While product coaches know the importance of an email list, they often overlook HOW it’s being captured.

An email opt-in is like the front desk of your business.

It’s one of the first things your audience is greeted with before they can enter the building and explore other amenities.

Imagine if your front desk is rude, hidden, or confusing, visitors will turn around and just walk away.

A poorly designed opt-in will lead to low conversion rates (less people joining your email list).

This leads to other negative outcomes (which is why you should avoid it):

1. Low ROI on your marketing effort:

Let’s be honest, all the marketing you’re doing is to get more customers to buy your products or services.

Having a bad email opt-in is like having a leaky bucket: no matter how many times you scoop the bucket (marketing effort), you’ll never get the maximum amount of water (revenue) from it.

2. Attracting the wrong people:

Saying the wrong things on your email opt-ins can confuse readers and cause them to subscribe with the wrong expectations.

Attracting the wrong people > they don’t get real value from your emails > they are less likely to buy.

If you have a BIG email list but it’s filled with the WRONG people, you’re wasting time and money (especially since most Email Service Providers charge based on list size).

3. Reduced trust:

People buy from people they trust.

Email is more intimate than social media.

You won’t get opportunities to nurture your leads and build trust if your opt-in rate is low.

The Reason This Happens

This happens when people aren’t convinced about why they should sign up.

They’re unclear of the benefits of exchanging their emails for your offer (even if it’s FREE). What may be obvious to you isn’t always obvious to the customer. Persuasive copy helps bridge this gap by clearly articulating the benefits and addressing any doubts or objections.

95% of selling is educating the customer.

There are other reasons that lead to this mistake:

1. Using vague language

There’s a saying in sales & marketing: “A confused mind doesn’t buy”.

This is a very easy mistake to make. Sometimes when we try to sound clever, we end up confusing our readers.

E.g. “Become a better product manager”

While it implies improvement, it doesn’t specify how one would become better, in what areas, or what “better” actually means.

2. Not addressing objections

People who see your email opt-in will have many questions:

• “Is this for experienced people only? Will it work for beginners?”
• “I’m not a product manager, can I still benefit from this?
• “Is this a PDF book?”
• “Is this worth it?”

If you don’t handle any of the objections effectively, people won’t give you their emails (no matter how good the offer is).

3. Relying on newsletter opt-in forms

Newsletters opt-in forms suffer from the same effect as banner blindness, (where people would ignore elements on a webpage that is perceived to be an ad).

They are often small and get buried at the bottom of a website, which are easily missed.

There’s also not much room to educate readers with more copywriting, which make them have low conversion rates.

How to Fix It

It’s your responsibility to help your audience to make a decision (even if they don’t buy).

And they can’t do that if they keep ignoring your email opt-in form. That’s why it’s better to send your audience to a dedicated landing page (like this one). A good landing page will have no navigation and the layout should be simple and clean.

This forces the reader to a make a binary decision: sign up or leave.

FYI, I use Carrd and ConvertKit to build landing pages for my clients (affiliate links).

Here are other elements of a high converting landing page:

1. A strong promise to achieve a positive outcome

People often make decisions based on emotions and justify them with logic later. We’re pretty selfish and care about how something would benefit us (it’s a survival thing).

When writing your headline, keep this in mind and highlight the desired outcome that people will achieve by signing up.

For example:

• Weak promise: “Join my newsletter”
• Strong promise: “Become a data-informed product manager”

2. Highlight negative outcomes that they’ll avoid

You should also tap into another psychological bias: loss aversion.

Humans would rather not lose something that they have instead of putting effort into making more.

Typical things that people hate losing:

• Time
• Effort
• Money

See this in action:

“Become a data-informed product manager (without getting another college degree)”.

3. Use insider language

If you write for everyone, you attract no one.

Instead of using generic words, use words that resonate with the emotions of the reader. These words will grab and hold your ideal customer’s attention hostage while repelling others. Great marketers do this intentionally to increase the likelihood of attracting the right customers who are likely to buy.

This also makes you more relatable.

Make your readers think:

• “That’s EXACTLY how I feel!”
• “OMG this person really gets it!”
• “It’s like you’re reading my mind!”

See this in action:

“Escape the feature factory by becoming a data-informed product manager (without getting another college degree)”.

4. Crush objections

Despite using insider language to craft a strong promise on how the reader can achieve their dream outcome, they might still have some questions that can lead to doubt.

You won’t be able to handle every single objection on your landing page, so prioritize the most obvious ones based on your customer research.

Here’s a few examples of objections and how I handle them in one of my landing pages:

• “Is this worth it?” - Here’s everything that’s inside…
• “How long will this take?” - A 5 Day FREE Email Course…
• “What if I don’t have much time?” - (Even If You Have a Busy Schedule)

5. Establish trust

This is part of objection handling, but it deserves its own section.

When people go through your email opt-in, they will ask: “Can I trust this person to deliver on the promise?”.

The 3 best ways to boost credibility and trust:

• List down your accomplishments: “I’ve built AI products at company XYZ”
• Mention your job title/experience: “I’m a Director of Product with 10+ years of experience”
• Display client/customer testimonials: “This is so valuable that I’m willing to pay $3000 for it—can’t believe this is free!”

Whenever you’re ready, here’s how I can help:

I can help you build a well-packaged, high-value Educational Email Course (like this one) for your business that will:

• Boost your email opt-in rate by 30-50% (and accelerating email list growth)
• Educate leads on their problems before any sale calls (to warm them up)
• Build trust with leads in days instead of months
• Promote your products/services on autopilot

Interested? Book a free call with me.

See you 😁

P.S. In case you missed it, check out the no.1 mistake that's killing your email list growth.​