Are you looking to find the best ways to boost your email opt-in rates?

There’s nothing more frustrating than spending lots of time (and money) on your website and email marketing platforms to have so few people signing up.

Sometimes, increasing email opt-in rates takes time, but it doesn’t have to be complicated.

That’s why, in this article, we’ll give you our expert actionable tips to boost your opt-in rates!

We’re confident that as you start to implement these tips, you’ll start seeing more conversions in no time.

1. Use Popups to Hack Your Email Opt-in Rates

For some people, the idea of popups has a negative connotation.

But we aren’t talking about just any popups here.

The popups we are talking about can be your ultimate path to boosting your email opt-in rates. So, let’s look at what makes some popups annoying and figure out how to turn them into workhorses for your conversion rate.

When we think of nasty popups, what comes to mind? Offers that don’t apply to you, horribly designed popups, and are intrusive to the site experience.

So, how do we fix that?

Well, there’s a tool that turns everything wrong about popups and, instead, makes them the marketing tool that you can’t live without. That tool is OptinMonster:

OptinMonster is the market’s most powerful email opt-in tool through optimized popups. By using a combination of eye-catching designs, powerful targeting rules, and a host of different opt-in forms, you can quickly start adding more people to your email lists.

Plus, you can be a complete novice and still create your own high-converting lead generation campaigns. That’s because OptinMonster comes with over 65 beautiful pre-made templates.

So, why is it so easy? It’s all thanks to OptinMoster’s drag and drop visual builder, where you can create your lead generation popup with just a few clicks.

Now, how can we make sure that our popups don’t take away from the user experience?

OptinMonster has 46 different display and targeting rules. These rules aid in custom tailoring your opt-in campaigns to the exact people you want to see them.

More display and targeting rules mean you can show your lead generation campaigns optimized for different audiences.

By customizing your email opt-in popups, you can easily segment these leads into your email lists. That way, it’s an optimized and truly personalized marketing experience from the start.

Take a quick look to see how easy it is to target specific people with OptinMonster:

But how do we know that popups designed with OptinMonster actually work to boost your email opt-in rates?

Because we see the results every day!

Libratone used OptinMonster and targeting rules to explode their email lists by over 400%!

Ready to get similar results? Then, claim your 100% risk-free OptinMonster account today!

2. Host a Contest or Giveaway

You are probably thinking, “Wait, I want to grow my email list. What does a giveaway have to do with it?”

Well, you absolutely cannot beat hosing a contest or giveaway for boosting your email options.

In fact, running a contest or giveaway is a win-win for your email opt-in count and your prospective leads.

First, you can make signing up for your email list an condition of entry for your contest.

Second, if you give an account or one of your products away, you obviously have a happy customer. And satisfied customers are likely to get the word out to similar prospects, giving you an additional marketing boost!

If you want a tool to make running your contest or giveaway simple, take a look at RafflePress:

RafflePress is the best online giveaway plugin to boost your email opt-in rates if you are using WordPress.

Here’s how it works:

You select your prize. Then, use RafflePress to create your giveaway. While in that creation process, you get to set what actions qualify as an entry to the contest.

This includes signing up for your email list, referring friends and family, and much more.

RafflePress’s drag and drop contest builder gets your contest looking great and on your website in just a matter of minutes.

Want to see it in action for yourself? Get started with RafflePress today!

3. Use Live Chat to Have Conversations

People love instant connection and crave communication.

Did you know that you can leverage that to encourage people to opt-in for your email list?

Absolutely!

How? Though a live chat tool. Yes, that little chiming box in the bottom-right corner of websites can grow your email opt-in rate!

Most of us just assume that chat is strictly meant for customer or technical service. While that may be true, it’s not the only thing people use it for.

It’s also increasingly being used as a sales and marketing tool. Though, having a live chat doesn’t have to take up too much of your time.

Take chatbots, for example. Chatbots allow your website’s visitors the guilt-free experience of interacting with your brand while you are off handling other things. Bots can help you do things like:

• Greet your customers and visitors
• Collect information (like email addresses)
• Answer questions
• And more…

Live chat and chatbots fulfill that without coming across as intrusive. People can still feel like they are in control.

If you want to pitch a more straightforward opt-in message without the help of a chatbot, that’s fine too. You can time the message based on user behavior. For instance, you can prompt a chat when a reader is towards the end of a blog. This timing is perfect since that behavior indicates that they enjoy your content or find it helpful.

Or, you can trigger it when they click on a specific button (say, one of the related articles). It’s an intent-based marketing technique that borrows ideas from behavioral psychology to influence your customer’s decision.

For more information on live chat, check out Live Chat Best Practices: How to Streamline Customer Service.

But, if you’re ready to add live chat to your site, check out our list of the 13 Best Live Chat Plugins for WordPress (Pros And Cons).

4. Make an Impression With Videos

Videos can be a fantastic way to share a call to action (CTA) to increase email newsletter opt-ins.

For a while now, video has been a vital marketing tool since it’s known to get 66% more qualified leads.

Unlike popups and live chat, videos go beyond your website. You can share your video content on social media platforms and video hosts such as YouTube.

But let’s take a peek at how video helps feed website visitors to your email lists.

You can obviously embed a video in your website popup but also include its thumbnail in your email marketing copy.

And guess what happens when you add a video element to your email? By adding video content to your emails, you could see your click-through rate rise by up to 300%.

Videos are highly engaging because they are visual and easy to grasp.

But you have to pull it off well—don’t be generic or use an explainer video for your email subscription pitch. Instead, use a human actor (or your animated brand mascot), keep it short and conversational, and be specific in your call to action.

5. Build Credibility Around Your Newsletter

A great way to boost your email opt-in rates is by building trust.

In fact, you can have the most enticing offers, the most extravagant giveaway, and amazingly produced videos. But if people don’t trust your brand, nothing will come of it.

So, how can you build credibility and trust?

First, humanize your messaging. Write your subscription pitch in the first person and add your photo—if you are a personal brand. Even small companies are personalizing their brands to show their prospective leads just who is behind the company.

Suppose you don’t have much brand awareness. In that case, you can ask your existing readers’ to give you testimonials or work with influencers to get an endorsement.

Second, consider the power of social proof on your website.

Yes, social proof is a genius way to convince people to opt-in to your email list. That’s because social proof is unmatched in building trust on your website.

When using social proof as a marketing tool, there’s only 1 platform that comes to mind: TrustPulse:

TrustPulse is a WordPress plugin that leverages the power of social proof to increase site conversions by up to 15%. This builds both trust and instills a fear of missing out by showing notifications of activities taken by real people on your site.

In fact, adding social proof notifications is one of the most effective conversion tactics that require the least amount of effort.

These notifications prove that people trust you and find value in your site and newsletters. And yes, you can add social proof popups to your site, even if your business is new.

And if you take advantage of TrustPulse’s innovative targeting features, you can fine-tune the exact messages and the timing of your email opt-in calls to action.

Ready to add social proof notifications to your website? Sign up for TrustPulse today!

6. Try A/B Testing to Change Up Your Message

Now that you have a solid foundation for your email opt-in strategy, there’s 1 more thing to go over.

You probably won’t get the most optimal design or CTA on the first try. And what works in February may not work come August.

That’s why it’s so crucial to A/B test.

Tools like OptinMonster have A/B testing built into their platforms so you can test multiple designs and campaigns in real-time. Then, you can use the results to make data-driven decisions to improve your email opt-in campaigns.

For example, let’s look at how OptinMonster’s A/B testing technology works.

• It randomly shows each campaign variation to your visitors until you know there’s a clear winner
• It lets you know whether or not your campaign is performing above average
• Combined with our in-depth Conversion Analytics, you’ll get detailed A/B testing statistics

Many businesses already use OptinMonster’s A/B Testing tool to split test their email opt-in campaigns. This tells them which campaigns are most successful in driving newsletter signups.

You can use A/B Testing with all of OptinMonster’s templates. However, it works best when you also experiment with the campaign triggers and display rules. That way you can see how campaigns perform for different audience segments and different locations.

And that’s it for our guide on actionable tips to boost your email opt-in rates. As you can see, it can be pretty easy to grow your email subscription once you have the right tools and strategy.

It takes a little work, but the rewards are absolutely worth it.

If you found this article helpful. If so, you’ll definitely want to check out the following resources:

• Lead Generation Strategies Proven to Boost Your Reach + FREE ebook
• 25 Conversion Rate Optimization Tools That Pros Can’t Ignore
• How to Add an Email Optin to WordPress in Under 5 Minutes

These articles will have even more information on improving your lead generation and conversion marketing strategy.