Creating an opt in form to build an email list with Kartra

This is a follow on from the post about email lists and will detail how to create an opt in form.

An opt in form is the perfect tool for building a powerful email list. Kartra makes it even easier. Importantly, using this tool helps to start making those first steps to financial freedom.

Getting Started

If you haven’t already done so, you need to create a Kartra account and go through the necessary set up. This link will give you 14 days free access to Kartra and all the functionality it offers. This is an amazing deal and you really should try it out for yourself.

Once set up, you should navigate to My Forms and select the green button in the bottom corner:

Give your newly minted form a memorable/distinguishable name:

You are now presented with the main workflow for creating the form:

The key sections all provide different pieces of functionality pertaining to the form and capture.

Form Fields

This is the information that will be collected in the form. The general rule should be short and sweet – do not want to make the sharing of personal information too onerous. This can cause the drop off rate to soar.

Confirmation

Single Opt In

The simple option – the user enters their email address, clicks submit and then they are registered in the email list. Very simple indeed.

Double Opt In

This requires the user to access an email sent to them for confirmation purposes.

There is the option to enter in a success page – this is where the user will be directed to upon successfully submitting the form (see details on creating Kartra pages for more information on what should be here).

Welcome Message

This is a topic of sometimes fierce debate: should you send a welcome message or not? It is probably best to err on the side of caution and not send one for a vanilla opt in form although be prepared to consider that there may be scenarios where this is a desirable action.

Automations

This is where the real magic happens when creating an opt in form with Kartra.

Assign Tags

These help segregate the opt-in form for testing purposes. There may be scenarios where it is natural to utilise a different opt-form at different points throughout your site – tags are the perfect way to segregate them.

Subscribe to lists

This is effectively the grouping of the emails you collect from your opt in form. While this does not necessarily have a use case in the scenario of a subscribe form there are plenty of occasions where this will be useful.

Consider you are running campaigns and looking to split test any changes you have made – subscription lists would be ideal for dividing the results.

Subscribe to sequences

Kartra has a sequential offering that allows you to build a workflow of actions. The very general use case is abandoned carts – if you add an item to a shopping cart but do not complete the transaction you will inadvertently receive an email reminding you. This is the power of sequences in action.

Form Design

This is the final option in the flow and the decision should be based on the final destination of the form. If the opt in form is to be hosted in a Kartra hosted page then the first option will assume the styling of the host page. This will help with consistency.

How to use the opt in form

The opt in form has been created so it is now time to put it in to practice. It is possible to display the form within Kartra hosted pages but this does not provide an entirely professional appearance.

I personally like to integrate with WordPress. Install Blank Slate so that when you create a new page in WordPress you can select a custom, blank template.

By selecting JavaScript you can go into the page editor and paste the code direct. This will now serve your opt in form once the page is published and give your customer a route to your email list.

Conclusion

You have now created a fully fledged opt in form that will help capture your consumers so well done guys.