Everybody wants a high-converting landing page. And for good reason.
The “fastest way to boost [online] results” isn’t increasing your marketing budget, launching a slick new social strategy, or even partnering with a mega influencer. No, what your site really needs to drive bottom-line results are landing pages that get clicked.
Here’s the problem: if all you optimize are the on-page elements … you’re actually ignoring one of the most crucial steps in the entire conversion process: “What’s next?”
In other words, unless you have a plan to nail what happens immediately after someone signs up for your email list … that landing page you worked so hard to create may just be worthless.
To put it bluntly, default “Thank you” pages and “Click here to confirm” messages suck. They’re canned, unengaging, and thoroughly inhuman. Even worse, they totally squander all the positive momentum earning a new subscriber naturally generates.
So, instead of dropping the ball with your very first interaction, here are three ingredients you can use to create high-converting confirmation pages and emails.
1. Show Them Exactly What’s Next
To begin, high-converting confirmation pages and emails are all about making it easy for your reader to say, “Yes.” Insanely easy.
This means guiding them through the confirmation process one step at a time.
Start by customizing your confirmation page itself. Don’t assume that just because your autoresponder was “Sent,” that your new lead knows what to do.
For example, Ramit Sethi of I Will Teach You to Be Rich takes assumes nothing. Instead, after signing up, the very next page shows users exactly how to confirm … even before the confirmation email arrives.
Even more exact, clicking that “Go to your inbox” link sends them directly to whatever email platform they signed up under with the search bar automatically filled in to display the email he wants them to find:
Within the email is a stripped down, personally worded message with just one call-to action: “Click Here to Confirm.” Moreover, he explains why the confirmation process is vital.
Joanna Wiebe of CopyHackers follows the same “here’s exactly what’s next” pattern. First, after signing up, new subscribers are sent to this custom confirmation page:
Clicking through, the confirmation email is brimming with Joanna’s normal, conversational tone. However, notice that even though Joanna gives her subscriber a preview of what’s to come and strong incentives to confirm, there’s just one clickable call-to-action:
To maximize your own confirmation process, you should be just as helpful and … exact.
With GetResponse, you can even add audio and video messages to your confirmation page that automatically detect the “email client used by the subscriber and display the appropriate tutorial.”
2. Ask a Real Question
There’s something irresistible about questions.
From a neurological perspective, questions create what’s known as an open loop, which activates curiosity and fires up a hard-wired drive to “close the loop” by answering. This is the Zeigarnik Effect, named for Russian psychologist named Bluma Zeigarnik who discovered the neuro-phenomenon.
What does this mean for your confirmation process? Real questions lead to higher engagement rates … not just on the confirmation front, but in the form of responses.
For instance, Danny Ivy from Mirasee drives his audience to respond twice in his very first email:
In fact, if you look closely, you’ll see that Danny actually triples the likelihood of engagement by incorporating three essential copywriting elements that a real question provides:
- First, he builds rapport by expressing appreciation for joining the tribe.
- Second, he activates the Zeigarnik Effect by asking a simple, pointed question, “Did I get that right?”
- Third, he gains valuable information about his target market through the responses.
Even better … one hour later, Danny sends a follow-up email to his confirmation email that majors — you guessed it — on a question:
When I asked Misraee’s training manager Lizzie Merritt about the response rates, she told me they generally receive between “10 and 20 direct responses” from the first email and another “5 to 10” from the second every week.
3. Make It Personal
Lastly, you’ll get a huge leg up on conversions if you craft a confirmation email that’s personalized, especially given your lead’s expectation that these types of messages are almost always generated from an autoresponder.
For a bit of inspiration, dig into GetResponses’ 9 Super-Easy Ways to Personalize Your Email which includes a rundown of how to integrate custom messages, videos, and images, all of which are especially powerful for ecommerce:
Bear in mind, however, that making it personal isn’t just about sending segmentation product offers. Instead, it’s about communicating like a human.
By far my favorite example of this comes from Sujan Patel, whose uber personal email convinced Oli Gardner — the self-proclaimed man who’s “seen more landing pages than anyone on the planet” — to actually write back:
How does Sujan make his confirmation emails so personalized? Simply put, he writes the way he talks. He includes personal details — “I was doing my pre dinner routine” — and (surprise, surprise) he asks a question — “What’d you think?”
His newsletter autoresponder is equally personal and simple:
And do they convert?
Absolutely.
As Sujan told me one-on-one in my Landing Page Optimization article, “Of the people who subscribe to the blog, 6.6% click on a link to one of my two software products — Narrow.io or ContentMarketer.io — or on one of my two books. And 39% of those clicks eventually convert into either a product trial or a book purchase.”
Don’t forget the next step …
Everybody wants a higher converting landing page. Unfortunately, unless you focus on guiding your new subscriber immediately into the next step … all your on-page elements might just be for nothing.
Remember, high-converting emails aren’t just for nurture campaigns and sales teams. Instead, make the absolute most out of your confirmation page and email by including each of the three ingredients:
- Show them exactly what’s next
- Ask a real question
- Make it personal
Do you have a favorite confirmation page or email that knocked your socks off?
Be sure to share it in the comments.