Adding Email Opt-In Forms and Custom Tabs to your Facebook Pages.

Having spent the time today at Cazbah teaching myself how to add an email opt-in form to a Facebook page from Vertical Response – I found myself getting a little frustrated. Now that I’ve got it figured out – I’m going to save you tons of time in digging for the info (it’s not altogether straight forward for the basic user).

Assuming you have a business page on Facebook – AND – you are using Vertical Response for email marketing and list segmentation, you can create a tab on your Facebook page that will invite your page fans and visitors to sign up for (or opt-in to) emails from your company, group, etc… My assumption is that other email marketing tools will work too, but I have only tested VR at this point.

So to start out – head on over to Vertical Response and create your new list. I recommend creating a list that will store only the opt-ins from Facebook. After all, we want to know what conversions (if any) are coming from our Facebook pages.

To add a new list – follow the steps under Lists and then “Add New List” in your Vertical Response account. You then need to create an opt-in form just for that list. Follow the instructions to create your opt-in form and copy and past that form script into a text editor like notepad – we’ll need that when we get our Facebook page tab ready to go.

Note: When creating that new list and opt-in form, I do recommend using a custom thank you page that can be added to your Google Analytics Goals.

Now here’s where I got hung up – you need to add a customizable tab to your Facebook page, so before you can do that, you have to install the Static FBML application to your Facebook Account. (I am now a fan of this application since I know how to use it

To find Static FBML, click on the “Edit Page” link in your Facebook page and scroll down to Browse More Applications. Click on the Static FBML link (shown at right here).

This will take you to the application page on Facebook. You will need to add it to your Facebook page before you proceed.

The nice thing is, if you manage multiple Facebook pages you can add it to all of them at once. Scroll through the list and select the page(s) you want to add it to and we’ll continue on.

Once you’ve done that, head back to your Facebook page and click on “Edit Page” – don’t worry we are almost done! Once you are in your Edit screen you should scroll down and see the Static FBML link you’ll want to click on Edit.

Note: Have your text editor open where you’ve saved your form code so you can copy it to Facebook.

Change your title and then simply copy in your form script and then add any additional content. Note that FBML does not like <html> <body> and <head> tags, so you can format tables, paragraphs, etc – but avoid those few tags.

UPDATE (2-19-2010): Due to Facebook updates – you’ll need to add a “&” to the end of your FORM METHOD String to enable this feature to work. I had to go back to the Vertical Response Lounge to get this resolved (which by the way is a great resource).

<form method=”post” action=”http://oi.vresp.com?fid=26230b1027&” target=…..>

In the completed example below I have included a basic table format with some additional content to let users know what they’ll be receiving once they opt-in:

There you go! You have just learned (much quicker than I did), how to add email opt-in forms to your Facebook pages. (See the live example of Cazbah customer Turnbull Manufacturing.) This Static FBML application can do much more than just adding email opt-in forms. My next experiment will be with promotional content and coupons – but the possibilities are limitless (within the confines of the application) as to how to utilize this application.

Tagged as: email marketing, facebook, internet marketing, social media, vertical response

{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }

1 John Curnutt February 16, 2010 at 11:49 am: I get invalid form both on your example and my test. try it see if you get invalid form
2 Wendy Boyce February 18, 2010 at 12:46 pm: John,

I did a double-check. The form worked in IE but not from Chrome, Flock OR Firefox…. Yikes! I will get to FB and VR to see what I can figure out and get back to you!

Thanks.
Wendy
3 Wendy Boyce February 19, 2010 at 5:32 am: John,

I got the answer to the issue – with Facebook updates you need too add the “&” symbol in the method string – see the update above in green.

Thanks for bringing that error to my attention. Let me know how you make out!

Wendy
4 Jenna February 22, 2010 at 4:25 pm: Wendy –

Thanks for writing this up! I wanted to pass on a way to add this optin form onto your home page so that it isn’t hidden on a tab.
1) Locate the (already created) FBML app for the opt-in and then click ‘Edit’
2) Select ‘Application Settings’ and make sure that both ‘Box’ and ‘Tab’ are added. If not, add them and click ‘Okay’
3) Go back to you main page, select the ‘Boxes’ tab, find the app, click the pencil and select ‘Move to Wall Tab’

Thanks,
Jenna Jantsch
VerticalResponse
5 Sue Mayo February 22, 2010 at 5:51 pm: Wendy-
That’s amazing. Do you get compensation for all this hard work?
Sue
6 Jenn June 3, 2010 at 10:12 pm: Thanks! The “&” saved me!