Copyright 2006 Karl Stadler
Pop-under, Popover, or just pop up, no matter what you use it still remains a proven method to increase your subscriber list and sales.
Many of us find the popup quite an irritation and have scripts installed to block them whenever we can, but they still seem to get through.
You yourself have probably filled in one, or have been tempted to buy from a popup recently. Sit back and think why you did and what happened.
The key to running a successful popup campaign is to make sure you have something worthwhile to say or offer.
It can be put down to offering your visitor something of interest related to what he has been searching for. Now we all know this, but how many are actually applying it?
A successful popup has to be target specific, most webmasters will just put the same one on all their pages, and in most cases they will have absolutely nothing to do with the page. Mainly this boils down to plain laziness.
If you target a specific search with your keywords, your popup should relate directly to that theme. Simply put, have different offers for different pages. The single popup for all pages will just irritate your visitor and he might not even come back to your site again.
Use them carefully and plan each ones use. If it does not relate to a page, don't put it on.
The popup has two main functions:
Get the visitor to subscribe to a opt-in. Send the visitor to a sales page.
The pop-under on the other hand is normally used to activate a sales page when the visitor leaves, but it has been successfully used to get new subscribers. Both methods will work depending on the content and makeup of your page.
The popup consists of three basic elements:
Headline:
The headline like any other headline should grab the attention of the visitor. Remember he will see the popup when it appears, whether he will read on depends entirely on the headline, more so than on a sales page.
Sub-headline:
This should relate to, and follow the headline creating an itch. All you want to do is raise curiosity in the mind of the visitor to want to find out more.
Call to action:
Based on the curiosity you have created in the sub headline you will ask the visitor to take some form of action, like opt in to a newsletter or click on a link. Now unless your opt-in is highly valuable as a stand alone, it would be advisable to add value by providing something in return. This could be anything that is related to what the visitor is searching for.
The popup is not a sales page, your ultimate goal is to create an itch, the more itchy the better.
Conditioning to old style popovers is evident and just like banners they tend to draw little attention. To get away from this you need to be a little more creative and give them different look and feel that will catch the visitor's interest.
The key to sales is advertise, advertise and advertise, as much as possible. But if your advertising is just thrown into the air and not targeted, I would suggest a philosophical chat with the dog, the result will be the same. |
