Don't make me click
All over the place, you land on a site, and bam, you are forced to subscribe to the newsletter, accept cookies, chat with customer support, and donate blood to the cause in Somalia, before you even got a clue what the site is about, what you can find there and you are still questioning yourself why you have landed there.
Accept cookies bubble is a necessary evil. You can place a small section at the right or left corner of the site, one Ok and Cancel, and you are good to go.
Everything else, which prompts me at 0.00001 ms after I have landed on the page, is pretty annoying. How can I subscribe to your newsletter, when I don’t know for certain what the site is about, what are you saying in your blog post, or do I need to be there in the first place?
I am ok, to a point, when a site prompts with a subscribe option after I have spent some time on it. And I understand marketing needs and effects. But, if I have to click three times at three different places on your site, before even getting the idea of what the site is about, my eagerness to investigate your site is a little shaken.
This can be extended to the cases where I am creating an account for no good reason, or when I receive various random notifications, or even when I have options that are unnecessary - don’t make me decide. If you decide to do something in one particular way, and it is just convenient for me to have it adjustable, don’t make it adjustable (this might depend on case to case).
An excellent read on the point is well known Don’t make me think by Steve Krug. The book is 22 years old (there is an updated version), but:
UI changes daily, people not even a pinch.
True, marketing people's obsession with CTA (call to action)?
It's always good to have a proper funnel, what I like the most is "story telling".
Land the user
Grab their attention
Tell them a story and if they'll need what you're providing, then they'll definitely click
I always believe in having 10 active/engaged audience instead of 1000 inactive/disinterested
I agree. And I think that all three actions could be done without unnecessary, obnoxious methods.
And if users find valuable what you are providing, they will use your product. If you go gung-ho and grab a bunch of users who don't actually want your product, you only have Potemkin villages. And you can show your metrics, but they won't be anything more than vanity.
This goes beyond design, into marketing waters. But, they are connected, of course.
yes exactly, and obviously no marketing works in the first attempt. We need to keep testing new ways always.
There is a big chance that these sites use newsletters to convert their visitors. My hypothesis is that some people get irritated and leave while others are fine with that and subscribe. In the end site may be earning more from those who subscribe.
It all sounds like aggressive sales and I'm not fan of it. But this approach may be working for some businesses.
That makes sense, and I do get that. But, the trouble is that I don't know what the site is about one second after I have landed on it. I need some time, say a couple of minutes at least, to get a grasp of what is going on there.
If I am presented with the pop-up, asking to subscribe in the first second of landing at the site, I will probably dismiss it, and it probably won't show up again (after I have strolled through the site). It would be better to present a pop-up after some time being on the site and looking around.
And that is not to mention other places where I have to click, like notifications, accepting cookies, and similar. It adds up.
I'm with you on this