I recently bought a new car, or rather, new to me. It’s a 2016 BMW 428i Grande Coupe. She’s absolutely BEAUTIFUL! Beauty (our other car is a large SUV called, The Beast) was an upgrade. Hubby and I had a budget in mind, saw Beauty and fell madly in love even though she was over what we wanted to spend.
Once we made the decision to buy her, the sales process was amazingly simple. BMW had transparency pricing, so there was no negotiating. And we paid cash (Thank you Dave Ramsey), so there was no financing involved.
Once we said yes, our salesperson transferred us to the finance department to collect our money. It was at this time that BMW offered us several optional upgrades. We could buy an extended warranty since BMW’s are known for not being the most reliable mechanically. They also offered other options including routine maintenance, interior damage repair, etc…
These “extras” weren’t even mentioned until we had already opted into the purchase of the car.
And that’s where many newsletter opt-ins miss the boat.
While hubby and I always do our due diligence and evaluate offers VERY carefully, most people don’t take that time and purchase based on emotion. If you want to learn more about how people make purchase decisions, I would highly recommend Melina Palmer’s The Brainy Business podcast.
As soon as someone has said yes to something you are offering, even if it is free, they are much more likely to say yes to your next offer. So, after you’ve created your great freebie to attract more subscribers, you want to make the most out of those warm leads.
It’s important to use optimized thank you pages for anything your prospect or client says yes to. Today we will look at how to optimize pages after your free lead magnet or opt-in offer.
You’ve put in a lot of time to create an amazing opt-in freebie. Your ebook is well written and looks amazing. Your landing page is well crafted and people who visit definitely want to sign up! They happily give you their name and email address in order to download your awesome content.
And then they are shown the door.
You know, that boring and SUPER GENERIC, “Thank you for signing up, your download will arrive shortly.”
I can hear the Whammy music now…
Your prospects are perfectly primed and ready to dive into what you have to offer. Don’t lose out on that energy with a less than stellar takeaway.
What to Include in your Opt-in Thank you page
In order to guide your prospects on the journey to becoming a client, your opt-in thank you page should contain three things.
- Confirmation (and the Thank You)
- Expectations
- Call to action
Let’s take a look at what you can do with each of these sections.
Confirmation and Gratitude
Everyone wants to know that their hard work, entering their name and email address, paid off. Be sure to include a message letting them know they succeeded and that you appreciate them!
This doesn’t need to be formal, long, or fancy. A simple, “Thank you, your download is on the way!” is enough. Unfortunately, this is all you get with most default Thank you pages.
What Should They Expect?
The next step is to include what they can expect. This might be how they will receive their download. Check your email for the link to download. Or it might be the frequency of your newsletter. You can expect to hear from us no more than once a week.
By letting your new subscribers know exactly what to expect (and then sticking with that), you begin building trust.
Call to Action
A call to action can step up your thank you page game and help begin to nurture your prospects. It is the untapped gold mine of thank you pages.
Your call to action will depend on what you want to accomplish with your opt-in or lead magnet.
For example, you can offer an immediate download.
As you can see in Hubspot’s Thank You page, they provide the confirmation and access to download the guide immediately.
Pro Tip
Should you really include the download on the thank you page? Many of my clients hate to wait for an email to get their free goodies so they offer it on the thank you page. However, if the recipient has to click on the link in the email to download the freebie, they are signaling to their email provider that they want to receive more of your emails. It is a good way to help avoid the spam folder.
There are many different calls to action you can offer on your thank you page. Let’s talk about some of them.
Surveys
You may want to gather a few more details about your prospects. While it can be a deterrent to ask too many questions on the initial opt-in form, prospects are more willing to share once they arrive at the thank you page. This can also be very useful for thank you pages related to purchases or webinar registrations.
Invites
One of the biggest questions I get asked is how do I get more people to join my Facebook Group? The thank you page is a great opportunity to do just that. Include a short description of your group along with a call to action for them to join. This is a great way to promote your group and help ensure they get even more exposure to you.
This is also the call to action I use on most of my thank you pages.
You can also use this section to invite them to follow you on social media, send an invite to a friend or check out your other articles.
Low Price Point Upgrade
If you are running ads to get people to your opt-in or even if you just want to make a little extra income, having a low price point product offer on your thank you page is a great opportunity to generate some early sales. Keep the price low (under $49) and offer something simple. This could be a product bundle, short video series, or even a challenge of some sort.
Whitelist Reminder
It’s getting harder and harder to get into someone’s inbox these days. Spam filters are getting very picky. If someone doesn’t engage with your email (open and/or click) on a regular basis, email providers will assume it’s spam and send it to the junk folder. One way to prevent this from happening is to encourage new subscribers to add your email address as a contact in their email system.
You can do this on the thank you page and in the first email. Just remember to include a link to how this can be done on different systems. Not all of your subscribers will be savvy enough to figure it out on their own.
Jump On a Call
If you primarily get your new subscribers from warm leads like speaking engagements or networking events, inviting them right into a consultation or strategy session may make sense. Include a short paragraph of what they can expect on a call and a button linking to your online scheduling app.
Pro Tip
I don’t recommend doing this if your new subscribers are cold leads who haven’t gotten to know you yet. In this case, the thank you page real estate is better saved for one of the other methods. Save this tip for additional thank you pages after a small sale or reengagement opt-in.
Bonus Tip: Testimonials
One more thing you may want to consider adding to your newsletter thank you page is a few testimonials. Remember, we are beginning the first stages of nurturing your new prospect into doing business with you. Help them WANT to receive your newsletter by sharing a few key testimonials from others.
KISS
With so many ideas, it may be tempting to stuff all of them on to one thank you page. Instead, focus on one or two calls to action per page. An overwhelmed mind chooses not to decide. You can always create multiple thank you pages and randomly test out what works best. Or use different calls to action on different thank you pages.
Your thank you page has some of the most valuable real estate you have in your online business. That’s because you’ve already gotten your prospects to say yes once by giving you their name and email address. Getting them to say yes again will be a little easier immediately following.
Take some time to carefully plan out your goals and how you can best use this space.
And, when you need help designing and implementing your thank you pages, give Virtual A Team a call.
