acquire more email subscribers?

This article will show you how to optimize your exit-intent popups to increase your email subscribers.

Daniel Doan is a growth marketing consultant and digital strategist who helps eCommerce and tech companies scale with growth strategy. For the past eight years he has been working with B2C and B2B companies doing digital marketing and growth hacking. As all growth hacking marketers know, A/B testing is the secret for discovering what works and what doesn’t. His record is 260 A/B tests in a single year! It takes a lot of patience, creativity and perseverance to get to this whooping number.

As a result of his extended testing, he crystallised the following optimization tips that helped him acquire over 90.000 email subscribers with an average conversion rate of 20-25% in B2C and 3-5% in B2B.

Here are Daniel Doan’s 11 exit-intent popup optimization tips to help you boost your email subscribers:

1. Pair it with a 10-second timer

Exit-intent logic is a bit fuzzy on mobile so pairing it with a guaranteed timer works wonders.

Daniel Doan

This tip is an illustration of urgency. Together with scarcity, urgency is one of the human behaviours that eCommerce sites leverage to perfection to influence their visitors into taking particular actions: subscribe to newsletter, make purchases etc. And it works because we don’t like to lose, and a time-bound offer makes us push the Yes button.

To prevent your countdown from restarting as your viewer refreshes the page, you can add a code that stores the timer value in a cookie, so it never restarts on a page refresh.

source: Maxtraffic.com

2. Experiment with adding humour

A little goes a long way, especially if it’s an in-joke amongst your target audience.

Daniel Doan

Make them laugh or at least smile. Humour is a powerful tool and a differentiation amongst your competition. It means you are showing respect to your subscribers by steering away from being boring.

You will receive additional points if you make the effort of inserting a joke targeted at your specific audience. It shows you have taken the time to get to know your audience, jokes and all which make you one of the guys (or gals :).

3. Add reassurance that their email is safe and won’t get spammed or sold

This tip is about earning trust with your subscribers. By letting them know you are aware of their fears and showing empathy, you influence them to let their guard down and trust you with their email address. Considering the scandals around personal data that sent the internet into turmoil in 2018, it’s understandable.

source: flaticon.com

Also add a small lock icon near the email field. It works pretty well to subconsciously increase trust, making the user feel more secure about making the decision to drop in their email.

Daniel Doan

4. Experiment with Sans Serif fonts

Removing the serif leads to better digital readability and higher conversions if it matches the aesthetic of the brand.

Daniel Doan

Sans Serif fonts are simple and convey modernity and simplicity. According to this source, web designers have turned to sans serif fonts like Roboto, Mina, Opens Sans, Lato etc because they are more suitable to display content on PC screens.

5. Change text on submit buttons to be in all lowercase

I was surprised at this one, but it might be because it’s a pattern interrupt.

Daniel Doan

When they receive the same kind of information, whether is the same colour, the same shape, music or taste, people get accustomed to it and soon they won’t pay attention to it. It’s just something in the background noise.

Exit-intent popups rely on visual impact so when your visitors have seen 20 pop ups with text in uppercase in the last four weeks, if your popup uses text in lowercase, it will get their attention because it’s different.

6. Framing the value of the header as a question

Leading with a question-based header seems to convert a lot better.

Daniel Doan

The secret behind a successful question-based header in your CTA is personalization.

You need to do your homework and know your customer like the back of your hand: pain points, problems they need to solve, subjects they need help with, areas they want to develop, skills they want to grow etc.

Now formulate your subscriber’s need or pain point as a question which has only one answer: Yes.

source: crazyegg.com

In order to achieve that, focus on the benefit, gain or any other value that your subscriber will receive by opting-in to your newsletter.

Want to become a better salesman?

Or

Do you want to sell more?

Here is a great source to learn more about asking the right questions.

7. Adding a no option that makes them feel a bit guilty if they click it

This may fall under a dark pattern, so I’d tread lightly with this one…but it does work!

Daniel Doan

Examples:

No, I’d rather miss out on 10% off.

No, thanks, I’d rather stay a mediocre marketer.

No, thanks, I don’t want to delight my customers.

No, thanks, I don’t want to help my customers sell more.

8. Lead with pure value and nothing less

Always have the button speak clearly to the value that it’s providing. NEVER have a generic “submit” button.

Daniel Doan

If your website visitor doesn’t believe they will receive value in exchange for their email address, they will not subscribe.

9. Add a bit of blue trim

For some reason blue seems to work really well in terms of boosting conversions ..it might be that blue is a trust colour.

Daniel Doan

10. Have a human-element in the popups

I have my face on my popups, but if you can creatively and legally use a notable celebrity of some kind, this works wonders for conversions.

Daniel Doan

source: convinceandconvert.com

11. Green is amazing for conversions

Similar to blue, experiment with splashes of green in a creative way to add excitement – green is great for the CTA button, or the trim immediately around it.

Daniel Doan

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How to Increase Conversions with Video Marketing

Video marketing is the latest tactic used by marketers to increase conversions.

This article will show you 3 examples of how to use video to increase your conversions.

In the past decade, social media has risen to unexpected heights and the business world could not ignore it any longer. Smartphones were the tools that enabled social media’s rapid growth. Mobile phone companies fitted their smartphones with highly performing cameras in terms of photo and video features. Statistics show that prospects and customers love to watch videos and businesses should take advantage of this.

[bctt tweet=”Discover 3 ways you can use video to increase your conversions.” username=”brand_minds”]

2018 statistics found that video drives consumer decisions:

• 64% of consumers say that watching a marketing video on Facebook has influenced a purchasing decision (source: animoto.com);
• Having product how-to videos available on YouTube are 9x more important to shoppers than celebrity endorsements;
• The most popular video content: How-to videos (52%), Product reviews (26%), Unboxing videos (25%);
• 59% of executives say they would rather watch a video than read text (source: wordstream.com);
• 60% of marketers used videos in their social media marketing in 2016 (source: socialmediaexaminer.com);
• Companies that use videos in their marketing have 27% higher clickthrough rate and 34% higher conversion rates than those that don’t (source: buffer.com).

Conversions are the mileposts of the buyer’s journey. They signal when a prospect has reached a particular moment that shows he is becoming interested in your company’s products or services.  

3 examples of video marketing to increase conversions

1. Attending webinars/workshops/training sessions

Let’s assume your company sells social media marketing services to medium size firms.

One of your business strategies to attract new customers is to provide free workshops of personal branding to top level managers.

How do you influence your prospects to attend your workshops using video marketing?

You can show them a video of previous attendees talking about how these workshops helped them increase their personal brand. Video testimonials are effective marketing tools because they feature real persons. Also the viewer can see them express positive emotions when talking about their experience with your company, which is more impactful than a written testimonial could ever be.

Key takeaway: Include a powerful call to action and a sign-in form to measure your conversions!

2. Drive traffic to your website

Your company sells kitchen cabinets and you need to increase traffic to its website.

How can you increase the traffic to your company’s website with video marketing?

You can let your prospects know that if they wish to update their kitchen style and are confused about choosing a design, you have prepared a video for them. Your video can feature one of your employees presenting the latest fashion in kitchen cabinets. Prospects are looking for branded content that can deliver valuable information. High quality, informative and helpful videos are effective because they help your company build trust and positive connection to its customers.

Key takeaway: Invest in high-quality video and be true to your brand.

3. Influence your prospects to buy your product

Your company sells coffee machines.

How can you influence your prospects into buying your coffee machines using video marketing?

By making product review videos. Show your customers how they can prepare their favorite coffee, outline your coffee machine’s features and show them their benefits if they buy your product. Be engaging and entertaining!  

Product review videos can influence your ranking in Google results for mobile.

Key takeaway: Don’t tell them, show them!

Expert’s statement

We asked Calin Biris, online marketing expert what are the top 3 reasons that deter marketers from producing video content.

Here is what he had to say:

One day a man comes to you and says that he has a powerful tool that can clean your house in just one hour if you use it properly. He shows you statistics about it and testimonials. He also tells you that this tool costs twice as much as any other appliance you have, but it could save you four times that amount if you use it regularly. Then he invites you to buy it. What would be your first reaction?

Likewise marketers and business owners are sceptical and unprepared for using video content mainly because they don’t know how to use it and produce it (before investing in it), and are afraid to spend more than they are already paying on other traditional content.

When marketers have a clear content strategy, a content plan, a budget and objectives, it is easier to decide what type of content to invest in, based on the projected results they expect. Because consumers engage more with video content and Social Media platforms are pushing this type of content to their users, the results of using video can be more efficient than in the case of using any other type of content, even if the production costs are higher.

Getting back to the story, the right decision would be to buy the powerful tool that cleans your house faster, only if you are planning to keep your home neat and learn how to use that tool properly. You don’t want to waste time, money and energy using an expensive appliance in a wrong way.