What is a subscription form?
Subscription form is a form that your visitors use to enter into your lists by sending their details.
Please remember that you need a backend system that grabs those subscriber details and store them on your site. This backend system is called Mailing list system or autoresponder system. The functionality of the system depends on the needs of your email marketing.
If you simply want to send a newsletter without any advanced features like tracking all you need a simple autoresponder ... If you like to send email campaigns with tracking code to track the email openings and link clicks then you need more advanced autoresponder. All autoresponder systems comes with the ability to provide you the code for the subscription form.
Subscription forms can be either:
* newsletter/magazine subscription forms
* ecourse subscription forms
* 'One time offer' subscription forms
* Announcement notifications
* Upgrade notification subscription forms
* Renewal subscription forms
All these forms should have bankend software to increase the productivity and usability of the data.
How to keep subscription form code on your site?
1. Login into your autoresponder or mailing system.
2. You can see links like 'Form code' or 'html code' or 'Get the code' etc based on the software you are using. Or ask your vendor where to get the subscription form code in your software.
3. Copy it.
4. Open a web page on your site. Paste that form code at an appropriate area. Save it.
5. If you are created the html web page on your computer and uploading it by ftp, then make sure you don't add extra characters into your form code. Ex: Frontpage extentions add extra tags to the form code.
Tips on creating a subscription form:
* Keep the subscription form on every page of your web site. This way your visitors are exposed to your offer more than once. You can use php 'include' or SSI 'include' tags to achecive this.
* Test the form by subscribing yourself into the list and check that all redirections and links are working properly.
* Use double opt-in which is a recommended method for permission based email marketing.
* Make your subscription form display prominently on your site. Example: Keeping it in top header area or top area of the navigational bar.
* Tell the subscriber about your private policy.
* Tell your subscriber what he/she is going to receive after the subscription.
* Educate your subscriber about your 'Unsubscription' policy and explain the unsubscription process.
* If you are going to use pop-up boxes for subscription forms, use them on very few pages of your site. Use DHTML pop-ups instead of javascript.
