Popup forms sometimes get a bad rap, but when used the right way, they can actually enhance the browsing experience and help you drive signups, engagement, and revenue.
When you create a popup in Mailchimp, your forms will be highly customizable, mobile-friendly, GDPR compliant, and completely free. And, since they don’t require any coding on your part to get started, it’s easy to create a painless signup process for your subscribers in the same place you manage and track all of your other marketing.
Popup forms are an important tool for building email lists that you can use to send marketing offers, email newsletters, abandoned cart emails, and happy birthday emails that will keep customers engaged in and loyal to your brand.
In this article, we’ll provide tips and best practices to help you create effective popup forms and use them to grow your audience.
What is a signup form?
Sign up forms are used for collecting customer information even though those customers may not have purchased a product or service from you yet. For example, you can put a signup form on your website asking for customers’ information in exchange for a discount or to receive a free product of some kind. Sign up forms help potential customers start building a relationship with a brand. Forms can also be used to better understand customer intent. There are several different templates available in the Mailchimp library that can be used for mini quizzes to help you uncover the visitor’s desired intent.
Sign up forms typically integrate with your email marketing software, where you can start building lists and segmenting your audience into different groups based on their stage in the buyer’s journey.
How do you create a signup form?
Creating a signup form is easy, and your email marketing platform will walk you through the process of how to build one that easily helps capture customer information. You can also use a signup form template based on your digital marketing needs and how much information you want to collect on your customers. Mailchimp offers a variety of different signup form templates depending on your goals and the different types of information you want to collect. Once your signup form is complete, we’ll provide you with easy-to-understand instructions for how to implement it on your website.
Create forms with your customers in mind
By its very nature, a popup form is designed to make it easy for your customers and other site visitors to sign up for your mailing list. As you’re planning and designing your form, be mindful of the experience you’re creating for your audience.
Limit the number of fields in your form
Don’t overwhelm your audience with a tedious and difficult signup experience. Include only the form fields that are most important to your business and your marketing goals. Opt-in rates are likely to increase when there are fewer form fields for users to complete.
Keep your messaging clear and relevant
Before taking the time to fill out your form, your audience will probably want to know what exactly they’re signing up for. Add a quick message to your form to highlight the purpose of the mailing list, the incentives they might receive for signing up, or the frequency of your emails. Even a simple message, like “Subscribe to get product updates in your inbox” or “Sign up to receive weekly updates and special offers from our store,” would do the trick. Not sure if your messaging or copy is the right fit? Run an a/b test to find a variation that resonates with your audience.
Choose the right opt-in method
As you’re creating your popup form (or any form in Mailchimp, for that matter), you’ll now have the option to toggle between single opt-in and double opt-in. Double opt-in forms require people to confirm their subscription before joining the list, while the single opt-in method eliminates friction from the signup process by allowing subscribers to enter their information and join the list in one simple step. Additionally, the settings for email opt-ins can be found in audience settings, whereas SMS opt-ins are managed at the program level and through the form configuration.
Optimize for mobile
Your audience interacts with your brand in a variety of different ways and from a variety of different devices, so it’s important that each element of your marketing—including your custom signup forms—look great no matter how they’ve accessed your site. As you build a form, you’ll be able to preview how the form appears on mobile and desktop, so you’ll know that your audience can painlessly subscribe to your list from any device.
Preview and test
Before your popup form goes live to your entire audience, be sure to preview and test to make sure everything is just right. While testing, consider your own experience with popup forms on other websites and don't be afraid to make adjustments that you think will help create the best possible user experience for your audience.
