Are you ditching your readers as soon as they subscribe to your email newsletter?
When someone signs up for your email newsletter, you have just one chance to make a great first impression that subscribers may hold onto for the duration of their subscription.
An email thank-you page is a page that we don’t look at very often. I mean, why would we? The problem with this is that thank-you pages often have outdated copy, old promotions and broken links.
I’d say that 50% of the thank-you pages I see that have links are linking to broken, outdated pages. Even more troublesome, many of the thank-you pages I see don’t have links at all.
A “thank you for subscribing” note is not enough.
Email Thank-You Page Mistake #1: Saying “thank you”…. and nothing else.
So you’ve done all the hard work it takes to get someone to subscribe. They’re happy, they’re looking forward to your email, they’re excited to hear from you… they subscribed.
And then you say “thank you” and drop off the face of the earth.
No redirection, no friendly note, no link to some relevant articles, nothing. That’s like walking your dog on a leash, bringing them to the park, and then dropping the leash, getting in the car, and leaving.
Email Thank-You Page Mistake #2: Broken, irrelevant, outdated links.
So you’ve written a little thank-you page for your happy new subscribers. You’ve even provided a few links for them to go back to your blog. Unfortunately, your link is broken and your subscriber starts to think you’re not paying very much attention to them anymore.
Or, you’ve sent them to your blog, rather than to some selective blog posts related to the page they came in on. Let’s remember, just because they signed up for your email newsletter doesn’t mean you want them to leave. I know you know that, but giving them old broken links or unrelated ones will convince them that you do.
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Email Thank-You Page Mistake #3: Dropping the ball on social media.
What happens when someone unsubscribes from your email newsletter? They’re gone, possibly never to return.
But what happens if you provide them links to “like” you on Facebook or “follow” you on Twitter? Well it’s not such a bad deal if they unsubscribe from your email newsletter, because they’ll still get your updates and links via social media. In fact, you’re more likely to get web traffic from social media than from a newsletter because it eliminates all the struggles of delivery and open rates.
That’s why it’s so important to put these buttons on your thank-you page while the subscriber is excited about your content and looking forward to hearing from you on a regular basis.
Email Thank-You Page Mistake #4: Making your email delivery schedule a surprise.
When you’re a daily email newsletter, it’s a very good idea to tell people that they’re going to be getting something from you every day. If they’re automatically subscribed to a few lists, then you probably want to tell them that too.
Nobody likes to be surprised with an overload of email, so be sure to tell people how often you send out your email newsletters and the type of content they can expect in their daily/weekly/monthly digests. If you want to instill trust, you’ll also want to tell them how they can unsubscribe. Our Mequoda thank-you page gives every subscriber the following:
- Confirmation that they are subscribed and that they should be looking for an email from us in their inbox
- Prominent display of social media links
- Request for them to whitelist us
- Topics they’ll see covered in the newsletter
- A “what to expect” paragraph that tells them our editorial and promotional schedule
- Methods for unsubscribing
- An email address for Chris Sturk, our Managing Editor
Email Thank-You Page Mistake #5: Forgetting the upsell
We’re all in this to make money, right? So don’t drop the ball on selling your products. Don’t make the thank-you page an advertisement, but do offer links to relevant products so that you continue to lead the subscriber to the next step in your funnel.
Do you have any more ideas? Please do share in the comments!
