How to Structure an Irresistible Email Opt-In Page

Note: This is the fifth installment of the Email Marketing 101 series.

Airplanes are one of the safest ways to travel for a reason, the pilots utilize checklists and structure.

They have to, because without them, thousands of people would die each year.

And the same is true for writing an irresistible email opt-in page.

If you don’t follow structure, and if you don’t build the best opt-in page you can, you could miss out on thousands of extra subscribers every year.

If you miss just 5 a day, that adds up to 1,825 people per year.

Luckily, there is a simple structure great email opt-in pages follow.

The structure looks like this:

• Headline
• Benefits
• Call to Action
• Opt-In

And it all begins at the top of the page.

1. The Headline

The above screenshot is from an old landing page for the newsletter over at Illuminated Mind by Jonathan Mead, where he helps people live and work on their own terms.

Take a look at his headline. It’s very simple, it grabs your attention, and it gets the job done.

The headline is the most important part of your opt-in page, because if it fails to grab attention, your visitor goes bye-bye.

Writing magnetic headlines comes with practice. The more you write, the better you get, and after while, you’ll just know when a headline feels right, kind of like being in touch with the force.

Most people write the headline in 5 minutes, but you’re smarter than that, aren’t you?

You’re going to spend at least half of the time on your headline, because you know that it is what will make or break your newsletter landing page.

2. The Benefits

Take a look at the landing page from I Will Teach You to Be Rich by Ramit Sethi above.

He uses bullet points to grab your attention and get the benefits across quickly. I do the same on my email opt-in page.

When a potential subscriber lands on your opt-in page, they’re going to be focused on one thing and one thing only, and that is: what’s in it for me?

That’s where bullet points come in. They grab attention, fast.

If you write them correctly.

3. The Call to Action (CTA)

Once you have around 3-5 powerful bullet points, it’s time to time for your call to action.

You can see a perfect example of a non-pushy call to action by Pat Flynn above on his landing page for eBooks the Smart Way.

A solid call to action gives instructions on what to do next.

The only rule for your call to action is that it has to be crystal clear. Tell people exactly what you want them to do next.

4. The Opt-In Form

The final step is to put an opt-in form below your call to action. It wouldn’t make much sense otherwise, would it?

And we don’t really need a screenshot for this one, do we? 😉

If you use Aweber, or any high-quality email service provider, they’ll give you a simple code you can copy and paste onto your email opt-in page.

It doesn’t have to be fancy, just a simple form that captures name and email.

And that, my friend, is the basic structure of an irresistible landing page for your newsletter. Simple, isn’t it?

You can always add testimonials once you get them, but for now, stick to the basics.

Summary

Creating an irresistible opt-in page is not hard. It takes structure and hard work, but anyone can do it.

And the more you practice, the better you get.

Just follow this simple structure:

• Headline
• Benefits
• Call to Action
• Opt-In Form

Get it out there, test, and tweak.

Action Steps

If your opt-in page is, shall we say, less stellar, then look at my opt-in page and others around the web, and improve it.

Open a document, map out the main structure we talked about above and fill in the blanks.

Tell people why they should sign-up and what they get.

Keep it as simple as possible at first, and then add to it. This will minimize overwhelm and frustration.

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