• Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer

Marketing Effects

B2B Lead Generation

  • LinkedIn

How To Get Your Visitors To Opt-in – Reverse Squeeze Pages

May 20, 2007 by marketingeffects_upx1cx 8 Comments

So you’ve got your website up and running and you’ve got your newsletter up and running. You’ve just got one problem – you don’t have anybody subscribing to your newsletter.

[google 8619449963490002174]

So how do you go about getting your visitors to go from just visiting your site to opting into your newsletter?

Well, it used to be as simple as putting little box on your website that said, sign up for our free newsletter, and if you did that, people would sign up. Unfortunately, those days are long gone. People used to think it was cool to get email, but now we’re all bombarded with so much spam that we’re not going to part with our email address so easily.

So the next logical step after just asking people to opt-in stopped working was to bribe them. Perhaps with a free report, free chapters from your ebook, videos and tutorials, or even podcasts – essentially, you give them something of value in exchange for them giving you their valuable email address.

But are you ready for some more bad news? Yeah – people are so skeptical now that even if you promise to give them something of value for their email address, they’re still reluctant to give it to you. They’ve likely been given crappy reports that were thrown together in a few minutes before from some marketer who was just trying to get their email address and didn’t actually care about providing value.

So since just asking them to opt-in doesn’t work very well, are we just supposed to give up on building an email list?

Heck no – what you need to do is prove yourself first. Give people some valuable content BEFORE you ask them to give you their email address. That can be as simple as writing great articles or blog posts or recording videos that really do provide value to the visitor even if they don’t opt-in.

Essentially, what you’re doing is what famous Internet Marketer, John Reese, calls a reverse squeeze page.

I’ll admit that I’ve been using these for a couple years now even though I didn’t know that they had a name. I just thought it was a good way to get people to opt-in, and as long as you’re providing quality content – it is.

Keep in mind, however, if your site is crap, then people are unlikely to opt-in because they just think you’re going to send them more crap or even worse, spam them. Reverse squeeze pages will not work on sites with crappy content. If you want to see an example of a reverse squeeze page in action, you can visit my snake site, boatips.com and see how I provide content before I ask for the subscriber to opt-in on all my article pages.

One of my favorite methods for implementing reverse squeeze pages is to offer a free report at the bottom of an article or blog post. So yes, they’re getting free content on my site, then they’re getting a free report from me, so there’s a whole lot of free stuff being given away before I ever ask for money.

And you know what, even the first few emails I send them are likely to contain just content, or maybe a very soft sell for a product included with a lot of valuable content, so that even if they don’t buy the product, they got value by reading the newsletter.

If your subscribers know that every email you send them is going to be a promotion for something, they’re going to start deleting your emails before ever reading. On the other hand, if you’re providing valuable content in every email you send, then people will actually look forward to seeing your emails, and won’t mind if you take a few moments to recommend a product to them.

And that covers getting people to opt-in to your site – give reverse squeeze pages a try and see how it works for yourself.

Internet Marketing,  Internet Marketing Lessons,  Marketing Videos

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Teodor M Muntean says

    September 3, 2007 at 7:55 pm

    Hi Gary,
    Excellent work! Congrats! Even if I know it, I listened to all your videos (found them on Youtube).
    All the Best,
    Teodor

    Reply
  2. Angela Render says

    November 2, 2007 at 12:35 pm

    THANK YOU!!! I’ve been carrying on a losing argument with my clients who have latched onto those hideously long squeeze pages that offer nothing more than a convoluted hard-sell, while not offering anything in the content area before demanding an email address for free tips. My only request is for some concrete numbers? Has anyone done a test to see how people respond to each sort of squeeze page?

    Reply
    • Ryan Even says

      April 20, 2012 at 8:59 pm

      I know this post is a few years old, but I’ve tested this extensively and have found that although Opt In rates are significantly lower with a reverse squeeze page, the quality of the people that opt in is higher (and they buy more). Plus you don’t get nearly as many fake email addresses (always a plus).

      Reply
  3. S. Kumar, Learnhomebusiness.com says

    November 13, 2007 at 4:29 am

    That’s great information Gary,

    It’s always the good content that drives
    everything for a website…be it, susbscribers,
    Sales, reference!

    Courteously — S. Kumar
    http://www.learnhomebusiness.com

    Reply
  4. Vishen says

    April 9, 2008 at 9:39 am

    I heard about your site at the Strategic Profits seminar in Orlando this year. Great article here Gary. I added it to MarketingSqueeze.com. Would publish some of your articles on my blog Blog.MindValleyLabs.com. Do you do syndication?

    Reply
  5. Genevieve says

    March 26, 2010 at 7:00 pm

    Excellent information! Thank you Gary. This information answers a question I’ve been wondering about for days and wanted to know before I start a website.

    Reply

Trackbacks

  1. Do Squeeze Pages Really Work? « Internet Marketing Tips says:
    November 11, 2007 at 7:15 pm

    […] next find was another blog entry, also posted in May of 2007 called: “How To Get Your Visitors To Opt-in – Reverse Squeeze Pages.” Here, Gary argues that sign-ups for free e-newsletters and other offers are on the decline as web […]

    Reply
  2. Internet Marketing Tips » Blog Archive » Do Squeeze Pages Really Work? says:
    August 22, 2008 at 6:14 pm

    […] next find was another blog entry, also posted in May of 2007 called: “How To Get Your Visitors To Opt-in – Reverse Squeeze Pages.” Here, Gary argues that sign-ups for free e-newsletters and other offers are on the decline as web […]

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Let’s work together

Get in touch with us and send some basic info about your project.

Contact Us

Footer

Social

Follow along on social media.

  • Facebook
  • Twitter

Contact

888 W Big Beaver Rd Suite 200
Troy MI 48084
Get directions
248-787-3232

Navigation

  • Home
  • Blog
  • Contact

Newsletter

Stay up to date by subscribing to our newsletter.

Copyright © 2023 · Business Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in