6 minute read
Getting people to actually sign up
A form nobody fills in is a spreadsheet with extra steps. Almost everything that goes wrong here is distribution, not design.
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Ask once, in the place they already are
The most common mistake is announcing the list somewhere people have to remember to come back to. An intranet post is a place people visit when they are looking for something else.
- The all-staff email
- One link, one sentence, near the top. Not at the bottom under three other asks. If your organisation only allows a handful of all-staff sends a year, spend one on this - it is the cheapest list you will ever build.
- Your own footer
- If you already send something, put the link at the end of every issue. People who forward your newsletter to a colleague are doing your recruiting for you, and this is the only way that colleague can join.
- Team meetings and huddles
- Thirty seconds from a manager beats a paragraph from you. Give them the sentence to say and the link to paste; do not make them write it.
- A poster, where there are no screens
- A printable poster with a QR code is built in. Break room, notice board, back of the door. It reaches somebody who never opens an internal message, and it costs a sheet of paper. They still sign in with an email address, so make sure you have said which one to use.
The colleagues nobody counts
Around four fifths of the world’s workforce does not work at a desk, and many of them never see an internal message asking them to confirm anything. Drivers, ward staff, retail, warehouse, cleaning, catering, engineers on the road.
If your list is built from a directory export, those colleagues are often not on it - not because anybody decided that, but because the directory holds the people with a desk and an account, and they are frequently neither. They are also frequently on shifts, so anything sent at 10am on a Tuesday lands while they are asleep.
The fix is not a better export. It is letting somebody add themselves, from their own phone, with a personal address if that is the only one they have - which is what a QR code on a break-room wall actually buys you.
What to write next to the link
Three things, in this order. Most sign-up copy does one of them and wonders why the conversion is poor.
- What they get
- A monthly note about what is changing on the Manchester site. Not communications from the internal engagement team, which describes you rather than them.
- How often
- People are not avoiding your list, they are avoiding a full inbox. Saying monthly removes the risk they are actually weighing up.
- How to stop
- Saying they can leave any time increases sign-ups. It sounds backwards and it is consistently true - you are removing the fear of a decision they cannot undo.
Things worth being straight about
- Do not upload the whole directory. It is tempting and it is the fastest route to people asking who gave you their details. A list of people who chose to be there is smaller and worth more, and it does not put you in an awkward conversation later.
- A slow start is normal. Most internal lists get a third of their eventual size from the first announcement and the rest from the footer, over months.
- Ask managers, not everyone, to share it. One person forwarding to their team beats a hundred people ignoring an all-staff email.
Once people are on it, the problem changes shape: keeping it clean without chasing anybody.
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