In this article, you’re going to learn more about how you can Design a Pop‑Up Form that beautifully welcomes your site visitors and then converts them into subscribers. Whereby, you can simply create custom forms with Mailchimp. In short, Mailchimp helps small businesses do big things, with the right tools and guidance every step of the way.
With Mailchimp, you can grow your audience with unlimited free signup forms. And even start collecting the data you need. So that you can send your customers more personalized, relevant content. Another great tool to use is the WPForms. WPForms is the most beginner-friendly drag & drop WordPress forms plugin.
At WPForms, they build software that helps you create beautiful responsive online forms for your website in minutes. Likewise, you can start building smarter WordPress forms if you get WPForms now. That said, let’s now look at the topic of the day. What is a Pop‑Up Form? How do you Design a Pop‑Up Form?
What is a Pop‑Up Form?
In marketing, a webmaster may Design a Pop-Up Form — small windows that appear over the top of online pages as a web user browses over the internet — to create more subscription attention. Some of them come with pre-built WordPress form templates that can be easily customized. So that you don’t ever have to start from scratch unless you want.
According to Wikipedia, the first-ever pop-up ad appeared in the late 1990s on the web hosting website Tripod.com. In their early days, pop-ups were primarily used by third-party advertisers, and they were particularly cringe-worthy. Do you remember the first time a brightly colored pop-up jumped out on your screen?
With some alerting you that you’d won some sort of content or prize? I know I do. And as far as I can remember, I never collected any of those fabulous prizes. Over time, consumers and web browsers alike got better at hiding or ignoring these types of pop-ups. And eventually, advertisers gave up.
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Nowadays you’ll rarely see a sketchy third-party pop-up — unless you find yourself on a, particularly sketchy website. For a time, pop-up ads largely disappeared from the internet. But, they eventually became replaced by pop-up forms.
Only this time it wasn’t third-party advertisers that were using this pop-up format. Indeed, it was marketers like you and me. Because of the association of intrusive ads with this pop-up functionality, marketers need to be careful of when and how they appear as well as the type of content they present.
Types of Pop-Ups include:
As more and more marketers have started using pop-up forms, a mini-industry of pop-up providers has emerged, offering bells and whistles that were never available before. Most notably, pop-up tools have proliferated the types of triggers that prompt a pop-up to appear.
Among the most popular pop-up triggers are:
- Page entrance: This appears when the visitor first gets to the page. These are often considered the most annoying. But can be used effectively with the less-intrusive formats.
- Page scroll: Pop-up appears when the visitor scrolls to a certain point on the page. These are great for long-form content when you don’t want to embed CTAs in the content.
- Element interaction: Pop-up appears when the visitor clicks on or hovers over a specific element. These are highly effective since the user took a specific action with the intent to convert.
- Time on page: Pop-up appears when the visitor has been on the page for a specific amount of time.
- Exit intent: Exit-intent pop-ups appear when the visitor scrolls towards the top of the page to leave. Consider it a last-ditch effort to capture their attention before they leave.
- Inactivity: Pop-up appears when the user has not taken action on the website in a while.
Now that we know a little more about pop-up forms, let’s get back to the core question: Should marketers be using them? And in order to properly answer that question, we need to consider two slightly more specific but related questions.
Here are the questions:
- Do they work?
- Is it possible to create inbound pop-up forms that don’t, well, suck?
Let’s dig in.
Do Pop-Up Forms Work?
Small internet windows that pop up on your screen can be useful, annoying, or dangerous – often used by advertisers to get your attention or by viruses to trick you into clicking on them. Sometime back, advertisers used Pop-Up Form as a way to get your attention, but users soon became so annoyed.
Leading to some software providers and all the major web browsers introducing pop-up blockers. As a result, some better uses for pop-ups — for example, to display helpful information or show videos — have been restricted. But, not all pop-ups are there to infect your computer.
On some sites, they’re used to explain something so that you don’t have to navigate away from the main window. Also, sometimes pop-ups appear when you need to download or install something from a web page. Only ever interact with these pop-ups if you trust the website they’ve come from.
According to research conducted by Sumo, the top performing 10% of pop-up forms convert at a whopping 9.3%. Now I don’t know about you, but an additional 9.3% conversion rate across my website sounds pretty good to me.
The numbers don’t lie: Pop-up forms work. However, is that worth sacrificing the experience that a visitor has on your site? The inbound answer is no. User experience trumps all else. But, what if you didn’t have to sacrifice performance for experience? What if you could create user-friendly pop-ups that didn’t suck?
Is there such a thing as an Inbound Pop-Up?
If you ask someone how they feel about pop-ups, they’re likely to offer an emotional response that loosely resembles a child eating vegetables (I call this expression “blegh”). People hate the idea of pop-ups. Most pop-ups out there are annoying.
What’s more, the pop-ups that annoy you the most are the ones you’ll remember the longest. But here’s the thing: not all pop-ups are bad. Pop-ups can be used for good, and they can be a healthy part of an inbound strategy. Just think about email marketing for a second.
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Email is another example of a channel that has been heavily abused. We’ve all gotten some crappy emails throughout the years. But as inbound marketers, we know to use email responsibly and to only send a contextualized email that adds value to people’s lives. The same goes for pop-ups.
When used correctly, they can actually enhance the experience a user has on your website, as well as boost your conversion rates. By the same token, Fullscreen Welcome Mats help you get visitors’ attention from the moment they land on your site. 70% of the people who visit your site are going to bounce and never come back.
There’s really no better way to grab visitors’ attention than with a welcome mat popup. Not only to grab your site visitor’s attention but also to help them remember you and connect with your brand. But, it’s important to get it right.
You can use welcome mat popups in many ways:
- Grow your email list
- Display a targeted offer or coupon
- Showcase new products and services
- Win new subscribers by highlighting your best content
- Send visitors to your social media profiles
- Update customers on company policy changes like business hours or shipping fees
By now, you’re probably wondering how you can create your own welcome mat popup. It’s so easy to do it! Just follow the simple steps in this article to get started. And now, let’s get to our main business. How to Design a Pop‑Up Form the best way.
How to Design a Pop‑Up Form that Works
As you plan to design a pop-up form, you need to understand that sometimes they can get a really bad rap. But, when used the right way, they can actually enhance your user browsing experience. And even help you drive signups, engagement, and revenue.
Important to realize, when you create or design a pop-up form in Mailchimp, all your forms will be highly customizable, mobile-friendly, 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. Right in the same place you manage and track all of your other marketing.
The problem with most pop-ups is they get in the way of the visitor’s experience on a website, rather than enhance it. Oftentimes this is because what’s being offered in the pop-up is either not valuable to the visitor, or it has nothing to do with the page they’re on.
To boost engagement with your pop-up as well as enhance the experience that someone has on your site, be sure to offer something that is both valuable and relevant to them. Given the page that they’re on. Here are some guidelines to follow as you Design a Pop‑Up Form that’s successful:
1. Have your customers in mind as you Design a Pop‑Up Form
By its very nature, a pop-up 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. Mailchimp makes it easy to give subscribers the opportunity to update their profile or preferences once they’re a part of your list, so don’t feel obligated to collect every possible piece of information from people as they’re signing up.
- 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.
2. Always think about the way people engage with your pages first
Another common mistake marketers make with pop-ups is having them appear at the wrong time. Adding more salt to the annoyance factor. Be strategic about the timing and trigger of your pop-ups. Think about the way that visitors interact with certain types of pages on your site.
For instance, when someone engages with a blog post, they do so by scrolling down the page as they read the content. If you want to catch your visitors while they’re most engaged, then you should customize your pop-up to appear when someone has scrolled halfway down the page.
Similarly, you might find that people who stay on your product or pricing pages for more than 30 seconds are highly engaged. Why? Because they’re taking the time to read through and consider their options. In this scenario, you could use a time-based pop-up that appears when a visitor has been on the page for a specific number of seconds.
To better understand exactly how your visitors engage with different pages on your site, try looking into Google Analytics data. Such as bounce rate and average time on page. Better yet, use a tool like Hotjar or Crazy Egg to record users on your site to build heat maps of where they click and scroll. This will give you a better sense of user content engagement.
3. Design a Pop‑Up Form message that’s clear and precise
In this case, add a quick message to your form to highlight the purpose of the mailing list. As well as the incentives they might receive for signing up, or the frequency of your emails. You should also consider the following:
- Choose the right opt-in method. As you’re creating your pop-up 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.
- 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. Mailchimp forms are mobile-friendly by default. So, your audience can painlessly subscribe to your list from any device.
- Preview and test. Before your pop-up 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 pop-up forms on other websites. But, don’t be afraid to make adjustments that you think will help create the best possible experience.
4. Use language that’s specific, actionable, and human
Most pop-up forms have a fairly basic layout. You get a headline, some body copy, and maybe an image. In other words, you don’t have a lot of real estates to work with.
This means it’s super important to nail the copy on your pop-up form. In order to do that make sure your copy is specific, actionable, and human:
- Specific: Specify exactly what a visitor is going to get if they click on your pop-up. Don’t tell them it’s a guide; tell them it’s a 10-page guide with actionable tips. Don’t encourage them to join your email list; ask if they’d be okay with getting two to three emails on a given topic per week.
- Actionable: Let visitors know exactly what you’d like them to do. Instead of “Click Here,” try “Download our Free Guide,” or better yet, “Get my Free Guide.” Craft a compelling call-to-action that will inspire your visitors to take action.
- Human: Remind visitors that there’s a real person behind the pop-up form. Use colloquial language to make your forms friendly. Instead of “Join our email list,” try “Mind if we email you twice a week?” Instead of “Subscribe to our blog,” try “We’d be happy to notify you whenever we publish new articles.”
5. Make sure that you stay on brand & offer incentives
Create a cohesive experience for customers by designing your pop-up form, to match the look and feel of your brand, much like you would a landing page. Mailchimp pop-up forms are fully customizable, so you can create a form that feels right at home on your website with no extra coding required.
Consider adding your brand’s logo to your form or including a beautiful background image — a product photo, perhaps — that catches the eye of your audience. Select a font and color palette that fits your brand, and be sure to create a compelling call-to-action button that encourages people to complete the signup process.
Equally important, incentives can be a great way to drive traffic to your website and encourage people to sign up for your list. And, since you have the option to add a brief message to your Mailchimp pop-up form, it’s easy to make sure all of your site’s visitors are aware of any ongoing promotions.
Maybe you’d like to entice people to subscribe by offering a promo code that gives them a discount at your store or free shipping on their first purchase. Or, maybe you’d rather give new subscribers the opportunity to receive exclusive content and special product updates.
6. Try to not ruin your mobile user’s experience
Luckily, you can incentivize new subscribers in any way you’d like, just be sure it makes sense for your business — and your bottom line. In an effort to improve mobile user experience, Google announced that they were going to start penalizing websites that use what they call “obtrusive interstitials.”
In other words, these are pop-ups that mess with the user experience. Now I don’t know about you, but I certainly don’t want my Google rankings to go down from using pop-up forms. To ensure a user-friendly mobile experience and avoid being penalized by Google, be sure to exclude your pop-up forms for mobile.
On the other hand, you can also use pop-ups that don’t take up the entire screen of the page on mobile devices. Most pop-up tools already offer this type of functionality. But, if what you’re currently using doesn’t, you may need to find a new solution.
For a good user experience, Mailchimp allows you to Embed a form on your site with ease. Whereby, you can add a customizable form to your site’s sidebar, footer, or anywhere you’d like. As a result, this will increase your audience across all channels.
7. Learn from your reports & have a plan for new subscribers
As soon as you Design a Pop‑Up Form, much like the other elements of your marketing campaign that you manage in Mailchimp, generate a lot of valuable data. After designing a form and implementing it on your website, don’t forget to monitor your reports. In order to see exactly how many new subscribers it’s bringing to your list.
Once you’ve identified a baseline for your results, you can change the messaging, timing, and other variables to see how your form’s conversion rates are affected. Although you may Design a Pop‑Up Form that will attract new people to your list, it’s important to plan ahead. So that you know what content you’ll be sending them.
Besides, you can share your form anywhere when you post a simple signup landing page across all your channels to generate leads. You can also collect new contacts with the new Mailchimp mobile app too. Turn an in-person conversation into a new connection.
Your sign-up form is pre-built and ready to go in our mobile app. Send it to your contacts or followers in just one click. Mailchimp has a lot of helpful tools and features to help you make the most of your new subscribers.
Here are just a few ideas:
- Send welcome automation. Show your appreciation to new subscribers by setting up a welcome automation email that sends when someone new joins your list. Offer a discount or exclusive content, promote your best-selling items and newest products. Or just thank your new subscribers for their interest in your business.
- Create an onboarding series. Introduce new subscribers to your business or your products with a helpful onboarding automation series. Provide new subscribers with tips, resources, or educational materials that will help them get acclimated with your business, products, and services.
- Use segmentation to tailor your message. Don’t feel obligated to send all of your subscribers the same content. You can use the information you collect from your pop-up form (like signup location, for example) to create segments. So that you can personalize your marketing and make your overall messaging more relevant.
With built-in signup and pop-up forms connected to your Marketing CRM, your Mailchimp website is optimized to convert leads and help you stay engaged with your audience. If you’re looking to get started with pop-up forms, I’d recommend that you also try the HubSpot free marketing tools.
They’ve built it themselves to help marketers generate more leads across their entire website without sacrificing the user experience. You can also have a look at 17 of the Best WordPress Contact Form Plugins listed for free.
Final Thoughts,
In reality, less trustworthy pop-ups try to get users to click on them. This is dangerous. Some may Design a Pop‑Up Form that includes a button that says ‘Close’ or ‘Cancel’ for that matter. But, there is no guarantee that the link behind the button will dismiss the pop-up.
It could trigger another pop-up or download a virus. It’s safer to close a pop-up in Microsoft Windows by using a keyboard shortcut. Such as Ctrl-W or Alt-F4, or by opening the Task Manager, selecting the browser program, and clicking End Task.
Some pop-ups don’t come from websites but from malware (a malicious type of software) that has been secretly installed on the user’s PC. If this happens, the PC must be thoroughly cleaned using good security software. If the PC has been used to access banking, shopping, and other important sites, all passwords should be changed because they may have been compromised.
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Particularly nasty pop-ups are used to sell fake anti-virus programs, which are sometimes called ‘scareware’. The pop-ups pretend to find viruses on your PC and – after you have paid up – pretend to remove it. In fact, these programs are malware and may install more malware. For further details, see the Microsoft Security page called ‘Watch out for fake virus alerts.
To stop pop-ups in Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 8, go to the Tools menu, select ‘Pop-up Blocker’ and then ‘Turn On Pop-up Blocker. Likewise, to stop pop-ups in Mozilla’s Firefox, click on Tools, select ‘Options’, and then ‘Content’. Click the checkbox next to ‘Block Pop-up Windows. Most browsers have similar options.
That’s all you need to know in order to Design a Pop‑Up Form that easily converts your target audience into potential subscribers. But, if you’ll need more support, you can Contact Us and let us know how we can help you. You can also share some of your additional opinion thoughts, suggestions, contributions, or questions in our comments section below.
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