You need a newsletter landing page: What to include

When people join my newsletter, I send back a note and ask where I can find theirs. The amount of people who send me searching through a website with no obvious sign up form is ASTOUNDING.

It's buried in the footer. It's only available through a freebie I don't want. It requires filling out a whole contact form.

Why are you making people dig around for your newsletter sign up?!? No wonder no one is joining your list!

You need a newsletter landing page if you want to grow your newsletter. A dedicated page on your website where you can send people who want to be on your email list. It should live at yourwebsite.com/newsletter and it should make it extremely easy to sign up for your emails.

Here's what you need to include on your newsletter landing page.

The bare minimum you must have for your newsletter landing page is:

A dedicated link you can send people to (cannot be a model)
A value proposition (1-2 lines about your newsletter)
A sign up form (Email only OR first name and email only NOTHING ELSE)

Dedicated link

You must must must put this on a page on your website. Do not send people to flodesk4402832.flodesk.com/landingpage.

Create a page on your site and embed a signup form in it. Make the url path /newsletter. If, for some reason, this is technically impossible for you, first of all, I have questions, but second of all, do a clean redirect from your site so yourwebsite.com/newsletter redirects to the messy URL.

Example: Alison Coward's newsletter

Value proposition

Your value proposition is why people would sign up for your newsletter. It's a couple sentences that explain what the newsletter is about. Avoid phrases like "actionable insights," "straight to your inbox," and "practical tips" because they are meaningless. Also, where are emails going if not straight to the inbox?! Literally, that just describes email.

Think about what you would tell a friend or client about what the newsletter is about. Have a look at replies or shares from your readers to borrow their language. Good value propositions are specific, unique to you and meaningful to your prospective reader.

Examples:

"Become the smartest marketer in the room. Stop guessing what works. Get the free newsletter helping 63,353 marketing geeks to sell more (and look like a genius) using buyer psychology" —Katelyn Bourgoin's Why We Buy
"Ready for life to be easier at work and home? Every Friday, over 16,000 subscribers get my Friday Five newsletter with 5 tips for living a more easy and joyful life." —Jessica Eastman Stewart's Friday Five
"Join 3,700 other creators learning how to land higher paid brand deals" —Kristen Bousquet's Your Socialmate
"A Newsletter That Helps You Get More Clients From Your Content. My one-paragraph newsletter gives you simple, proven ways to get more revenue and attention from your content based on how others have done so." —Josh Spector's For The Interested
"Join me as we navigate the ever-changing world of web design together. I share my wins, losses, and everything I learn along the way – so you can grow your business faster." —Christy Price, Web Designer

The last piece you must have is the sign up form. It should be email only OR if you must, you can ask for first name. Only do that if you plan to use that first name in your emails ("Hey Sally, blah blah blah...")

Go into your email tool and create a simple embeddable form. Customize it to your liking and copy the code over to your website. Some websites have this built-in where they can integrate with your email service provider. Others, you will need to drop the code into your site.

Make sure the sign up form is high up, above the fold on mobile devices and if you make your page longer than a couple scrolls, add it a second time lower down.

Example: Maliha Mannan's The Side Blogger

The more you include on your newsletter landing page, the more likely it is to bring in quality subscribers AND the more likely it is to be shared by your readers.

Nice to haves include:

Testimonials and social proof (Kind words from your readers)
About the author (Your bio)
Photo of the writer (Show 'em that beautiful mug!)
What to expect (When the newsletter comes out and what's in the issues)
Previews of the newsletter (Links or images that visually show what readers can expect in their inbox)

Social proof is pretty common in the form of "Trusted by 50,000 marketers" but you can also include actual testimonials from your readers. You don't need many, but testimonials are a huge conversion driver whether you use them on this newsletter page or a sales page. Your reader sees themselves in the words of people like them.

Gather testimonials from the people who reply constantly OR take one of their replies and ask for their permission to use it as a testimonial.

If you want to use the "Trusted by [number] [descriptor]," use that as part of your value proposition, right above or below the subscribe box.

Example: Matt McGarry's Newsletter Operator

About the author and photo

It's less common to see this on newsletter landing pages, but if you want the newsletter page to be your primary call to action—meaning you'll share it when you're networking, speaking, in social bios, etc—it makes sense to add a little introduction. Grab a short excerpt from your About page and a photo and call it a day!

Example: M.G. Herron

What to expect

You can share when the newsletter goes out (every Tuesday), what kinds of content you include in each issue (events, tips and comment of the week) or anything else that sets the bar for what readers should look out for.

This tends to be either a sentence or two or a bulleted list of sections you typically include in each issue.

Example: Tangle

Tangle includes three quick bullets and a visual for what to expect

You can take what to expect even farther with previews of issues. This has become more common in the Substack era where newsletters and blogs are one and the same. If your website doesn't automatically publish newsletters to your site, you can grab one or two of your strongest issues and link them or display them on your newsletter landing page.

Example: Between The Lines Copy

Example issues from Between The Lines Copy

Want a few more examples? Here you go!

The six newsletter landing pages below are:

Stacey Nicholl's newsletter about web design (Service provider)
Lib Aubuchon's newsletter about digital marketing (Service provider)
Mariah Magazine's newsletter about SEO (Service provider/creator)
The Browser's newsletter about internet culture (Media company)
Pat Flynn's newsletter about passive income (Creator)
Steve Folland's newsletter about being freelance (Community)

(Click on the landing page to make it bigger or open their website with the links above)

Creating your newsletter landing page should take you no more than one hour, and it will pay you back in hundreds if not thousands of new subscribers. Make your newsletter easy to find, easy to link to and easy to subscribe to and you will see your newsletter grow!

Want more about newsletter landing pages and newsletter growth? Check out the recorded sessions we did on Glowing Up Your Newsletter Landing Page and What Works to Grow Your Newsletter.