This Little Tool Quadrupled My Signups

fortin demo This Little Tool Quadrupled My SignupsAfter my recent push for Robert Plank’s Speed Copy Secrets copywriting special report on how to write copy in under an hour, I wanted to test a few other things from Robert, since he’s a gifted programmer and offers some neat scripts.

(Actually, I recently bought everything from Robert I could get my hands on, and so far I’m thoroughly impressed. Specifically, his “Full-Blast PHP” and “Sales Page Tactics Volumes 1-3” products are fabulous.)

I’m testing just a couple of Robert’s scripts on this blog, and early results are stunning. Let me share with you a few test results…

After reading Darren Rowse’s eye-opening blog post, where he reported his optins multiplying after integrating a popover optin box, I wanted to test one, too.

In fact, I wanted to test a lightbox-like popover optin form. What “lightbox” means is, the popover appears over the web page, while the background around it darkens and blurs so that emphasis is placed on the optin form.

Granted, Aweber does offer something similar. But I use GetResponse. I also wanted one specifically for WordPress, and I wanted more control over the look and feel — especially the color of the faded background.

(You’ll see why in a moment!)

To that end, I decided to use Robert Plank’s WordPress plugin “Action Popup,” which you can use with most autoresponders out there. (It even comes with step-by-step instructions and even a video!)

Results? Well, check this out…

I typically get around 40 unique subscribers a day. Sometimes I get more, other times a bit less. This is from straight, organic traffic, as I don’t advertise my blog at all.

First day, 124 subscribers.

Second day, 188.

Third day (today), 137 and still growing!

Pretty impressive — and the day is not over yet. If you do the math, getting an average of 150 new subscribers a day will grow my list by 50,000+ in one year. And that’s without any advertising at all.

Here’s the interesting part.

Throughout the day, I was testing various colored backgrounds for the fade-out effect around the pop-up. Lightbox is typically gray and dark, but Robert’s plugin allows you to pick different colors.

(It also allows you to choose either “on entry” or “on exit attempt,” as well as the appearance effect — such as bouncing, flying, fading in, etc — and the frequency. I have mine set to once to reduce as much friction as possible.)

What I’ve found is this: using a color that matches and blends with the blog’s color scheme generated the best results. (About 18-20% more.) Why? Maybe it’s a consistency or branding issue. I don’t know. But here’s an example…

fortin demo This Little Tool Quadrupled My Signups

Overall, I literally tripled (and sometimes even quadrupled) my daily optin rate strictly from my blog. So my results seem to parallel Darren Rowse’s.

However, one caveat: results are still too early to tell since it’s been only three days — plus, it’s the weekend and traffic is usually a bit lower. But I’m eager to see the results over a period of 2-3 weeks. I’ll report them back here, or via Twitter.

Also, another thing to note is that Darren also compared pageviews and time spent, meaning that, while the popover may be a bit intrusive, it did not deter readers.

Granted, this should be done on a case-by-case basis, as every blog has its own readership, and every blog and every market is different — hence why I’m eager to see the results over a period of time to avoid jumping to a premature conclusion.

Nevertheless, it looks promising to say the least.

Another interesting stat: Robert also offers a variety of other plugins. One of them is Action Optin. This plugin uses Ajax to refresh the optin box alone so that no new web page needs to be called when the optin is filled out.

It refreshes right there, on the page.

Plus, a customizable confirmation message appears in the place where the optin form used to be, indicating that the subscriber’s request was processed.

This is great if you have sales copy and you don’t want to push your readers away — they stay on the page (and the page doesn’t reload), so they don’t lose their place or the momentum in the sales process.

(It’s also a separate script, so you don’t have to use it with WordPress exclusively. Any web page will do, including salesletters. And it’s perfect if you prefer unobtrusive, on-page optin forms rather than pop-ups.)

But the one plugin I’ve been testing for a while now (you’ve probably seen it on this blog already) is Robert Plank’s Action Comments.

It adds an extra checkbox to the blog’s comment form that asks commentators if they wish to subscribe to my list. In other words, as they comment, they can join my list at the same time. All in one fell swoop. Nifty, eh?

(Check out the comment box at the bottom of this blog post for an example. Better yet, leave a comment!)

This one boosted my blog’s subscribers by about 34%. (However, this is not an empirical number by any stretch, because it’s totally based on how many comments I get.)

But overall, these are very interesting stats.

Plus, Robert’s customer service is also very impressive. I had a glitch using one of his plugins, and he was quick and eager to fix it for me.

Again, I’m thoroughly impressed by Robert Plank and his many scripts. And this is just the beginning — there are a few more scripts I’m going to test on salesletters and other, non-marketing blogs I own.

Click here to visit Robert Plank’s blog.

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This post was written on Sunday, October 26th, 2008. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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  • HI Michel, great advice and information thanks.
    I love discovering all the great plug ins there are to use on these blogs and about your testing records.
    keep it up and may see you in Jan on cruise?
    Mike Bailey
  • Thanks for sharing your behind-the-scenes results, Michel.

    Although I concur with your guess that the "color matching" of the lightbox is what created the best results, it could also be that soothing blues are the color of believability.

    Excellent post. Please keep sharing valuable golden nuggets like these that make shorcuts to more success a no-brainer for your readers, followers and customers.

    @MichaelMillman - Twitter
  • How to get more to visit your website
  • Just an update...

    As of 6:11 PM Eastern, today's number has reached 192. So it surpassed yesterday's optins (188). And the day is not over yet, plus it's Sunday (typically a slow day).

    Keep in mind that I may have mailed my list about this, BUT those numbers do NOT reflect previous subscribers if they tried to re-subscribe. They don't need to. After all, they're already on my list, and dupes are not allowed.

    That means, these 192 are all new subscribers.

    Pretty cool.
  • I mean, 202 lol! 10 more subscribed as I was typing this update. ;)
  • Michel,
    What a great example, analysis right there of the process your visitor just stepped through. Very warm and fuzzy. Cheers, Brendan
  • Michel

    Excellent post on a great little tool. I am interested in the subtleties that create response or a different response and wondered if you might get to the truth if you asked a batch of recent subscribers.

    I was a design consultant (off line) for many years but online varies in many respects. I think there is some truth in the actual color and the matching your site observation (as well, of course) as the content of the pop up itself.

    I also wonder (as it is relatively new) if a large percentage are IMarketers who are curious. Do you have any stats for other niches?

    John
    The Infotainer
  • @John Gordon - The Infotainer - No, I don't. But I'll definitely be testing this in other niches. As I said, this is relatively new and premature. I'd be VERY curious about the results in non-IM niches for sure (I have many non-IM blogs, salesletters and websites).

    So as I stated in my blog post above, I will report back -- either here on via Twitter. So I'll let you know...
  • Oh, and by the way, as of 7:06, the number is now 228. :)
  • Hey Michael,

    Great post and that is huge!

    Thanks for the heads up.

    Rich
  • @Troy Richeal - Troy, that's a really loaded question. But if you run a WordPress blog, you might be interested in Robert's product, WordPressOnCrack.com. In it, he has a special report called "Massive Blog Traffic." It's pretty good.

    Other than that, I'm not sure I can help you with just a comment.
  • Hi Michel (said with a French accent),

    This is great stuff! My wife and I will be implementing this immediately and we'll comment back to let you know how it's going in our niches.

    Also I was just looking for the exact thing "Action Optin" does... so thanks for that as well.

    Jason
  • It's 10:46, and I'm going to bed soon...

    (Big week this week, we have two webinars to give... I'll give you the details soon, since we're going to be offering one of them for FREE! Make sure to join my list to be notified. This is a webinar by my wife, Sylvie, on market research shortcuts and how to tap goldmines using free tools and more!)

    But before I do, here's a quick update...

    310 new subscribers! (Welcome, everyone.)

    Now that's a sevenfold increase over my average optins.

    Let's see how things pan out this week. I'll still keep you posted...
  • Tom
    Man you are moving at light speed.
    I'm still trying to figure out how to get people to even read my blog posts.
  • Michel,

    I am testing this on a non IM blog and when I open my webpage in Internet Explorer... the popup acts like it should (using the popup on exit version)... but it won't close when you press the close button in the window.

    It works fine in firefox.

    Are you experiencing the same thing?

    p.s. I get this when I click "show details"

    Line: 303
    Char: 4370
    Error: invalid argument
    Code: 0

    Any ideas?
  • Oh man...you're gonna make Robert unbearable now. :)

    Shhhh...Robert is our secret weapon! :)

    I've been recommending Robert's products to my clients for some time! (As you can see by my testimonial for Fast Food Copywriting...)
  • Great. I am searching this for a while. I will test it also. Wait for your over time results. It really sound great.

    Caijun

    http://caijunsun.net/blog
  • "Thanks for sharing your behind-the-scenes results, Michel". I second that reply ... simply great to see your stats wow that sure is some traffic coming your way and of course the main benefit taking the right steps to your call for action ... we all really have to understand what we want for our businesses these days there is so much good stuff being created and shared on the internet to make our lives a lot easier every day I find something that makes my working online life a lot easier ... the biggest problem is deciding what to run with my question to you is are you implementing this technology your self or do you outsource most of it and leave the writing part to your self ... we can not all be jack of all trades? now thats the hard part1

    All my best to you and yours
    Phillip Skinner
  • Adrian
    Hi Michel,

    Which program is it that displays the opt-in box on the footer of the page here? (The blue bar that spans horizontally.)

    Thank You,
  • Great post Michel (glad I follow you on Twitter!).

    I found Robert several months ago via Warrior's Forum, glad to see he's now on CWB too. Some great PHP resources that he publishes -- much appreciated that you've shared your findings with us!

    Cheers from Melbourne downunder,
    Dean
  • Thanks Mike....this tool looks good and cool and not really annoying like other pop ups. I might give this a try sometime to see how to make a website sell with this.
  • @Caleb - You might want to contact Robert Plank. He's VERY good when it comes to customer service, so I'm sure he'll know. But it seems to me that maybe you have javascript turned off or something in your browser. (I don't know. It's a guess at best.)
  • Hey Michel!

    Neat optin test and the cool blue won me over and got the email with assurance. Thanks for the generous gift. I can't wait to read The 10 Commandments of Power Positioning. (In the beginning was The Word.)
    Geoff Dodd
    Australia
  • Adrian
    Thank You. This should help me test signups for my product I am creating. Thanks for responding! (haven't been able to get you to answer on Facebook yet LOL)

    Take Care,
  • Michel and everyone else.

    The former problem with IE is totally fixed with the new version that Robert Plank made.

    FYI, He IS great at support, sent me an email immediately, did what he told me and the problem is fixed and now the page works great.

    I can recommend this product based on the guy's support already--as for how much my signups increase, I'll let you know :)

    Talk soon!
    Caleb
  • @John Gordon - The Infotainer - John, just a quick sidenote about testing this in other non-IM niches. If you refer back to the article from ProBlogger.net (Darren Rowse) I referred to in my blog post, he tested it on his photography blog specifically, which is where his numbers come from.

    I suspect that this tool would work in non-IM niches and probably even MORE so. Because non-IM niches are not aware of this kind of tactic as much as Internet marketers are.

    Just a thought.
  • Thanks Michel, I saw this post via rss the other day but I'm just getting to it. I really like some of these scripts, the ability to change the background in the lightbox script is nice.

    One that really gets me is the action comments, that allows you to get optins right in the comment section. I may have to take a look at this.
  • Michel, thanks for bringing that to attention,
    worthwile post. I like the way that looks and I'm
    going to implement that on my blog, I get organic
    traffic too, so if you quadrupled subscribers, I'm
    down for it...

    Terrance Charles
    www.terrancecharles.com
  • Hi Michel,

    How would you compare/contrast the results from this vs the slideup optin you've been using?

    Would you use both together? Seems a bit like overkill.

    Ian
  • I decided to try this today and so far my subscribers have tripled. I knew this would work, but have always been scared off from it, because I wasn’t sure if visitors would think the pop over was scammy.
  • Joe
    Does anyone know what program Robert uses in order to have that "Add To Cart >>" button float down the page with you as you scroll? I emailed him about it but never received a reply. It would be interesting to test.

    Thank You,
  • Michel,

    As always...thanks for the great info..without a doubt your blog ROCKS with great info that everyone can use.

    Thanks

    Jake
    www.stopmakingothersrich.com
  • Hi Michel, I've just brought Robert product from your affiliate link, I add the plug in and my autoresponder script to my blog, but I don't know why the pop up didn't show up. And I send 2 email to Robert, but until now I didn't get any replay from him. Do you have any suggestion?
  • Jack
    "Plus, Robert’s customer service is also very impressive. I had a glitch using one of his plugins, and he was quick and eager to fix it for me."

    Of course he would fix it for you instantly.
    Your a big guru..

    what about us little fellas
  • @Jack - Read this comment:

    http://www.michelfortin.com/this-little-tool-qu...

    Then this one:

    http://www.michelfortin.com/this-little-tool-qu...

    I don't run Robert's business, so I can't answer that question. But I can certainly vouch for him.
  • Robert replay me already, and he is nice person and know how to treat his costumer as well, Highly recommend his product! Like Jack said he want to customize his plugin to make compatible with my web hosting and thank you Michel for your replay
  • will
    I am confused. You say you are getting hundreds of new subscribers per day however the number of subscribers in the top right hand corner has not changed for a few weeks...?
  • @will - Because I update it manually. And I'm busy, Will. Plus, it's on hold right now because Google just changed over my feedburner stats over to Google proper, and some stats were changed/lost, and Google's looking into it.
  • will
    Cool, thanks Michel.

    Well I will definitely be testing this tool out in a non IM niche and will let you all know how I go.

    Thanks for the tip!
  • Alright Michel and readers the results for an non-IM niche are in... my wife has a blog called TheStrivingWife.com which is in the Christian wives niche. We added "action Comment" to her blog and within 2 weeks she has DOUBLED the amount of total subscribers.

    We did notice more "unconfirmed" so she added a PS at the ende of her post and that seemed to work well.

    We also put "action optin" on her sidebar... works very smoothly!

    Thanks again and I'll keep you in touch with any further updates.

    Jason
  • will
    Jason,

    Thanks for the feedback. I just went over to your blog to see what sort of action pop-up you were running however there didn't seem to be one when I left the page?

    Is it still running?
  • @Will ... we don't have a pop-up just the "action comment" and "action optin" running on her site.

    You can see it at one of her posts...
    http://thestrivingwife.com/top-10-reasons-why-i...

    In the sidebar is the "action optin" (for her newsletter) and well the "action comment" is at the bottom with the comments.

    Jason
  • will
    @ Jason

    Cool, thanks for clarifying that. Have you thought about testing the action popup? I would have thought this would out perform both of the other options you are currently using?
  • Hi Michel

    Thanks for the link.

    Do you know if this will work ok if I have an aweber hover pop on the page already? Or would I need to remove that code?

    Cheers

    Ray
  • Awesome Michel,

    I didn't read your powerful blog for several weeks, I just came, and bam, you have what I need.

    Awesome.

    Thanks,
    Franck

    PS. Awesome,it works very well becaue I've just subscribed to blog updates (although I read your blog for months)...
  • Do you know why if people are really smart, they read and listen to everything you and your team say Michael? Because you do ALL the hard work for us, by doing all the testing and tracking like a OCD monkey on crack. We just read and save ourselves dozens if not hundreds of hours of time, and countless amounts of money. - Thanks
  • I just got the action popup and friends. I'm excited to use the action comments plug in too. I'm also looking into that 'slide up' thing... it looks just awesome!

    so we'll see how it all looks but very nice stuff (assuming it works and my webmaster can use it)

    great new strategies

    Jeff
  • Michel,
    Thanks for sharing this! I've seen this kind of technology being used on several sites more recently ... and with the results you've shared I can see why.

    Great to learn about Robert and who's behind the product.

    Daniel
  • Will
    Michel,

    Is is true that you use wpremix.com for the theme of this blog? Was just having a look at it but not whether to go ahead with it or not. Any advice would be appreciated!

    Cheers
  • @Will - No. The blog showcased at WP Remix was an older blog that no longer exists and redirects to this own now. (I designed this blog myself.) It has nothing to do with the design -- it was a business decision.

    But WP Remix is a great product. I do recommend it.
  • Will
    @Michel Fortin - Cool, thanks Michel. I have one other question I'd be interested to know. You once had a 3 column theme but I noticed you went back to the 2 column theme. Was this for SEO purposes?

    It seems to me that if you have a 3 column theme you need a lot of stuff to fill those 2 side columns which means the actual content of each of your blog posts needs to be quite big in order to make each page appear unique to the search engines.

    I'd be interested in your take on that?
  • @Will - No SEO or anything like that. I was just testing. If you hang around my blog long enough, you'll noticied A LOT of things changing... tweaking... being rearranged. ;)

    Three-column themes are mostly used by bloggers (in the truest sense of the word) and news sites, since most of them make money with advertisers, and use the 3rd column to place buttons/banners above the fold. That really is the only reason. And in some cases, it looks sharp.

    As for me, it's useless. I like it, but I decided to go with a larger sidebar instead, and promote my own products or affiliate recommendations -- rather than promoting other people's products through PPC or CPM.

    Hope this helps.

    (These are the kinds of questions we will be answering on our new blog, specifically geared to answering reader questions, at http://MarketersBoard.com ... I highly recommend that you subscribe. Me might answer this and similar questions in great depth.)
  • Will
    @Michel Fortin - Cool, will definitely sign up for that one. Thanks Michel!
  • Thanks for the heads up on these nifty little scripts; however I'm curious why you're not currently using the lightbox script currently? I noticed you have a rollover footer thing going on, so I assume you're doing yet more testing.

    How do you find the results between the lightbox & the footer thingy? Any reason in particular (aside from testing) you're not currently using lightbox?

    Cheers
  • Will
    @ Jonathan,

    As far as I am aware, he is still using the action popup 'lightbox' as you call it. However he has it set to only show once per visitor so if you have already been to this blog before and had the popup show, you won't see it again unless you clear your cookies and cache.
  • Hi michael, i just purchase your action-optin and action-popup but the problem is that i keep getting error message everytime i tried to activate the action-optin, any help to sort this problem out??
  • One more thing, what should i added inside of the action form



    If i had Google feedburner account and replace http://www.example.com/signup.php with http://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify?ur... ID would that get me a subscriber? I had tested this and i never receive any email from feedburner, am i doing everything correctly?
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