There’s no doubt about it - email is one of the most cost-effective marketing channels and offers one of the highest return on investment across channels. That being said, you might be wondering how you can build your email list and capture those valuable email addresses so you can reach your target audience.

Sign up forms are forms you can use to capture your subscribers details and although they vary from business to business, they all aim to ensure that you make it as easy as possible for your web visitor to hand over their email address.

Not all forms are created equal, and as always in a digital marketing context, you have a myriad of sign up form options to choose from. We’ll take a quick look at some alternative form types to your standard one on your website:

• A lightbox pop up
• A feature box
• A sidebar form
• Exit intent pop up
• Scroll box

Lightbox Pop Up

A lightbox pop up is a pop up that appears on your screen and blocks out the rest of your website. It’s quite a controversial pop up in the sense that some people find these kinds of pop ups annoying and distracting as they interrupt your user journey. Other people argue that they are a great tool as they focus a web visitor and nudge them to complete one action - signing up.

Feature box

Feature Box Example

A feature box is a sign-up box that usually appears just above the fold with other content appearing below the box. Feature boxes, more often than not, appear on highly focused landing pages and encourage users to sign up from the get-go.

Sidebar form

Sidebar form example

A sidebar form is a form that appears on the right-hand side of your site and that is usually visible on all the inner pages of your website.

Exit Intent Pop Up

Exit Intent Pop Up

An exit intent pop up is a pop-up form that shows on your website once your website visitor starts to navigate away from your website, for example when they move their mouse towards the button to close the browser.

Scroll Box

A scroll box is a type of form where the box stays and follows you as you scroll down the website page.

Places on your website that offer high conversion potential to get more subscribers via your sign up form:

While the above examples illustrate different types of forms/pop-ups that you can use to get web visitors to subscribe, you might want to look at some simpler options that have the potential to be high conversion zones.

Header of your website:

While it may not work for every brand or business, having your sign up form appear in your website header, or just below it, is a great way for people to immediately sign up to your list.

At the bottom of your blog posts:

While it might seem strange to think of including a sign up form at the bottom of your blog posts, research has shown that the bottom of some website pages receives more engagement from web visitors than any other pages. This data makes sense as people are more likely to be engaged (for example read a blog post until the end) if they are scrolling down your website consuming your content.

Sidebar that covers all your website inner pages:

While we’ve mentioned adding a form to your sidebar earlier in this post, we really think this is a great place to add another form. Web visitors read from left to right and therefore are more likely to actually see this form without much effort, having it as a standard “feature” on your website inner pages also increases the likelihood of web visitors seeing and completing the form - no matter what page they enter from.

Your website footer:

Your website footer may not be the first place you’d think to include a sign up form, but if a visitor has made it all the way to the bottom of your webpage, they are most likely quite engaged in your content. Putting a sign up form in your footer may be just the nudge they need to become part of your list.

Have you found any high-converting places on your website to add your form to? Tell us in the comments below.