⛽ Ready and Waiting

John Meese -

When your gas light comes in, and you need to fuel up, where do you stop? If you’re like most people, you stop at the next gas station you see (as long as it doesn’t look too pricey or dirty or dangerous). You may lean towards BP, Shell, or Mapco but you know that they all sell the same fuel, more or less, so the gas station you pick is often the next one you see, once you need it.

On your website, people behave much the same way.

Set Your Website to Ready and Waiting

Once a prospect visits your website, you’ve done half your job. Next, your objective is to convert a prospect to a lead by inviting them to join your email list. Of course, not everyone will be ready to join your email list the first time you ask them to subscribe. Some people will never be interested, but many prospects simply want to browse first. They may be halfway through a blog post when you hit a nerve and suddenly they’re hooked. At that moment, you need to have a very clear answer waiting for them to ask “what’s next?”

Your Ever-Present Call-to-Action

Offering a clear-and-compelling email magnet to grow your email list is an effective strategy that works everywhere on your website, not just on your homepage or sidebar. You can have multiple Call-to-Actions (or CTAs) on your website, but you need to make sure that at least one site-wide CTA is available to your visitors at every point in their journey.

With NotablePress, we accomplish this with a CTA button in the top right of the navigation menu, as well as a CTA section beneath each piece of content you publish, as well. ConvertKit now offers a “Sticky Bar” form that has a similar function, remaining along the top of the browser as people scroll so they always see the offer, and a clear CTA to subscribe. Some people use frequent mid-article CTAs, sidebar ads, or other mediums, but the most important factor is that your CTA is ever-present.

See What Other People See Next

Put yourself in your reader’s perspective, and explore your website while keeping an eye on your available CTAs.

  • When you first visit your website, what do you see?
  • When you've finished reading an article, what do you see?
  • At every point in the process, is “What’s next?” immediately clear?

If not, then you’re losing subscribers. Now’s the time to set that up.