Where do I sign up?

I was reading with interest a blog exchange on emailcritic.com between Marco Marini, the CEO of ClickMail Marketing and Jordie van Rijn, an independent email marketing consultant at EmailMonday and editor of Emailvendorselection.com.


They were essentially discussing the value of the sign up box to grow your lists organically using your website. As it picked up on some themes I talked about in ‘Why should I sign up to your newsletter’ on my blog, I thought I would share my Top 10 for the sign up process.


1. Make It Easy to find and do – ideally above the fold Top Right, but it’s worth testing this.
2. Provide only one newsletter subscription page that includes information about all available email newsletters
3. Clearly state when users have navigated to the newsletter sign-up process
4. Don’t pre-select any newsletters for users unless they have clicked on a link that named a specific newsletter
5. In multi-step processes, let users know how many steps remain
6. Explain the ‘value proposition’ – what’s in it for me?
7. Manage expectations – what will I get when and how often?
8. Have a clear Privacy Policy and if you use incentives - be transparent
9. Send a confirmation email, or maybe even the last newsletter – but tell the subscriber to look out for it
10. On the confirmation page / email get subscribers to add you to the contacts list!


Any other contenders ?