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7 Steps to Starting Your List — Part 3
Over the next few weeks, we’ll be discussing email in detail. By the end of this series, you should be able to start up a list and keep it running. Here are the items we’ll be addressing:
- Build your list — define your target email audience.
- Create Freebie Offer
- Promoting your sign-up form
- Remember CAN-Spam
- Set up your program
- Create your email
- Test and Track
We’ve already given some thought to your target audience (your clients and strategic partners) and your free offer. Today we’ll talk about your sign-up form. In the “Related Articles” section below, I’ve added instructions from MailChimp and iContact on how to add a Sign-up Form. Most email marketing platforms have fairly good instructions for how to set up. But how do you actually get people to sign your form? Here’s some ideas. Put it EVERYWHERE. If someone knows you they should EASILY be able to find out how to sign up for your email list. Some of the ideas I’ve seen used:
- Email signature file – everyone you send a email to, be it a client or a vendor or a joint venture partner or someone you met networking and you’re following up with, sees your email and your signature line. Mine has “Sign up for my newsletter and receive 3 Simple Steps for Getting Started in Social Media.” It’s one line at the bottom of my email, it doesn’t interrupt any messages; but if someone does take time to look for contact information, they do see a way to receive my email.
- LinkedIn – In my LinkedIn summary, I have the following sentence: “To get weekly insights into client communication through social media, blogs, and newsletters, sign up for her newsletter at http://bit.ly/MWuVaList.” While it doesn’t allow someone to go directly to the link, by the use of a bit.ly and a simple name, they can easily find their way.
- Website – Link to your sign-up form from your website.
- Invoices – Add a sign-up form link to your invoices.
- Trade Shows – Collect names at trade shows (make sure it is clear you’re adding someone to your list – we’ll talk more about this next week).
- Speaking engagements – Offer a drawing or incentive to people when you’re at a trade show or when you’re speaking at a networking event (again, make sure to make it clear you’re adding them to your list).
- Facebook Sign-up – If you have a Facebook Page for your business, one of the options available is to link to a sign-up form. If you look at the picture below, you’ll see where the Sign-up icon is on the Social Media Examiner page.
As you can see, there are many ways to get the word out about your mailing list. Do you have any great ideas? Leave a note in the comments. Related articles
- Add a Sign-up Form to Your Website (includes video) (mailchimp.com)
- Adding a Sign-up Form to Your Facebook Page (icontact.com)
- HTML Sign-up Forms (icontact.com)
- How to Create Marketing Offers that Don’t Fall Flat. (hubspot.com)
- 5 Tips for Running Successful Social Media Campaigns. (socialmediaexaminer.com)
(Rough week — sign and sing, form and from – I’m putting my proofreader through his paces today).
7 ways to start your list today! Part 2
Over the next few weeks, we’ll be discussing email in detail. By the end of this series, you should be able to start up a list and keep it running. Here are the items we’ll be addressing:
- Build your list — define your target email audience.
- Create Freebie Offer
- Create your sign up form
- Remember CAN-Spam
- Set up your program
- Create your email
- Test and Track
Remember your HOMEWORK from the previous post in this series? (I’m pretty sure you haven’t done it yet, so you can do it now). I suggested that you think about your email prospects and their challenges, frustrations, pain points, aspirations, hopes, and dreams.
Find something they need that also showcases your products or services. Here’s a list from the Hubspot article listed below:
Balloons With Free Coming Through Computer Shows Freebies and Promotions Online
- Ebooks
- Guides
- Webinars (Live & Archived)
- Slideshows
- Kits
- Industry Case Studies
- New Industry Research
- Templates
- Free Tools
- Free Trials
- Product Demos
- Consultations
- Coupons
As you can see, that’s quite a few ideas. I’ll give some examples from some people that I know.
Evie Burke at One Insight Closer offers a PDF of her Priority Insight Tool. I’ve gone back to this tool quite a few times when I’ve gotten overloaded.
Beth Majerszky at Simply Be Coaching and Retreats offers 7 days of audios and activities to help you be open to more joy.
Michelle Smith at Z and B Consulting offers a video training for helping you find your target market. (If you don’t know your target market, checking that out will help you determine who you are looking for as a client).
Different people with different ideal clients and different offers. But the offers are meant to entice people to sign up for their list.
Do you need help determining your free offer or your ideal client? Set up a meeting with me if you need a hand.
Do you have any specific questions about or challenges based on email? Leave a note in the comments.
Related articles
- How to Create Marketing Offers that Don’t Fall Flat. (hubspot.com)
- 5 Tips for Running Successful Social Media Campaigns. (socialmediaexaminer.com)
7 ways to start your list today! Part 1
Email has been on the verge of death for … I think ab
out 8-10 years now. SPAM was going to make people avoid their email, then RSS was going to make people move away from their email, and most recently social media was going to take the place of email. I’m fairly certain next month something else will come along that will tell us of the gloom and doom of email.
Yet, email lives on. And as email lives on, businesses need to take advantage of email to connect with their target audience.
Over the next few weeks, we’ll be discussing email in detail. By the end of this series you should be able to start up a list and keep it running. Here are the items we’ll be addressing:
- Build your list — define your target email audience.
- Create freebie offer
- Create your sign up form
- Remember CAN-Spam
- Set up your program
- Create your email
- Test and Track
Let’s start with how to build a list. First, you’ll need to remember that you’ll have to INVITE people to your list, not ADD people to your list (we’ll discuss this in detail in Part 4). But who is going to be receiving your email?
- Current clients
- Past clients
- Prospective clients
- Strategic partners
- …
Basically, this includes anyone that is using your services, might use your services, or might recommend your services.
Your homework* for next week is to answer the following questions about your email prospects:
- What are their key challenges, frustrations, and pain points?
- What aspirations, hopes, and dreams do they have?
- Which niche forums do they hang out in? What are the hot threads?
- What social network posts are generating the most shares, likes, and comments?
*HOMEWORK?? Yes, I’m giving you homework. It will make sense next week.
FINAL QUESTION — do you have any specific questions about or challenges based on email? Leave a note in the comments.
Taming the e-Tiger
In honor of Administrative Professional’s Week, I’m doing a 5-day series with simple tips. Today we discuss email.
There are quite a few books and systems in place for handling the paper tiger in your home or office*, (flylady.net is an excellent resource), but sometimes the “paper” is an overflowing e-mail box. I’ve discovered (through trial and error and error and error) that it’s easier to keep a handle on email than to GET a handle on email.
- Schedule. As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, schedule when you read your mail. If you are reading at a time that you are able to give 100% of your attention to your mail, you can go through your mail with fewer distractions.
- Prioritize. Determine what needs to be taken care of immediately and what can wait until later. If you have something that you’re not ready to sort, you can having a “holding” folder outside of your inbox (for instance, a “todo” folder).
- Sort**:
Presort. You can “presort” your mail before you read it. This can be done using filters or making use of the priority inbox on the Google Gmail tabs (see “Related Articles” for my article about using Gmail tabs to sort mail.)
Post sort. Many people use files to tame their “paper” tigers. You can also use files to tame your e-tigers. For example, I have files for each of my clients, and all of their mail goes into their file. If I need to find something, all I need to do is to go into their file. I also have a file for any online purchases I make (I can put order confirmations and shipping notifications in this file). - Trash. If you no longer have a need for an email, dispose of it. It will give you one less message to pass over if you’re looking somewhere else. Sometimes I’ll go through one of my Gmail tabs and delete items when I’m waiting in a line or at a doctor’s office.
- Send it somewhere else. I know some people that tame their email by make sure that anything that can be ignored goes to one address. This is a good place for sign in forms, sweepstakes, or drawings. This is often used for mail that does not need to be checked on a regular basis but can be checked every week (or every month).
Related Articles:
Q&A The Gmail Changes. Mary Wu (marywuva.com)
*My oldest child is a high school junior who has taken the SAT. We don’t have a paper tiger, we have an entire herd of paper elephants in the form of marketing materials from various colleges. I wonder if insurance companies should consider increasing fire insurance rates for anyone with a 17 year old.
**It’s just like laundry. You wouldn’t put all your whites clothes with your red clothes with your dry cleaning. And when you’re done, you fold the towels together, match the socks and sort them by family member, and hang the blouses.
Q&A The Gmail changes
A friend of mine likes to use the saying, “It is what it is.” And that’s pretty much what I thought when the new Gmail tabs were rolled out. It was mildly irritating at first, but I got used to it.
Then I started reading emails and talking to people and found that, for some people, it’s a bit more complex than that. At a networking group I go to a coach was concerned about her newsletter distribution, so while I was preparing to send information to her, I decided to create a blog post.
If you liked Gmail before
If you want *YOUR* Gmail to be as it was before the change:
- Open Gmail.
- Click on the gear
in the top right and select settings. - Select the Inbox tab.
- In the Inbox type section deselect all the categories to go back to your old inbox.
(I grabbed this straight from the Google support website).
If you have subscribers
If you have a mailing list and are concerned people won’t find you because your mail now appears under the Promotions tab.
If the receivers (your subscribers) want your mail to go directly to their inbox.
Option 1
- In Gmail, click on the promotions tab.
- Hover over the mail you want moved.
- Click and drag on your mouse, and move the mail to the desired tab.
- At the top of the screen you will get a message that looks something like this:
The conversation has been moved to “Primary”. Undo
“Do this for future messages from name@email.com?” Yes - Click “Yes” in the popup message box to have all future messages appear in the desired tab.
Option 2
- In Gmail, click on the promotions tab.
- Right click on an email that you’d like to move.
- Hover over “move to tab” then hover over “primary” (or other desired tab).
- At the top of the screen you will get a message:
The conversation has been moved to “Primary”. Undo
“Do this for future messages from name@email.com?” Yes - Click “Yes” at the top of screen to have all future messages appear in your primary inbox.
Of course, if you’re sending information to your email list using a service like AWeber or MailChimp, the mail will likely end up in your subscriber’s promotions area, so you might have to send out individual emails for this step. If you do send out individual emails, you’ll only need to be concerned with people that have gmail.com addresses.
Another way to contact your newsletter subscribers is to post to any social networks (Facebook, Google+, Twitter). In addition to this post, you can share a video that Michael Stelzner of Social Media Examiner made this YouTube video describing Gmail tabs.
Personally, I’ve found that I actually like the new tabs. I find it more convenient than using filters. So I have removed all my filters and let Gmail do the sorting. I’ve taken a few very items that were sorted and forced them into my “Primary” tab (client’s and colleagues newsletters and my mail from my mom’s group) but other than the things I deem important, most of the other tabs can be looked at once every day or two.
And, hey, if a promotion is over a week old, it’s probably time for it to hit the Trash. There’s something very satisfying about putting mail in trash.
When I was researching this blog post, I found this article from NYMAG that had a (short) history of what email used to look like. This article gave me an urge to dig a little deeper (I have 10 minutes before my next appointment) to find some statistics. For anyone as old as me (or a bit geekier) I bring you this tidbit. When it was closed down in 1989, ihnp4 had a capacity of 50 MG /day UUCP traffic.
So for me, I’ll take the Gmail changes as they are. Like Dylan said, “The times they are a changin’.”