Email marketing isn’t an entirely new concept, for many online business owners and entrepreneurs alike, it has been their main source of sales, for as long as they can remember. I’m modest when it comes to email marketing, I send out my readers what’s the latest, right now – products aren’t on my to-do list.
I’ve tried tools like SumoMe; supposedly the perfect solution when it comes to building your email list rapidly. I’m not sure that I’d ever agree with that statement, there is something inside of me that really dislikes the whole popup experience, and I think it’s a major distraction when it comes to content consumption.
But, clearly it works and millions of webmasters are utilizing popup plugins to build their email lists. You’ll find that every expert and professional marketer out there is using a some sort of popup plugin on his site to generate more subscribers and leads, see this post for plenty of examples.
What is OptinMonster?
OptinMonster is a WordPress plugin that allows you to turn your website visitors into subscribers and customers. It’s maintained by Syed Balkhi, and Thomas Griffin. You’ve seen these plugins before, but OptinMonster goes one step ahead of everyone, and provides a truly unique experience for both the webmaster, and the visitors who’re seeing the popups.
The OptinMonster Builder allows you to create visually stunning optin forms that are optimized for the highest conversion rates. You can create various types of optin forms such as lightbox popups, floating bars, sidebar slide-ins, after post forms, sidebar forms, and many more.
In general, it seems a lot like any other premium popup plugin; nothing too fancy, right? Well, once I started learning of the many features that this plugin possesses, I began viewing it in a completely different light. Looks to me as if the guys behind the project have really taken their time to perfect the one thing that drives increased signups, though at the cost of reduced views on the actual content.
What are OptinMonster features?
Right, so it does work with all the major providers of email marketing software, that alone reduces the setup time by a huge margin, but setting up the plugin either way takes only a couple of seconds to do, most of the time you’ll be configuring how the actual popup looks, and what type of headlines you want to use. So, back to the list of features:
- Custom Form Designs — The OptinMonster plugin provides the necessary tools and features for you to build unique and stunning popup designs that will capture the visitors attention every time. They’re also highly versatile, and can be configured to pop-out in dozens of different ways.
- A/B Testing — I was pleased to learn that OptinMonster provides such great features like A/B tests. You can easily check multiple designs and positions of your popup plugin at a time, giving you a much more clear idea of what works for your particular design / blog.
- Individual Targeting — Looking to show popups only on specific pages, like the homepage? The individual targeting features that come integrated within the plugin will allow you to do just that. Easily show popups only on categories, or pages. Or, every page. It can do both.
- Exit-Intent — Let your users know you care about them by enabling the exit-intent features (blog post here), which will display a popup as soon as someone is about to leave your site. Great way to gather up some extra leads, subscribers.
- Deep Analysis — More developers need to take analytics seriously, I’m glad to know that OptinMonster provides analysis of clicks, views, conversions and overall performance of the plugin. By learning from analytics, we can make better choices for the future.
It looks to me as if the people behind this project have really taken their time to iron out the key features to a popup plugin. But, just a few days back – OptinMonster v2.0 was released, so I think we need to take a look at those features as well.
What’s new in OptinMonster v2.0?
The new version of this popup plugin was released on September 4th, and thanks to community support and feedback, is now packing some even more exciting features and tools to help you build the best and most curated email list possible, remember: it’s peoples own choice to signup for what you’ve got to offer!
- New Customizer — The v2.0 has a completely rebuilt customizer, the same customizer you use to build the actual look of your popups. You can now live edit from where you are, without having to leave the page, which makes for a great way to experience changes as you create them.
- Mobile Friendly — Looking for a good solution to provide WordPress popups to mobile users? Well, look no further than OptinMonster, as the new version is now featuring the ability to display cool looking popups to mobile users. Awesome stuff!
- A/B Tests — New version allows for unlimited amount of A/B tests that you can perform, even more juicy data!
- Email Database — You can now store all of the leads that you collect on your own site. Might have some interest for those who’re looking to build only specific email lists.
- New Integrations — OptinMonster now has built-in integrations with HubSpot, Emma, TotalSend, and Customer.io.
It’s just the tip of the iceberg, you can preview the blog post that I linked above to see the full list of changes and features being added. It’s shaping to be a great plugin now, and for the future.
How to Turn Your Website Visitors into Leads
I’m pleased to know that the project was something the guys worked on so hard, and it happened to just explode one night – giving the plugin attention, exposure and reviews that it needed. It’s not just another company building something cool, it’s actual people with past experience (even more so in the field of WordPress), listening to what customers want and then executing those ideas.
Will you be giving OptinMonster a go?