Improve Your Subscription Process with a Signup Flow

A signup flow is a sequence of pages or steps that helps users subscribe, engages them, and encourages them to explore related resources or content.

You might think of it as a friendly guide leading your readers through the process. It's your chance to make a great first impression and shape their relationships with your brand.

What Makes a Good Signup Flow for a Newsletter

Prioritize ease and accessibility. You don't want to overwhelm readers or risk discouraging them from becoming an active subscriber.

Set expectations. This is an opportunity to tell your subscribers what they're signing up for — the what, the when, and the wow of your content.

Setting Up the Signup Flow with beehiiv

beehiiv's new and improved website builder makes creating signup flows easy.

Go to the dashboard for your beehiiv publication and select Website Builder from the menu on the left.

At the top of the page, click on Settings, and then select Signup Flow in the list of options below.

Now it's time to start customizing your flow. Choose the Avatar that will appear at the top of the page and tweak the Success Message that thanks people for subscribing.

Don't forget to take advantage of beehiiv’s free recommendation network. Cross-promote your favorite publications, and tailor the message at the top of your Recommendation Page to reflect your brand.

(Note: You can select publications to feature with the Recommendations tool, found in the Grow dropdown menu in your dashboard.)

Then decide where to send your new subscribers. By default, they'll return to your home page, but you can also set up a custom redirect or new thank you page.

(Note: If you send folks to an external page, it will appear as a new tab alongside your home page.)

Creating a Thank You Page

Send these new subscribers to a new standalone thank you page.

In the website builder, shift from Settings to Layout. The menu on the left has the category: Standalone Pages. Under it, click the button + Add Page.

You can customize every element of the page. For content, start with a warm thank you or welcome message. Then remind them what they can expect from each issue.

Finally, give them a next step or multiple options for further engaging your brand. Advertise your referral program, provide social sharing buttons, or get them started with your greatest hits by linking to content from the archive.

Safe Listing Instructions

It's also a good idea to provide safe listing instructions to make sure your subscribers receive the content they want.

Remind them that the newsletter might initially wind up in their Promotions or even Spam folder rather than the inbox. After finding your welcome email, they should add you to their contacts, mark your content, or adjust their inbox settings.

For example, in Gmail, users can create a filter for an email list, marking all future messages from the address as Primary and sending them to the inbox.

The safe listing process varies between email clients. Learn more about it in beehiiv's article about safelisting. (Pro tip: You can also link to this article on your thank you page rather than detailing all possible safelisting processes.)

Advanced Signup Flow Options

On a paid plan, you will have extra options to direct new subscribers. Send people to your Upgrade Page to encourage paid subscriptions, advertise other publications you own with Multi Pubs, or create a Subscribe Survey to gain audience insights and personalize reader content.

Let’s look at beehiiv publication Superhuman. 

Once a reader subscribes, the newsletter sends them to a survey to answer a few questions about their job and industry. Readers need to complete the handful of questions to access Superhuman's free resources.

Once the newbie has filled in the information, the website redirects them to a custom thank you page with a library of free resources.

Final Thoughts

An effective signup flow integrates new subscribers into your community, welcoming them and encouraging active engagement. It also paves the way for future email delivery by helping them safelist your content.

Create your signup flow today with the beehiiv website builder. Customize your message to new readers and take advantage of connected growth tools such as the recommendation network.

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Why Trust Me

I'm a digital marketer who specializes in email marketing with multiple relevant bylines to my name. I'm also a fan of the beehiiv website builder and all of its tools.