8 Questions You Should Ask About Your Signup Process

Striking while the iron is hot is a key part of building a great customer relationship through email. When someone signs up for your emails they are indicating an interest in your company. So building on this engagement is essential to nurturing the relationship with your brand.

Any good signup process starts with the form itself. Set the customer’s expectations and incentivise them. After all, they’re going out of their way to keep in contact with you.

Let’s look at the example of global fashion brand, H&M.

H&M has a clear, easily visible link to its newsletter sign up on the home page, and uses a two-stage signup process to avoid asking everything at once. This is good for increasing uptake and minimising dropout.

H&M also offers a strong incentive to sign up, in the form of a discount off a customer’s next purchase, while providing some insight into what content will be in the newsletters.

At stage two, subscribers receive a ‘welcome’ email, thanking them for their time and encouraging them to open their first email.

This welcome email demonstrates strong use of dynamic content and is also a good example of managing the recipient’s expectations. By sending a branded, targeted campaign upon signup, H&M gives subscribers a glimpse of what they will be receiving in future and will be more likely to pay attention to future messages.

So, based on this example, we’ve identified eight questions email marketers should ask about their signup process:

1. Is my signup form easy to find?
2. Is there an incentive to sign up?
3. Does my form include the sort of emails the reader can expect to receive and the expected frequency?
4. Am I giving recipients the option of providing more than just an email in the signup form?
5. Have I remembered to say ‘thank you’?
6. Am I encouraging the subscriber to open my first campaign?
7. Have I set up a ‘welcome’ email?
8. Have I used any dynamic content or personalisation in the welcome email to target the individual specifically?

If the answer to all of these questions is yes, your campaign will be onto a winner.