Include subscription forms on your website

Adding subscription forms to strategic pages of your website is essential for a solid contact acquisition strategy. Although every website has its own special features, the areas on which subscription forms traditionally work best are the homepage, the navigation bar, and blog articles.

For those subscription forms, make sure to use a double opt-in process. A double opt-in is when a new subscriber receives an email asking them to confirm their email address by clicking a link. This helps eliminate mis-typed or fake email addresses and makes sure the recipient is really interested in your newsletter.

Some emailing solutions offer the opportunity to design double opt-in subscription widgets to add to your websites and increase your email database. A subscription widget is a piece of code that you can add to your site. It creates a basic form where a user can enter their email address and sign up for an email list. 

How to set up subscription forms on your website

Make sure to use an Email Service Provider (ESP) that offers subscription widgets, and set them up on your website: 

• Decide if you prefer to embed a registration form on your website page, or if you want the online form to be opened in a new window when a button or link is clicked.

• Fill in the basic elements of your widget, such as the contact list, where new subscribers will be added.

• Define the widget fields that are going to be linked to your custom contact properties. You can collect additional information such as the subscriber’s name, location, phone number, or gender.

• Collect explicit consent from your subscribers to comply with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). For this, include a consent checkbox on the widget that users must check to subscribe to your newsletter.

• Design your subscription form to fit your website look by changing the colors of each part of the form (text, button, background) and customizing the font. Also design your confirmation email and confirmation page. 

• The last step is to integrate the HTML code of the widget into your website. For that, just copy and paste the code into your site.