or if you are ready, get the paid version with RSS and many other features:
Lesson 7
A subscription form is a group of fields contained in a web page into which a visitor can enter information. It is used to gather contact information so that you can follow up with the visitor.
They enter their name and email address into the fields and click a Subscribe button. This sends the information to another webpage which is setup to receive the information and places it into a database. The database can be used by an Auto responder which can send a series of follow up email to the visitor all automatically.
In a very simple form, it could email you the information that the visitor input into the form's fields. You could enter that into a spreadsheet to keep the list.
This one is actually from the Main one that I use, AutoResponder Plus. View the source of this page to see how it works. It is a working example and will subscribe you to my SFI auto responder list.
You can see how the double opt-in works by requesting you to click a link in an email sent to the address that you enter in the form. This
But since you will most likely choose to followup using an autoresponder, you will probably be able to let the autoresponder generate the html code which you just paste into the webpage to produce the Subsciption Form.
I recommend you pick one and use it to get the Subscription Form setup.
You can even get a "free to use" version of Email Marketing Assistant at:
or if you are ready, get the paid version with RSS and many other features:
Auto responder Tips:
The feature that you want most in the auto responder is the ability for it to send a series of messages. It must be able to know which of your subscribers is due to receive which message and send the appropriate one to each subscriber. A subscriber who joined your list a month ago will receive a message much later in the series that one who joined last week. This is what makes one with this feature a Smart AutoResponder.
You want to make it easy to see the subscription form so put it near the top of your homepage and on several other pages - if not all of them.
Asking for only a first name allows you to personalize the email. Generally the more personal information that you ask for the less likely the visitor will Subscribe. So you may only want to ask for First Name and E-Mail Address.
Tell the visitor that you will not sell or rent their contact information.
Let them know that they can get off the list anytime that they wish to. You should make the process easy for you and for them.
You may want to draw extra attention to the Subscription Form by putting it into a "hover" type popup. The Pro version of Email Marketing Assistant allows you to do that.
You may want to offer visitors a way to get your followup messages WITHOUT their having to give out their e-mail address. You can do it if you use RSS (Really Simple Syndication). Both AutoResponder Plus and Email Marketing Assistant Pro give you the option to do that.