Developing a consumer database by capturing email addresses during a pre-launch phase for a beta site, product or service release is easy to do and can serve as a spring board for amplifying viral pass along once your service, product or brand is made publicly available.

If you’re looking for a great  example of a beta release site, check out Likaholix “a fun and easy way to share and discuss your likes and discover new ones with people you know.”  It appears as if the company is diving into the “interest + relationship = trusted recommendation” arena.  Very interesting!

So how did Likaholix.com create a great beta release site?  It starts with a pretty simple landing page with a number of well executed elements to capture email addresses.  Note: This  framework can drive a 20% to 40% conversion rate for email capture off traffic to the site.

Here are few key takeaways to consider as you build your beta release site:

1. Prominently position data capture elements. The goal is acquire as many emails as early as possible to support future release goals as well as to gain insight from users. The underlying goal is to make it as easy as possible for visitors to sign up and become registered active users.  Start by making it as easy as possible for people to see how to sign up.  Site visits for early releases are in many cases are friends and family as well as individuals that have a category affinity or interest in a technology or service. Think technology application geeks that want to be the first to try something and, blog about it.

2. Keep data requests to a minimum. In this case, Likaholix is only asking for an email address.  Very smart.

3. Create exclusivity. Likaholix uses “private beta” and presents a relatively small pool of participants with an added “counter” of the number remaining beta accounts remain to drive email submissions.  The call to action - Request Account - is used to reinforce the perceived notion of exclusivity.  Again, very smart.

4. Deliver an activation link in an email communication that is triggered off the submission of an email address. There is always room for upgrades and, in this case I believe Likaholix would benefit by expanding their email communication model to include:

I. A reference to their privacy policy with a link to a privacy policy page. It is on the site but always nice to reinforce this information in the confirmation email.

II. Reinforce the incentive - five Amazon Kindles to drive activation — in the communication and turn it into a data capture vehicle.  Before Seth Godin sold Yoyodyne to Yahoo, he was running one the best email marketing data capture models online.  His Get Rich Click (GRC) framework prompted users for information before they could gain access to other links/contest information. In any event, Likoholix does request additional information - name, screenname and password - when you activate your link.  Again, nicely done.  Small innocuous data elements.  One small step for user, one giant step for Likoholix.

III. Leverage celebrity endorsements.  The activation email doesn’t mention Paul Buchheit or Jason Shellen.  Paul and Jason are Google rock stars and are likely to drive Tweets and blog posts because of the work they did at Google.  This is a missed opportunity to fully leverage the implied technology endorsement!

IV. Humanize the closing by including the name of the founder(s) or community director.  I would encourage Bindu Reddy and Arvind Sundararajan to be people signing email communicating to members of Likaholix community.

V. Add the “if this wasn’t you who requested to use to this cool tool” disclaimer paragraph to inform non-requesters that their email address is not going to be sent to fundraisers but rather that they — the receiver — simply need to act like a couch potato and do nothing because this is the last time they will hear from your great company unless they of course decide to click the activation link.  Problem solved.

5. Include a simple incentive framework to boost conversion off the data capture page. The incentive - the possibility of winning one of five Amazon Kindles - was enhanced by an implied technology endorsement from two super geeks (see above) who are judging the contest.  And, more importantly, a viral marketing campaign (get 10 friends — kind of a mini Moby campaign was integrated into the beta release to stimulate tool usage and viral pass along.  Well done Likaholix!

6.  The link to the Privacy policy is a nice touch.

TAGS: Likoholix, Bindu Reddy, Arvind Sundararajan, Google, beta release, viral marketing, Amazon Kindles, Paul Buchheit, Jason Shellen, Seth Godin,