What to SAY on Your Opt-in Page

Objective: To teach you how to write SIMPLE and EFFECTIVELY for your opt-in page to maximize the number of subscribers you get. What You’...

Objective: To teach you how to write SIMPLE and EFFECTIVELY for your opt-in page to maximize the number of subscribers you get.
What You’ll Accomplish: You will know how to write copy that dramatically increases the number of opt-ins.
Estimated Completion Time: 20 minutes
Before you begin: Pull out a blank sheet of paper for the exercise at the end.

Great opt-in pages have great copy that converts visitors into subscribers.

In case you forgot, CONVERSION is when somebody takes an action you want them to take. In this case, that action is subscribing to your list.
The conversion rate tells you how often you’re succeeding. The higher your conversion rate, the better.
If you want your opt-in page to convert, then you need to make sure that words on it are spot-on. That means you need to be able to write copy.

Remember this definition: Copywriting: Writing to entice the reader to do what you would like them to do.

Much of the text you see in your everyday life, from the words on a poster at the subway station to the text on a newspaper, are considered to be copy. It’s a pretty broad term!
Copywriting is an art that can take years to master. But… in about 20 minutes you can write better copy than 90% of internet marketers. The key is to keep it SIMPLE.
There are just five things you need to work on to create a great opt-in page:
1 – Headline
2 – Bullets/benefits
3 – Power words and numbers
4 – “FREE”
5 – Call to action on the button
Let’s go through them one by one. I promise you can write all of these in 20 minutes or less if you just focus on these simple guidelines.
But before I go on, here’s the MOST important thing to remember…

Showcase the FREE Gift

Your opt-in page will get much higher conversions if you make it about the FREE gift.

Instead of telling people all about how wonderful your newsletter is, or how much YOU know and why they should listen to you…“sell” them on the FREE gift.
Remember you are offering them VALUE. By encouraging visitors to grab that free gift, you get them to “say yes” to accepting emails from you – while getting something useful in return.
Now let’s talk about what to SAY…

1 – HEADLINE

The most important part of your opt-in copy is the headline. It’s about 80% of the game.

Headlines have just two simple rules: 1. Grab attention with a compelling benefit and powerful language 2. Capitalize first letter of all the important words

In can take years and years to learn to write great headlines. I still spend more time on headlines than writing anything else. But YOU can do it in about 5 minutes if you don’t try and reinvent the wheel.
I just taught an email marketing workshop for five private students. Nobody spent more than 5 minutes on their headline. I helped them tweak a few small things, but they basically wrote great headlines with almost no coaching. All of them got conversion rates of more than 60%.
How did they do it? They “swiped” their headlines. That means they modeled their own headlines on one that were proven to convert well already.
You can do the same. Writing your headline is drop dead simple with the HEADLINE SWIPE FILE I created for you. It literally has dozens and dozens of headlines you can use as models. Just download it from the Bonus section to save yourself a lot of time.
I recommend that you PRINT that swipe file now and keep it handy. Scribble notes on it as you go along.

2 – BULLETS/BENEFITS

After the headline, the most important copy is your bullet points.

Bullets should list 3-5 (no more) specific benefits that the user will get by opting in. Avoid talking about features and stick to BENEFITS.

What’s the difference between “features” and “benefits?”

• Features are cool things about your free gift.
• Benefits are all the great things your free gift will do for your subscribers.

Here’s what I mean:
Feature: “This car has air conditioning” Benefit: “You will feel comfortable in this car even when it’s 100 degrees outside”
See the difference?
Forget about selling them on how great your information is, how much you researched it, etc. Just tell them how great it will make their life.
Remember what I said about “quick tangible results?” Use your bullet points to tell them the RESULTS they can expect after reading your report:

That’s from an opt-in page that gets great conversions. And it’s easy to see why. I want ALL those things, don’t you?
Your bullets can be even shorter, or can just be a couple of simple sub-headlines (smaller headlines), like this:

Now there are some immediate benefits for anyone whose dog has an embarrassing and yucky problem! If my dog were peeing on the carpet, I’d grab that free report in a heartbeat.
How to decide if you should use a few bullets or just a couple of sub-headlines? Look at other opt-in pages in your niche. If you see a trend, that’s what works best. I suggest you do the same.

3 – POWER WORDS and NUMBERS

Numbers and “power words” are your friend! Use them generously in your copy.

Believe me, the more you focus on power words, the easier it is to write the copy. It practically writes itself.

Some of my favorite power words are:

• Techniques
• Tactics
• Discover
• “1 Tiny”
• Easy
• Secret
• Simple
• Instant
• Now
• Access

And everyone’s all-time favorite: FREE.
I’ve included a big list of power words in the Bonus section with. Download it and use it, because it will make your copywriting go very fast.
You also want to state specific numbers if possible. For example:
Instead of saying: You’ll lose weight fast! Be specific: You’ll lose up to 12 pounds in 14 days!
Instead of saying: Learn to earn money online Be specific: I earned $3,487 in just one month!

4 – FREE

I know I’m repeating myself, but you MUST offer something FREE. It’s much more effective to promote your “free PDF download” or “free ebook” than just your free newsletter. In fact, the more you use the word free on your top-in page, the higher your conversions will be.

REPEAT the word FREE a few times on the page.

Of course, you want to repeat “FREE” within reason. But if you look at this example, you don’t even realize how many times the word FREE shows up. See how you can use FREE in the badges and arrows? It’s subtle but very powerful:

5 – CALL TO ACTION BUTTON

The “Call to Action Button” is the actual button they need to click to submit their email address.

I have done 10 years of testing on which words to put on that big button. And you can’t go wrong if you do any of these three things:

• “Get Your FREE Report Now” (converts better than “Submit”)
• “Click Here to Get Your FREE PDF” (converts better than “Subscribe”)
• “FREE Instant Access Now” (converts better than “Join”)

Pretty simple tips, right? Believe me, they are POWERFUL. Your conversion rates will be a lot higher if you follow them.

Some Examples

Let’s take a look at a few more examples so you can see these principles in action. Here’s one in the business opportunity niche:

This is the WHOLE PAGE. As you can see, the copy is incredibly simple. There aren’t many words. But the words that ARE there make a major impact. In fact, on opt-in pages, too many words and super-complicated copy will lower your conversions a lot.

Don’t give people a lot to do, read, or think about. “Too many options” is the enemy of conversions! The quicker people can see the benefit, the faster their eyes find the opt-in box, and the higher the conversions.

The page above does that brilliantly.
What else is good about this opt-in page? Just look at that headline: “Quit Your Job Within 6 Weeks.” If you’re somebody who’s frustrated with their job and looking for financial freedom, that’s a headline that will grab your attention, isn’t it?
Now how are you going to be able to quit your job in 6 weeks? Well, with the “Unbelievably Lucrative Training Course”!
See the immediate calls to action:

• “Enter Your Best Email Here.”
• “CLICK HERE TO CONTINUE” (in all caps)

It even deals with subscriber objections by clearly saying that it is 100% free and that no credit card is required. Very good stuff!
Now take a look at this opt-in page, which is in the health niche:

Again, this is a very simple opt-in page. The images of beautiful people grab your attention. There’s a compelling headline loaded with power words and numbers (10%, 30 days, NEXT).
There are also very specific instructions on what to do. And the badge saying “free” is a nice way to get that magic word in there in a subtle way a couple of times.
Now, let’s look at one last opt-in page which is a little more sophisticated. It’s longer and has more going on.
This is a special, longer type of page, called a “long form opt-in.” While it appears simple, I don’t recommend you try a page with this much text right now. However it has some good examples of copy. You’ll find the live page here: http://richgrad.com/kmgift.html
This page has no badges or seals, and the design is extremely “old school” – it’s very plain, almost generic. But the copy includes enough powerful elements and the free gift is so attractive, it converts extremely well. Here are some of the best things about this opt-in page:

• An attractive graphic of the free item
• A strong headline with the words FREE and $47 value (the yellow highlighting helps it jump out)
• A call to action in the button text: “Send me my 101 Powerful Affirmations!”
• 3 bullet points with 3 immediate benefits
• A nice testimonial from someone who loves the newsletter

The copy is refreshingly straightforward: this publisher is very up front about the fact that to get the free gift you need to subscribe to his newsletter. His confidence appears to be well-justified, since the AWeber counter on his site shows more than 80,000 subscribers.
NOTE: AWeber is the service that automates the technical side of his email list. Don’t worry about that right now, you’ll more about AWeber and other email list services later in this course.
I personally don’t recommend using a counter like that (it’s hard to read and most people don’t know what it means). But it’s one way of providing “social proof.”

“Social proof” is a way to show evidence that your newsletter is popular and liked by many people. Some forms of social proof are: A stat/counter box showing lots of subscribers A graphic showing lots of Facebook Likes A counter showing Twitter Followers

Interestingly, when you visit Shun-Jian’s blog http://richgrad.com/, he displays a slicker looking opt-in box there:

But when you attempt to leave his site without subscribing, that plain, longer opt-in page is shown. I suspect he displays that “old school” page because it converts well. (Remember, “converts well” means that page gets a high percentage of visitors to actually enter their email and sign up.)
Of course the ultimate test of copy is how people respond. Once your page is up, your conversion rates will let you know how well your words resonate with your audience.
Still, there’s one final step you should always remember to do after you have written your copy…

Pretend You Are a Visitor

Always take one final look at your copy from the perspective of your subscribers.

Pretend you’ve stumbled on your opt-in page. Then ask yourself three questions: Does the headline GRAB your eyes? A mistake many email marketers make is putting their logo at the top of the page, making it the first thing the eyes go to on the page. Forget the logo! Make your headline powerful and the biggest thing they see. Is there anything in your copy that adds little or no value? A big mistake I notice with my students that they are too wordy. Remember, the more concise, the more it will convert. Am I speaking to the needs of this market? It’s not about how good the information is, it’s about what they’ll get out of it! Always focus on how they will BENEFIT.

Once you’ve done this final check, you are ready to create your opt-in page. That’s right, you’re almost ready to bring in some subscribers.
But there’s another CRITICAL step I want you to take. And when I say critical I mean it. 95% of marketers get this wrong. And it’s costing them – a lot. I refuse to allow YOU to make this mistake!
The next step will give you a simple, copy-paste system method for getting off to the RIGHT start.
But right now I want you to get your opt-in page copy written. ALL of it. With everything you’ve just learned, and the swipe files I’ve provided, it shouldn’t take you more than 20 minutes.

Recap

• Compelling copy makes the difference between an opt-in page that converts like crazy and one which falls flat.
• Your HEADLINE is the most important part of your opt-in page.
• Make specific benefits into BULLETS that subscribers can skim fast.
• Generously use POWER WORDS and NUMBERS.
• Offer something valuable that’s FREE to persuade people to sign up.
• Have a strong call to action BUTTON to push the subscriber over the edge.
• Put yourself in your subscriber’s shoes. It will help you write better copy.

EXERCISE

In this exercise, you’re going to create a draft of both your headline and copy. It won’t take a lot of time if you follow this process exactly:

• Write down the 3 biggest needs of people in your niche.
• Of those 3 needs, which one is the most urgent/compelling?
• Grab the HEADLINE SWIPE FILE and pick a template. Write the headline with it.
• Grab the POWER WORDS SWIPE FILE from the bonus section. Sprinkle some power words in the headline that address that one big need.
• Now take your remaining 2 needs. Make 1 bullet point out of each.
• Sprinkle some power words into the bullets.
• Make sure you have used the word FREE at least three times on the page!
• Write the wording of your button. Don’t reinvent the wheel, just copy one of these good buttons:
  Get Your FREE Report Now
  Click Here to Get Your FREE PDF
  FREE Instant Access Now

THE WISE MARKETER KNOWS You are writing for people. Grab them with your headline, speak to their needs, and give them something FREE in return. Ultimately you need to speak to the fears, hopes and needs of your customers. Never lose sight of that and your opt-in page will convert!

NEXT: You’re now an opt-in page master! Let’s take the final step, apply what you’ve learned and create your opt-in page.