There are tons of ways to have people sign up to receive your emails.
That’s good news because the easier you make it for people to join your list, the easier it is to help your business or organization grow by reaching those that want to hear from you.
That’s why Constant Contact offers the following ways, beyond the basic sign-up form, that people can join your list:
- Writing – Capture people as they visit your store or business through a simple guest book.
- Clicking – Allow visitors to your website to join with just a click.
- “Socializing” – Take advantage of your Facebook Page by making sure there’s a link to join your mailing list there.
These options allow people to join your list in the way that’s most convenient for them. But what if you want to go even further and customize the whole sign-up experience? We’ve got you covered there too.
Why customize the sign-up experience?
If you’re a more advanced user with web development skills, or you have a web developer on your team, it’s easy to customize the sign-up experience. Just use one of our APIs (an Application Programming Interface) to allow your software to talk to us.
When you use an API to program the sign-up experience yourself, you can do things like:
- Create more than one form – Have more than one target audience? Make more than one sign-up form to cover all your bases.
- Control the flow – You can keep people on your page, prevent a welcome letter from being sent, or direct new contacts to a new page at the end of the sign-up process. It’s all up to you.
- Customize your form design – You get complete control over the framework, the number of images, and the placement of text. This allows you to do some truly unique things.
How to customize the sign-up experience
As we mentioned, you will need someone who has web development skills. In particular, you’ll want to have someone familiar with .NET/C# or PHP (don’t worry the developer will know what that means.) If you don’t already have someone, you can look at our marketplace for some solution providers to help. In addition, you’ll want to have the following things ready to go:
- API Key – You can request an API key from Constant Contact. They are free to use and allow your web developer to hook things up.
- API Tips & Tricks – This document is a good resource to help you along the way.
What if you need help?
Even though Constant Contact’s Customer Support Representatives can’t help you with API questions, you do have options in case you run into trouble. You can:
- Search for an answer
The Developer Community forums have a lot of posts dedicated to problems people have encountered and the solutions they’ve found. Use the search to look for posts related to your issue and you’ll probably find the answer you need. - Ask a question
If you didn’t find the answer you needed by searching the forums, go ahead and post your question. You can also email it to webservices@constantcontact.com.
As you check out the Developer Community, don’t forget to sign up for the Community newsletter to get monthly updates from the Constant Contact Community.
It can be done
So if you’ve ever wondered if you could have more control over the sign-up experience, the answer is yes! And when you combine your own custom sign-up experience with the tools Constant Contact offers you’ve got some powerful ways to build your list.
