Friday, 30 September 2016

6 Ways To Grow Your Email List that Prove You Don’t Need a Website

Growing an email list isn’t just for those with visually captivating, multi-page websites. It’s for anyone who wants to use email to engage their audience and grow their business.

And considering that email is 40 times more effective at acquiring new customers than Facebook or Twitter, you definitely don’t want to put your list growth efforts on hold until your website is ready (or, if you don’t plan on building a website at all).

Thankfully, there are a number of simple approaches you can take in the next hour to help you get moving – and they don’t require a huge chunk of time or a team of design experts. To kick-start your email marketing efforts, let’s take a look at 6 quick ways you can promote your sign up form.

1. Set up a landing page.

Don’t have a website? Not a problem. Using a landing page platform, such as Unbounce, you can create a simple landing page that hosts your sign up form and provides basic information about your business.

One benefit of using a platform like Unbounce is that you get access to pre-designed templates, which means it shouldn’t take longer than an hour to set up a page. To give you an idea of what you’d have to work with, here’s an example of one of their templates:

screen-shot-2016-09-29-at-11-43-14-am

As you can see from this template, you have a place to brand the page with your business name, inform visitors of your business value, feature a sign up form, and add additional relevant information as you see fit. And even though it’s not visible in the example, you’ll have access to an editor that allows you to change some of the visual elements, such as color scheme, to design it to fit your brand.

If you take this approach, you’ll want to make sure the page includes:

  • Your business name
  • A logo (if you have one)
  • Brief description about what your business does
  • Ways to contact you (phone number, email address)
  • Sign up form
  • Social media links (if applicable)

To optimize email sign ups, I’d also encourage you to include a description of your emails and the value they bring to subscribers. The more you highlight what subscribers will get out of it, the more likely they’ll want to sign up if it resonates with them.

If you have any incentives to offer (ebook, checklist, coupon), be sure to also mention that here as well.

How you can use this page: Since this page has additional information about your business, it’s ideal for individuals who may not be familiar with your brand. You can share the link with prospects at conferences, your social channels, paid ads and more.

2. Create a single-page website.

If you plan on creating a more robust website in the future, you don’t have to wait until it’s finished to start growing your email list. Instead, you can get started by publishing one simple page.

By doing so, you can begin earning organic traffic from people searching for services or products your business offers. You can also direct your existing customers to the page so they can learn more about you and get on your email list.

Using a website building platform like Wix or Weebly, you can select a template design and drag and drop different elements to create a super simple website (no coding required!). Some platforms allow you to publish or hide pages as you see fit, so you can have your homepage with your sign up form live as you continue developing the rest of your website.

Again, you’ll want to at least include your business name and logo (if you have one), information about what your business does, contact information and your sign up form.

How you can use this page: Since this page will have information about your business, you can use this link just as you would with the landing page we previously covered – you can share the link with customers at your store, on your business cards, in social channels and more.

3. Use a web hosted sign up form.

If a landing page or single page website has more bells and whistles than you need, you can take an even simpler approach by using a web hosted sign up form provided by your email service provider.

With AWeber, for example, customers have the option to share this type of form directly from their account. After creating a sign up form, they can publish their form in three different ways: 1) By copying and pasting the code onto their website, 2) Sending the code to their web designer to add it to the website, or 3) Sharing a link that directs to a page (hosted by AWeber) with their form.

The design you create using our sign up form generator will automatically carry over to the page, which means you can customize the content and design to your liking, like so:

screen-shot-2016-09-29-at-10-15-22-am

Again, be sure to set clear expectations as to what your emails contain.

How you can use this page: This page is perfect if you’re looking for a no-frills web page to promote email sign ups. If you’re publishing social posts that encourage people to subscribe to your email list, for example, you can link to this page so they can easily sign up after they click through. If you have an email newsletter you want clients to subscribe to, you can also feature this link in your email signature.

4. Share your broadcast archive page.

Want to give future subscribers a sneak peek into the emails you send? Simply send a link to your broadcast archive page to show the value of being on your list.

AWeber users have the option to save the one-time emails they send to subscribers. When they do, the emails are stored on a page that can be shared with others:

screen-shot-2016-09-29-at-10-28-46-am

In addition to being able to view every email you’ve ever sent, visitors to the page also have the option to subscribe to your email list:

screen-shot-2016-09-29-at-10-28-54-am

 

So if you want to let your emails speak for themselves, the broadcast archive page is a great way to show that off.

How you can use this page: I recommend sharing this link just as you might share the link to your web hosted sign up form (via social posts, in an email, etc.). However, keep in mind that while you’re letting your emails speak for themselves, you’re limited as to the call-to-action and context you can provide to convince someone to sign up to your email list. As a result, this is ideal for those who already have some familiarity with your business, and wouldn’t need an additional explanation as to who you are. 

5. Promote your email list on social media.

If you primarily interact with customers on social media platforms, there are plenty of ways you can promote your email list. While your strategy will depend on the social platform you use, you’ll at least be able to add a link to a web-hosted sign up form or landing page in your social profiles or posts.

You can also explore the unique lead generation opportunities different social platforms offer to help you cross-promote your email list.

If you have a large Facebook following, for example, you can run paid ads that direct people to subscribe to your list. You can also use their Call-to-Action feature on your business page cover photo and link to your hosted sign up form:

screen-shot-2016-09-29-at-12-02-04-pm

6. Leverage offline networking with mobile sign up form apps.

If you often interact with potential customers during conferences, networking events or meet ups, chances are you’ll need a simple way to get them to sign up to your email list.

With a mobile sign up form app, such as Atom, people can easily subscribe to your email list in less than a minute directly from your mobile device:

screen-shot-2016-09-29-at-11-38-31-am

The benefit of an app like this is that it provides an easy user experience for someone who’s signing up to your list in person. And since it functions just like a sign up form you’d have on your web page, you can include information about your email list and customize the design. The best part of all? You don’t need access to the internet in order for people to subscribe.

How you can use this page: While any event where you’re face-to-face with customers and prospects is ideal for using a mobile sign up form app, you can also set this up at your brick and mortar store. It even comes in handy if you strike up a conversation with someone in line at the grocery store!

Start growing your email list today!

When you get creative with how you think about building an engaged community of subscribers, it becomes easier to see how you can get started with just the basics. And hopefully now you have a few new tricks up your sleeve to make that happen.

Are you ready to start growing your list using one of this tips above? Or do you have a strategy of your own that wasn’t mentioned in this post? I’d love to hear about it in the comments!

The post 6 Ways To Grow Your Email List that Prove You Don’t Need a Website appeared first on Email Marketing Tips.



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Why Clients Render Email Differently

Wednesday, 28 September 2016

Stop Believing These Common Social Media Myths

Brad Pitt isn’t dead, so don’t click that dodgy link on Facebook


Following Angelina Jolie’s filing for divorce, an article falsified to look like it was published by Fox News has started making the rounds on Facebook with the extremely clickable headline “R.I.P Brad Pitt.” Fortunately, Pitt is not dead. The post is merely a hoax that has been created by a savvy hacker to trick vulnerable users into handing over their email address, password and other personal details. Clicking the headline redirects users to an application riddled with malware. They are requested to fill in their Facebook credentials to read the story. However, instead of signing them in, the app grants itself access to their…

This story continues at The Next Web

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Friday, 23 September 2016

#SproutChat Recap: How to Manage your Content Calendar with Trello

Staying organized and on-task is essential for any professional. This is especially true for social media managers. For social and editorial content, a tool like Trello is essential to track posts and maintain your sanity.

This week at #SproutChat, Sprout All Star Erica Moss from Trello joined us for a valuable chat around managing a content or editorial calendar with the visual collaboration tool.

Get Your Entire Team on Board for Maximum Efficiency

Trello’s collaboration features are not to be missed. Individual users can gain a lot of organization and productivity and that result is just multiplied with more team members working together on a board. Whether you’re working across specialty, department or across the country, get on the same page quickly by using Trello team features.

Don’t Miss These Trello Features

Take advantage of all the integrations with other tools for maximum efficiency. Having tools “talk” to each other will kill tedious tasks and allow you to focus on what’s really important. Trello has a lot of other capabilities to decrease the amount of time you need to spend on administrative tasks.

Get Started

The use cases for Trello are vast. Tell us how you use the tool or get inspired  for content organization via this example of an content calendar.

Join us next week to discuss LinkedIn Reporting. Stay up to date with weekly chat topics and connect to other #SproutChat folks via our Facebook community.

This post #SproutChat Recap: How to Manage your Content Calendar with Trello originally appeared on Sprout Social.



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4 Ways You Can Advertise with a Small Budget

As a small business owner, you’ve poured blood, sweat and tears into your company to get it to a place where you can finally see financial benefits (go you!). But due to all of your hard work, that sometimes makes the decision to spend your hard earned money particularly difficult.

When you do spend it, you want to spend it well – like on something that gets your message in front of an audience who has a problem your product or service can fix. But sometimes, reaching the right people is the biggest challenge of all.

That’s where a wonderful tactic known as paid advertising comes in handy. With paid ads, you can bring valuable visitors to your website, get them to join your email list and convert them into customers with a lead nurturing automated email series. And best of all? It can be done at a price you can afford.

In this post, you’ll get an introduction to affordable paid advertising, and learn about four advertising channels that are wildly effective.

First up? Facebook.

1. Facebook ads

If you’re already involved in promoting your business for free using Facebook, then you likely have felt the impact of Facebook’s algorithm changes over the past three years. Every post you make on Facebook will only reach about 6 percent of the audience you’ve worked so hard to grow.

While that may be the case for your organic reach, however, that doesn’t mean it’s not a great channel for advertising – because the truth of the matter is, it is!

Facebook allows you to connect with your ideal audience by giving you the power to target your ads based on age, gender, interests, occupation and more. And best part of all? You can spend as little as five dollars per day and still reap great rewards. You can also choose what goal you would like pay for, such as impressions, website visits, clicks, actions and more.

To start advertising on Facebook, begin by exploring targeting options and picking a few that are a good fit for your business. Yes, you’ll want to think about age, gender and geographic location, but the biggest areas of impact will be demographic, interest, and behavior based targeting. Typically, a great place to start is to find Facebook pages related to your audience that have large followings. From here, you can launch a few tests, and learn from each one.

Learn more: For an in depth guide on how to get started, be sure to check out 7 Steps To Create and Measure Winning Facebook Ads. You can also read these Facebook success stories (or learn from one of our customers to see how she’s using Facebook ads to grow her community and email list) to get ideas on how other small businesses are advertising on Facebook.

2. Paid search for brand terms

(Fair warning: Paid search can be a complex topic. But if you want to grow your brand awareness and you’re willing to take the time to learn how it works, paid search can have a huge, positive impact on your company’s growth!)

When you search Google using a keyword or phrase, Google displays results relevant to your search. Most of those results appear organically (meaning that no one is paying for Google to show you those pages). But at the top right side of the page, Google (and other search engines like Yahoo and Bing) displays ads which companies pay for you to see.

Typically, paid search advertising is divided into two groups: brand and non-brand keywords. While you may think that appearing in the search results of Google is going to destroy your budget, paid search ads for brand keywords can actually be very affordable.

Brand keywords are words that people will search related to your brand name (like AWeber email marketing, for example). At AWeber, we run ads on our own keyword, as you can see below:

screen-shot-2016-09-23-at-4-08-11-pm
Now you may wonder, “If I appear in the organic listing for my brand name, why would I pay for ads on my own brand name?”

Well, I’d have to say that when you do, you’re more likely to get people to click on your ads.  Studies have shown that the more placements you have in the search engine results page (also known as SERP), the more likely you are to get a click to your website.

This makes paid ads on your brand name a powerful tool for increasing website visits. Also, if you don’t bid on your brand name, others (like your competitors) might! So if you don’t want your competitor taking traffic from you by appearing in the top search results for your brand name, make sure to set up brand name search engine ads.

Beyond increasing clicks to your website, paid ads on brand names are also budget friendly. Although paid search is typically more expensive than other social advertising channels, brand terms are usually cheaper than non-brand terms.

This is due to the fact that Google gives priority and charges less to companies whose content is relevant to the keyword they’re bidding on. Since your website content probably contains your company name, you’re very likely to get a higher quality score, which means lower cost and higher placement in Google.

When choosing which search engines to advertise on, keep in mind that while Google is the most popular advertising engine, Bing and Yahoo tend to have lower cost-per-clicks (CPCs), which could be a great opportunity for small budget ads.

Learn more: Love the idea of paid advertising but need a little guidance? Check out this Paid Search Beginner’s Guide from Wordstream.

3. Native advertising

If you produce content regularly (whether it’s blog articles, ebooks pieces or landing pages), native advertising is a great option for driving significant traffic volume without killing your budget.

Native advertising companies (like Outbrain, Taboola and StackAdapt) offer contextually relevant ad spots for your content on the websites of third party companies that sell ad space on their site, like in the CNN example below:

screen-shot-2016-09-23-at-4-08-29-pm
As with any ad channel, however, there are some pros and cons to consider with native advertising. While it’s almost half the cost of Facebook advertising, ad targeting for native advertisements is limited. Often, you can choose the website where you content appears, but that’s about it. This is very different from Facebook where you can target your ads to the exact type of person you want to reach.

4. Retargeting ads

Retargeting is a great channel for businesses with small budgets, simply because the cost per clicks are lower than paid search ads. Additionally, these ads target people who have already visited your website and are more likely to convert. As a result, retargeting requires little effort and money, but can have a big, positive impact.

Retargeting is typically purchased through display advertising networks like Google AdWords, although many social advertising networks now offer it as an option as well.

For retargeting through Google AdWords, all you have to do is place a piece of code across your website. AdWords will allow you to build your segmented audiences, upload your creative and control how many times a previous visitor sees your ad.

Learn more: To hep you get started, here’s how you can create your first retargeting campaign. Or read more tips on how to increase acquisition with retargeting.

Rolling out big ad campaigns with a small budget

Ready to give paid advertising a try? If you’ve read this whole article, I’d say you’re already off to a great start! A good next step is to pick one of the options above, and start advertising. And remember, all you have to do is spend a little at a time, learn from each test and update your strategy as you go. If you do this, you’ll be attracting valuable site traffic and turning that traffic into email subscribers and then customers in no time!

Want to share how you’re going to get started with paid ads? I’d love to hear about it in the comments section below!

The post 4 Ways You Can Advertise with a Small Budget appeared first on Email Marketing Tips.



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LinkedIn is making some big changes, but will it suck less?


On Thursday, LinkedIn announced a bunch of big changes to their website to try and lure people back to their website. The Microsoft-owned social network for professionals is betting on a redesign and a revamped messaging system to make its users log in more and spend a bigger part of their day on the platform. The redesign is aimed to make the desktop version look more like its recently updated smartphone app, in an effort to improve consistency between the platforms. After having tweaked its messaging platform a year ago to make it work more like a chat service, it’s now also adding the option…

This story continues at The Next Web

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Thursday, 22 September 2016

Coming Soon to Gmail: Better Email Rendering

Pre-Built Segmentation: Target Your Customers With One Click

How to Analyze Twitter Data

[Podcast] Episode 40: Highlights From Our Most Downloaded Podcast Episodes

In this podcast episode, listen in on clips from our top 10 most popular episodes to date (as ranked by your downloads) in a curated Ask Me About Email Marketing clip show!

Join Tom T. as he reflects on the inspiring guests and content we explored over the course of the past 40 episodes.

Curious as to what the top downloaded episodes are? You’ll have to tune in to find out! 🙂

Episode synopsis

Over the past year, we’ve covered many different email marketing topics – from copywriting and list-building to community management and entrepreneurship. In this episode, you’ll get a wide sampling of the best tips and tactics from some of our favorite guests, like Madalyn Sklar, Nick Westergaard, Noah Kagan, Ben Settle and more.

Click here to download this episode directly. (MP3)

Ask us anything!

Have a question about email marketing that you want answered in a future podcast episode? Leave us a message at aweber.com/podcast.

The post [Podcast] Episode 40: Highlights From Our Most Downloaded Podcast Episodes appeared first on Email Marketing Tips.



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3 Ways Wahl Professional Grew Its Instagram Community by 56%

Tuesday, 20 September 2016

How MailChimp Does E-Commerce Trade Shows

Brooke B. Sellas From B-Squared Media on Starting a Social Media Agency

Brooke B. Sellas is the founder of @HelloBSquared, which specializes in “done-for-you” social media management. Brooke is a marketing and social media consultant, and an adjunct for consumer behavior at CUNY.

Brooke recently spoke with Sprout about what it takes to start your own social media agency, the done-for-you social approach, and the importance of scaling when launching a business.

How did you first get interested in social media?

I went back to school, and to graduate with honors from Penn State, you have to do an undergraduate thesis. So, I decided to do my undergraduate thesis on social media and the Social Penetration Theory. Back in the sixties, there were two social psychologists, Irwin Altman and Dalmas Taylor, and they said that we form relationships through disclosure. Meaning, if I like you and I disclose information to you, and you accept that information and you disclose information to me, it would keep prompting deeper and deeper disclosures until we build trust in a relationship.

My study looked at Facebook and three brands and how and if they were using disclosure to talk to their audiences. Essentially what I found was that the companies that got deep with that disclosure—with opinions and feelings—had the biggest audiences, the most engagement and the most return.

What is your marketing strategy? Why did you decide to focus on “done-for-you” social?

We started with “done-for-you” social because I knew, from my previous marketing experience, that clients often said things like, “I don’t want to learn how to manage social. I don’t have time for that—I just want to hand it off to someone and have them do it.” So I knew that this was a pain point.

How do you get people interested in your agency?

It really comes down to networking. The majority of our clients have all come from word of mouth. I started to meet people who owned marketing agencies—a lot of times these marketers are experts in their own way but they get requests to do “done-for-you” work that they don’t specialize in. So they often turn around and pass this work over to us.

So it’s word of mouth but from highly recognizable, sought after people. Lately the big boom for us has been partnering with a lot of marketing agencies who offer agency work but not social agency work.

What is the most important lesson you’ve learned?

Nobody explains to you what it’s like to scale a business. Everybody tells you, “Oh, business is hard, it’s so hard,” but my advice that I would give as far as scaling goes is document everything. Figure out how you can then take those documents and turn them into processes and workflows, and turn them into client education, and then maybe blog posts.

Everything you write down can turn into some sort of content for yourself. Because I think, with scaling, the first thing you can scale is the process or the workflow. As soon as I know I have a repeatable process that works for done-for-you social or for advertising or for content, or whatever it is, then I can scale. Once you scale so many of those processes, then you add the people in.

Speaking of scaling, how did you scale your efforts?

Scaling the agency is an ongoing conversation. I think there is no one answer. There’s no “scale in a box.” You have to pair up with a financial advisor. I think that’s one of the first things you should invest in, when you can.

Luckily my husband is a financial advisor. We talk about scaling every day—how to scale, how to make things fit—because, again, we prefer not to make any sort of investment or borrow any money, so we only do it when we have the cash. Which makes it hard but it’s also smart.

I like to think and set goals in five-year increments. I have revenue goals that I set; for the first five years, which we’re in now.

When you have big clients like we have, it’s wonderful, but when you lose a billion-dollar client, it really hurts the bottom line. So you have to be able to bob and weave and keep scaling.

How did you know when it was time to hire additional people?

I work seven days a week, 365 days a year. I was working holidays, I was working weekends and I think when I finally got, like, a tick, my husband—or then-boyfriend at the time— said, “You know, you’re making enough now that you can hire someone part-time.” He helped me crunch the numbers.

Who are some of your clients?

We help everyone from startups to billion-dollar brands. The mix of our clients is everything from fashion to retail to pharma to tech to staffing—there’s no one industry. I would say the majority of our clients now are middle-market to large-size companies or brands.

Have you set goals for numbers of clients?

Last year and this year we scaled up very quickly. We went from two people to four people and that was partly because we grew so much and so we had the income to support that growth. But part of what we’ve done in these two years, too, is to work on what everyone’s threshold is.

So we set up a threshold for accounts—and by social channels or accounts, not clients, because some clients just have Facebook, but some clients have Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, Instagram—so we set a threshold on what we call properties, or channels. We said, “You’re responsible in this role for handling up to 30 properties.” We’re almost at that 30-property threshold with two of our girls and they haven’t quit on me. We know if we close a large client, we know we have to hire someone. If we close a medium client, we probably have to hire someone. If we close two small clients, it’s time to hire someone.

Your blog is a large part of your brand and agency. How did you develop your blog’s tone of voice?

I’ve always written the blog. I do have guest bloggers come on every now and again but I’ve always written the blog. So when I decided to get serious about blogging, which was several years ago now, I said, “I’m going to publish weekly.” And I’ve published weekly—I’ve never broken that because it’s so important.

Consistency is important, even if only three people are reading your blog. I feel like it was easy to keep voice and tone consistent on the blog because I’m the one who writes most of the posts. As far as the copy on our site and all of our client collateral and even proposals, I have a very casual, fun, bubbly way of speaking to people. I can be serious when needed, but I just feel like “serious” and “social media” don’t really go together.

Have you seen an uptick in business in terms of blogging? Have you set any goals related to blogging?

My blog audience is really made up of other social media experts. So I don’t really sell anything to that group.

What are some tools that you’ve relied on for documenting those processes besides Sprout?

Excel, Basecamp for project management, which has been huge. These tools really come and go, but we’ve stuck with Sprout Social. We use Toggl—that’s big for scaling because Toggl allows you to log in and out based on projects.

And so what our social media and advertising strategist and I do is we go through every so often and we look at where the most time is being spent. That helps us understand that threshold of what people can handle, what paths are taking longer than we anticipated and that 30-property threshold.

This post Brooke B. Sellas From B-Squared Media on Starting a Social Media Agency originally appeared on Sprout Social.



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How to Create Effective Facebook Lead Generation Ads

Friday, 16 September 2016

The 3 Commandments of Sign Up Form Design

Imagine this scenario for a moment: You just finished creating the perfect email sign up form. You’ve written compelling copy, offer a valuable lead magnet and display it on every page of your blog.

But as you sit at your computer waiting for the email subscribers to flow in, little happens. Your conversion rates are low, and you begin to wonder, “Where did I go wrong?

Unfortunately in this scenario, there’s one item that was missing from the quality checklist: effective design.

Good design draws the eye of your website visitors, keeps them engaged and plays a big role in getting them to sign up for your email list. And when you apply that to your sign up form, it could turn into higher conversions, more email subscribers, and ultimately, more sales.

But how do you know what design changes will help you form conversion rate rather than hurt it?

A little guidance from the pros can help.

In this post, our Creative Director (and web form expert!) Chris Vasquez  shares his top three web form design tips. Not sure if you’re ready to implement expert design advice? Not a worry – you don’t need to have any design expertise to apply them. They’re just simple guidelines to help you design forms that are more functional, beautiful and convert like crazy.

So let’s get started.

1. Your design decisions must always be based on context.

“The overarching principle that I keep in mind when I’m thinking about forms is context. The best forms always have context,” says Chris.

Context is huge. Before you begin building a form, consider the content of the page where you’ll be placing your form, the goal of your form, the overall look of your site and the messaging of your copy.

All of these factors are the context which surrounds the design of your form. When you design for the context, you’ll see higher conversions.

This form from Atlas Obscura is Chris’ “favorite form on the internet” (as of right now, anyway) and is an excellent example of designing with context in mind:

screen-shot-2016-09-14-at-3-24-49-pm

The natural color scheme fits the site, which is dedicated to finding and listing obscure and curious travel destinations. The winding lines in the background of the form are reminiscent of those on a topographical map (which ties to travel). It also abstractly relates to the idea of wandering (or wanderlust), which speaks to their target audience.

The form is a great example of choosing colors and images with context in mind. While a modern form with bright colors and straight lines would feel out of place on this site, the above form fits perfectly, as it feels more natural and organic.

2. Make your forms functional.

“Let people get to your form,” Chris advises. “Don’t use huge images that are going to take forever to load, and don’t use images that are going to push the content of the form out of people’s view. Make it easy for people to see the form as a whole thing. Your imagery should support your message.”

Images in forms attract people’s attention – and they work, too. According to Kissmetrics, content with relevant images gets 94 percent more views than content without images. Wow!

But when you do use images, make sure they don’t distract from your main goal, which is to get people to fill out your form.

If your images make the copy too difficult to read or slow down the load time of your form, they’re not contributing anything to help you grow your email list. All it does is frustrate your website visitors and keep them from signing up to your list.

For an example of brand that uses images well, check out the form below from Muzli, the ultimate inspiration center for designers:

screen-shot-2016-09-14-at-3-37-50-pm

The image is compelling and works with the content to convey the benefit of signing up. And by placing the image below the content and form fields, the image doesn’t distract from the message or make the copy difficult to read.

3. Use contrast when you choose colors.

“Set your form apart,” Chris states. “Try to establish some level of contrast so that people aren’t blind to it.”

To get more people to notice your form and sign up, it needs to stick out and capture your visitors’ attention. To make this happen, contrast is key.

In this sticky horizontal form (aka, one that follows you down the page as you scroll) below, Dadsigner uses a yellow background and gray button to create contrast for both the form and the call to action button. This contrast catches people’s attention on the predominately white background of the site:

screen-shot-2016-09-16-at-5-04-19-pm

Build your own functional, contrasting and contextual forms.

Now that you know the three guidelines to create well-designed sign up forms, it’s time to build a beautiful one yourself. To help you along the way, Chris created a form builder that you can use for free (as long as you have an AWeber account). It’s super easy to use, and provides just enough features to help you cover the basics and create a compelling form.

“I wanted to make a super simple solution for people to create forms that don’t suck,” Chris says. “I did a lot of looking into how our more successful customers were using forms on their sites and I listened to a lot of customer feedback. I took all of that research and boiled it down into something that would make it easy for people to create simple forms that would make them successful.”

And he’s right about the simplicity – check out this form I built in less than five minutes using his form builder (so pretty!):

screen-shot-2016-09-15-at-8-09-01-am

(If you don’t have an AWeber account, you can test out this form builder when you sign up for a 30-day free trial of AWeber!)

Do you have sign up form design advice that’s worked on your own forms? Share it in the comments section below.

The post The 3 Commandments of Sign Up Form Design appeared first on Email Marketing Tips.



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#SproutChat Recap: How to Market to a Niche Audience

Marketing a niche product or targeting a very specific demographic can be daunting. At some point in their career, almost every marketer has had to communicate a message to a focused subset. It’s not always easy to identify a niche audience and engage with them on social. But the sooner you figure out where these folks are hanging out, the more successful you’ll be in the long run. This week at #SproutChat we discussed best practices and tactics around impacting a niche audience.

Incorporate Unique Social Networks Into Your Strategy

Determine the kind of social community you want to build and the connections you’re hoping to have with your followers. Then, in addition to launching a presence on popular social networks, take advantage of the unique platforms that make sense for your brand or product. Not sure where to start? Here’s a great resource for exploring niche networks.

Use a Variety of Search Methods to Find Your Audience

When it comes to finding new people to bring into your community, each social network has its strengths. Use different tactics to reach and invite your target audience to interact with your brand. Check out native network capabilities as well as social media listening tools.

Activate Advocates With Great Content

After you reach your niche community, you’ll want to encourage brand champions to help spread your message.  Still you may want to directly ask them to speak on your behalf or create a more formal advocate program around your relationship. Test different options to see what works for your community and recieves the best response.

Learn From the Pros

Here are several niche brands doing it right. See what you can learn from these organizations and how you can apply their content and social engagement strategies to your own efforts.

Don’t miss #SproutChat next Wednesday, September 21 with special guest #SproutAllStar Erica Moss from Trello. We’ll be discussing how to create and manage your content calendars with Trello. Join our Facebook community to receive the event notification so you don’t miss it!

This post #SproutChat Recap: How to Market to a Niche Audience originally appeared on Sprout Social.



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Summer Engineering Internships at Sprout

Wednesday, 14 September 2016

What You Need to Do Now to Grow Your List on YouTube

What does YouTube have to do helping you grow your email list?

Well, a lot actually. By creating video content, you give yourself another place for people to discover you and your business. And the more people see your content and learn about your business, the more people will have the opportunity to sign up to your email list.

So how can you get started?

In this post, I’m going to go over two of the main steps to growing your email list on this popular social channel. The first will be about setting up your YouTube channel so that you can add a link to your sign up form via annotations in your videos.

Then we’ll cover the types of videos you can create to foster that awareness and make people interested enough to either sign up for your email list from the video, or click through to your website.

Step 1) Set up your annotations

Annotations in YouTube are text boxes that you can place at any time in your video. Annotations are one of my favorite list building tools because they allow you to promote a link to your sign up form or incentive during a video.

While you can definitely still add a link to your form in the video description, the benefit of this feature is that you get to promote your list while the viewer is engaging with your content.

And since more people are engaged with the beginning of a video, this also increases the chance that they’ll see your call-to-action.

Annotations can be as simple as a note that gives more information or context to a scene in the video or a link to a website, like this:

annotations-2

 

In order to link back to your sign up form, you’ll need to verify your account. YouTube offers a simple step-by-step process to do this.

Once verified, setting up an annotation is quick and easy. I could write out the instructions here, but since we’re talking about video (my favorite 🙂 ), I’ll just show you!

Step 2) Identify a video strategy

So, you have your YouTube account verified and can comfortably add annotations. But what are you suppose to say in those videos? Do you just make a video that says “Sign up for my newsletter?”

Maybe. Although that might not make the most interesting video. 🙂

What does make an interesting video though, is relevant content that engages your viewers. As you focus on doing that, you can add annotations with links to your sign up form or lead magnet within your video. The benefit here is that the video content will get your viewers hooked, which might encourage them to sign up to your email list for more valuable information.

When it comes to creating video content, there are lots of different approaches you can take that provide your audience with more insight into what you do and how they can benefit from your product/service.

Some of my favorite types of videos include ones that:

 

1) Demo your product

Sometimes it’s easier to show then to tell. With a demo video, you can show people why your product or service is valuable. Whether your product is a tangible one or a service (like AWeber), demo videos help people see your business in action.

In this video from Knock, they demo how their product works in a really creative way:

2) Feature a customer testimonial

Customer testimonials can be powerful tools that help your audience better understand your business from the point of view of someone who isn’t part of your business. If I told you, “I make the best cake,” you may think, “Of course he thinks he makes the best cake. We all think we do a great job.”

But if someone else tells you I make the best cake, you may be more inclined to listen.

Here’s a testimonial for Roku, where some of their customers explain how much they love their product:

3) Introduce yourself/your business

A video that explains who you are and what your business is can go a long way in turning a mildly interested viewer into a subscriber. And this is an easy video to make; all you have to do is talk about your business, and how what you offer can benefit the customer. If you’re new to making video, this is a great one to start with.

While not all of us can be as funny and quirky as Dollar Shave Club, the video introducing their business is the best type of this video I’ve ever seen:

4) Share more about your product updates

Coming out with a new product? Adding a new feature to your service? Spread the word with video! Many times, people will use their email newsletter to let their subscribers know that something new has been added.

But what about those who may be following your business and aren’t subscribers?

Product update videos can go a long way into getting the word out about the cool and exciting new things you’ve been working on.

Check out what we here at AWeber have done in the past regarding product updates:

Ready to start growing your list with YouTube?

So what’s next? Get yourself set up with a YouTube channel (if you don’t already have one) and start making a video. Need some guidance on where to start? Check out some of these resources on how to make a screen recording, and how to shoot live video.

Have you see any really great strategies where a business has used YouTube to help spread awareness and grow their email list? Share in the comments below!

The post What You Need to Do Now to Grow Your List on YouTube appeared first on Email Marketing Tips.



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How to Start Your Facebook Business Page: A Complete Guide

Tuesday, 13 September 2016

[Podcast] Episode 39: The Non-Marketer’s Guide to Getting 100 Subscribers with Andy Obusek

Ah, yes! The first 100 subscriber mark. It is quite possibly the most rewarding benchmark in your email marketing adventures.

If you haven’t gotten there yet, that’s not a problem! This episode is just for you. 🙂

Join Tom T. as he chats with fellow AWeber team member, Andy Obusek of CleanSwifter.com, to dig into how he grew his list from 0 to 100 in just five months.

Now, you may be thinking, “That’s not a big deal, I attract 100 subscribers a week,” or, “I hit my first 100 subscribers in way less time than that!”

What makes Andy’s experience unique is that, unlike so many of us who frequent this blog, he is not a marketer by trade. Andy is an iOS software developer and team lead, who feverishly guides our efforts in enhancing our Stats app. Andy wrote code, not copy. Andy’s expertise was in refactoring, not retargeting.

So how does a non-marketer with a passion to share go from Swift test automation to conversion rate optimization? And what does this mean for you? How can you apply Andy’s learnings to help you get your first 100 subscribers, even if you’re new to marketing?

You’ll just have to tune in to find out.

Episode synopsis

Finding your tribe and growing your list is not an easy feat, especially if email marketing is a brand new discipline.

In this episode, you’ll learn about the successes and failures of a passionate and unconventional non-marketer as he grew his list from 0 to 100 subscribers in just five months.

Listen in as we discuss:

  • How to gamify your early content creation and SEO strategy
  • Suggestions to create a strong lead magnet and high-converting signup form
  • Powerful tactics to leverage social media to attract new subscribers
  • A simple low-budget Facebook ad strategy to consider testing
  • Ideas on content and email marketing monetization options
  • … and much more!

Here are a few links referenced on the show:

Click here to download this episode directly. (MP3)

Ask us anything!

Have a question about email marketing that you want answered in a future podcast episode? Leave us a message at aweber.com/podcast.

The post [Podcast] Episode 39: The Non-Marketer’s Guide to Getting 100 Subscribers with Andy Obusek appeared first on Email Marketing Tips.



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The 4 Best Ways To Grow Your Email List with Blogging

The following is a guest blog post from Martin Zhel, author at MailMunch and CEO and founder of Orior Creative. He helps startup companies grow their traffic, leads and revenue with the power of content marketing. 

One of the great things about blogging is that it perfectly fits into so many other digital marketing strategies you might already have in place. And if you’re not yet using it to grow your email list and nurture an engaged community of readers, you could be missing out on some huge business opportunities.

According to a Hubspot study, B2B marketers who blog generate 67 percent more leads than those who do not. Sixty-seven percent! 

So why does blogging help marketers get so many more leads? Well, there are three main reasons:

1) Blogging tends to generate high-quality traffic. People read your posts because they’re interested in the topic that’s presented. As a result, they are more likely to share that content, which can drive even more traffic to your site.

2) It can bring traffic to your site, even when you’re not doing anything. Once you optimize your posts with the right keywords and content, each blog post becomes a new page that is indexed by Google that could rank for new keywords – which can bring you more search traffic and new email subscribers for years.

3) The more blog posts you create the more traffic and leads you generate.

However, while blogging can be wildly effective, it can also be difficult to get great results. Some companies struggle to bring traffic to their blog, don’t write valuable blog content or fail to convert their blog readers into email subscribers.

But by following a few proven guidelines, you can avoid these blogging pitfalls. In my last six years working as a conversion optimization expert, I’ve learned the four key things you need to do to run a successful blog and grow an email list with blogging, which we’ll dive right into.

1. Create amazing pre opt-in content

HubSpot said this best, “If your blog content sucks, no one will want to become a regular reader.

To ensure your readers will want to engage with your content, you need to bring value to your audience. After all, quality content will bring you loyal readership and more subscribers. The more relevant a blog post is, the more likely your readers will share it with others, which can drive even more traffic to your site – which will ultimately help you grow your email list faster.

To get the most out of your content, you should focus on the following:

Offer tons of value before you ask for the opt-in.

According to the reciprocity principlewhen someone does something good for us, we feel obligated to do something back in return. In other words, when that person asks us for a favor, it becomes extremely hard for us to say “no.” And this can come in handy as you think about your blog and list building strategies.

So how can you apply the reciprocity rule to blogging?

All you have to do is focus on offering as much value as you can in your content. Create the most useful, detailed and action-oriented blog posts in your niche and your audience will love you.

Then, when they come across a sign up form on your blog, they’ll be much more likely to give you their email address so they don’t miss any of your valuable content.

Choose topics that solve big problems or achieve big goals.

To discover your audience’s big problems or goals, find out what matters to them.

To do this, start by conducting a little keyword research. This is a good way to begin as the monthly search volumes for each keyword show how much demand there is for a certain topic.

You can also survey and interview your customers (whether over the phone, in person at a conference or through social media) to find more about their challenges and goals. And if you have a sales and support team, be sure to collect information from them about the questions your customers ask – this can give you more insight into their concerns and needs.

You can also check community sites like Quora and Reddit, where you’ll learn the kind of questions your target audience is asking. For example, if you visit Quora, you can try typing in the main keyword that describes your service or product. Let’s imagine that this is “Link building.”

screen-shot-2016-09-12-at-4-01-00-pm

After doing a search on Quora for this keyword, you’ll see all the questions that people ask related to that topic in your search results.

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Questions with more views, upvotes and comments tend to be more relevant and popular, so you can get a sense of common topics your target audience wants to learn more about. These popular questions can then be turned into or inspire a new blog post. For instance, looking at the search above you could decide to write a blog post called “Should You Buy Links?” or “Is Link Building Dead?”

Write high-quality, well-researched blog posts.

The goal of your blog posts should be to give the most valuable and detailed information on your topic.

To make this happen, your content should be actionable, not just theoretical. In other words, people must understand:

1) How to apply the information they’ve learned so they can get the same results.

2) The specific actions they need to take.

Be sure to support the points you make in your post with relevant case studies, statistics, research on the topic, etc. This brings more credibility to the statements you make in your blog post, which will encourage readers to implement the tactics you share.

You should also structure your content in a way that makes it easier for people to read. This means you should:

1) Use short paragraphs. Researchers for The Poynter Institute found that short-paragraph format encourages reading, whereas longer paragraphs discourage people from finishing a story.

2) Write short sentences. According to a research made by American Press Institute, readers understand more than 90 percent of what they’re reading when the average sentence length is 14 words. At 43 words, comprehension drops to less than 10 percent.

3) Eliminate fluff and get straight to the point. Be concise and get to the point in your writing. If you’re using words like very, little and rather in a sentence, make sure it brings value and adds meaning to your sentence. If not, it’s better to eliminate them. 

4) Make your content easy to read and view. Since many people skim blog posts, be sure to organize your post so that it’s easy for them to do so. Use subheadings and bullet points to help break up your content, and include images that illustrate your points. In the top 100 highest ranking blogs on the internet, there is at least one image for every 350 words, according to a study by Blog Pros.

2. Offer the right type of lead magnet

Great lead magnets resolve problems or answer questions that are very important to your audience. Here are a few tips that’ll help you create lead magnets that answer your audience’s biggest questions:

Understand what people want to learn.

To understand what kind of lead magnet content your audience will want, you can use the same process I outlined above for finding a blog post topic. You can once again use surveys, interviews, sales/support calls and analytics tools.

Remember, your lead magnets must offer premium content. When people opt-in for them, they should feel like what you’re giving them is far more valuable than what they would find for free on your blog.

Create page-level targeting lead magnets.

Visitors come to your site for various reasons. Some want to learn more about how to grow their email list, while others want to know how to increase their traffic.

Since people are interested in different topics, you can’t convert all your visitors with the same offer. Instead, it is much smarter to create page-level targeting lead magnets based on the content of your pages. Just check out the following example.

By using a content upgrade (a lead magnet that is an expansion on the topic of your blog post), Backlinko managed to increase its conversion rates from 0.54 percent to 4.82 percent.

screen-shot-2016-09-12-at-4-00-30-pm

Writing a blog post on the top 10 tips to converting more website traffic? Offer a content upgrade that will give them the top 20 tips to converting more website traffic if they opt in.

You could even consider creating a different lead magnet for each main topic you cover on your blog, or even for popular new blog posts.

To create your page-level targeting offers, you can use a tool like MailMunch, which allows users to easily set up a new lead magnet for each blog post. You can use opt-in forms such as sidebars, exit popups, slide boxes, top bars and embedded forms.

3. Place your opt-in forms in the right places

Here are the places to put your opt-in forms in order to generate the highest conversion rates:

Add it to a blog post.

Backlinko is well-known for using a yellow box within his blog posts that promote content upgrades as a way to convert visitors into email subscribers.

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The first time he implemented this strategy, he increased his conversion rates by 785 percent.

Before using the content upgrade, only two percent of people clicked on Brian’s side bar. So to improve that, he decided to create a post-specific resource for his top performing pages on the blog.

For example, the conversion rate for one of this blog posts was only 0.54 percent. To improve that he created a checklist for the post and placed it in a yellow box within the post. He also promoted the checklist at the end of the post.

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The result was a 785 percent increase in conversions!

To learn how to implement the content upgrade for your blog posts as well, check out this guide by Backlinko.

Use exit-intent pop up forms.

Food craft blogger Nikki McGonigal found that her exit-intent popups drive 1375 percent  more email subscribers than her sidebar.

An exit-intent pop up is less intrusive than a pop up that appears while your scrolling and it’s a good opportunity to get visitors to subscribe before they leave your site.

Try scroll box forms.

Buffer found that their scroll box is accountable for 36.7 percent of their sign ups, making it their best converting opt-in form.

screen-shot-2016-09-12-at-3-57-55-pm

Their scroll box appears on the lower right side of the screen when the user scrolls 60 percent down the page. This way, it doesn’t interrupt the experience of the visitor and only appears once the reader has engaged with the content.

Consider the top bar form.

A top bar is always visible at the top of a website. With its help, ProBlogger managed to increase conversion rates by 25 percent. The advantage of top bars is that no matter how far a visitor scrolls down, they can still see your call-to-action.

screen-shot-2016-09-12-at-3-57-10-pm

4. Promote your blog posts like crazy

The more people you drive to your blog posts, the more people you will convert into email subscribers.

It’s that simple.

So don’t rely on the “Publish and Pray” approach. Instead, spend the majority of your time promoting your blog post.

You can do that by:

Reaching out to influencers.

Reaching out to other influencers (bloggers, writers, etc.) is one of the best ways to promote your content.

If they like it, they’ll share it with their social media followers and link to you in their blog posts. As a result, you could get tons of social media, referral and search traffic.

To find influencers who might share your blog posts, you can use BuzzSumo. Just type a relevant keyword or phrase to find a list of influencers who you can filter based on reach, authority, influence and engagement.

screen-shot-2016-09-12-at-3-56-51-pm

Once you find relevant influencers, you can export your list and start reaching out.

Sharing it on your social media channels.

Share your content on all social media channels where you’re active, such as Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn.

Be sure to pick the right time to share your content. People may tell you there’s an optimal time to post on social media, but your audience might be different, so you should always use your own data.

Additionally, don’t be afraid to share your content more than once. According to Buffer, reposting your content on social media can get you far better results than sharing it just once.

Using content discovery platforms (such as Outbrain and Quuu).

These platforms will give you easy access to an audience that may find your content interesting.

For example, Quuu allows you to promote your content to influencers who will share it on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. According to Jason Quey from TheStorytellerMarketer.com, he saw an increase of 116 percent in his Twitter traffic after using Quuu.

Ready to grow your email list from your blog?

As you can tell, there are a number of different ways in which you can grow your email list from your blog – and there are many tactics that didn’t make it to this post!

But as long as you focus on understanding audience’s needs, offer valuable content and create relevant lead magnets, you’ll be gaining new subscribers in no time.

Have other ideas on how to use your blog for list building? I’d love to hear about it in the comments below!

The post The 4 Best Ways To Grow Your Email List with Blogging appeared first on Email Marketing Tips.



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