How to Persuade More People to Subscribe to Your Email List

If you want to persuade more people to subscribe to your email list, then you need to begin to understand the various persuasion techniques that most smart marketers use to boost their opt-ins. Human beings are driven by specific psychological or emotional triggers that drive our actions, our decisions, and whether or not we are going to opt-in to someones email list. Here are four powerful persuasion techniques that you can use to gain more subscribers. 

Information Gap
George Loewenstein, a professor at Carnegie Mellon, discovered that when there is a gap between what we know and what we want to know, there is a strong desire for us to fill that gap. This is known as the Information Gap Theory. This gap tends to have emotional consequences that you can capitalize on. When you are creating your opt-in forms, include headlines that tap into this emotion like, Revealed: 5 Secrets for Getting More Traffic and Increasing Sales.

Memory
People tend to remember better those tasks that they haven't completed than those they have. This means that people are also more likely to complete a task once its been started. This is known as the Zeigarnik Effect. You can use this to get more subscribers by setting up a two-step opt-in form. A two-step form requires visitors to click on a link before they are presented with the actual form to fill out. After clicking the link, theyve started a task that needs to be completed. 

Anticipation
Anticipation, according to Gretchen Rubin, bestselling author of The Happiness Project, is a crucial stage in happiness. When you have something to look forward to, you bring joy into your life well before the event takes place. If you have something to anticipate, like the release of a new product, or book, all you have to do to gain more subscribers is to make sure visitors to your site are mindful of the upcoming release. 

Laziness
People tend to choose the path of least resistance. So, how do you leverage a person's laziness to persuade them to subscribe to your email list? Simple, tell them exactly what to do next, and be sure to make the directions clear. For example, in your opt-in form, you could say, "Enter your name and email below to access. . ." This makes it, so they don't have to think about what to do next. 

These are just a few of the persuasion techniques that you can use to gain more subscribers. Start with one of the triggers above and start using emotions to grow your list of subscribers. 
