A newsletter signup page

Say what they will receive

Updates and news are not an offer. A monthly note with one thing worth knowing about hiring a contractor is an offer, because the reader can picture what arrives and judge whether they want it.

Say the frequency honestly. Occasional means unpredictable, which people have learned to read as frequently. A stated interval you actually keep builds more trust than any promise of quality.

And say what it will not be. Not a sales list, not shared with anybody, not more than once a month. Each of those addresses a real hesitation rather than a hypothetical one.

Show an example

The single most effective thing on a signup page is a previous issue somebody can read without subscribing. It removes every doubt about what they are agreeing to at once.

Publishing the archive openly also makes the material findable, which a mailing list never is. Each issue becomes a page a search engine or an answer engine can find, rather than material that only reaches people already on the list.

If the archive is not good enough to publish, that is useful information about the newsletter rather than an argument for hiding it.

Consent, done properly

Somebody signing up must know what they are agreeing to. Adding people who gave you an address for something else is the commonest breach and the fastest way to be marked as spam.

Keep a record of when and how each person subscribed. Our page on email collection and consent covers what that generally requires. Nothing here is legal advice.

Make unsubscribing trivial and honor it immediately. A difficult unsubscribe produces spam complaints, which damage delivery for everybody on your list rather than only the complainant.

What converts a visitor here

The list below is what converts a visitor into a subscriber. Most signup pages carry a headline and a field and wonder why the rate is poor.

• What the newsletter is about, specifically
• How often it arrives, as a real interval
• A previous issue readable without subscribing
• What you will never do with the address
• One field, unless you genuinely need more
• A clear unsubscribe promise
• Who writes it, named

Incentives, carefully

A discount or a download raises signups and lowers list quality, because many of the people subscribing want the incentive rather than the newsletter. Both effects are real and worth weighing.

Where you offer one, be clear that subscribing is the condition. An incentive that appears to be free and then requires a subscription is a deceptive pattern, covered on our deceptive design page.

The alternative is making the newsletter itself the incentive, which works when it is genuinely good and is the only version that produces a list worth having.

Where the form should sit

On its own page, and in a small number of sensible places elsewhere. A form on every page in three formats is noise, and interruptions that cover the content annoy more people than they convert.

Put it where somebody has just read something useful. The foot of a guide is the best-performing position on most business sites, because the reader has just been given something.

Avoid anything that blocks the page on arrival. It costs more in bounced visitors and in how the page is assessed than it gains in subscriptions.

Keeping the promise

Send what you said, at the interval you said. A newsletter that arrives twice in a week after four months of silence loses more subscribers than any content problem.

If it stops, say so rather than letting it fade. People notice, and an honest note about pausing preserves the list for whenever you start again.

And use the list for what you promised. The moment it becomes a sales channel it was not described as, the unsubscribes and the complaints follow quickly.