All articles in the Email List Building category

An interesting question regarding email subscribers vs. blog subscribers was asked recently on Linkedin. In a nutshell Lisa Bowen was wondering:

Can a blog-subscription email list be used for general company announcements and email newsletter blasts?

I personally separate the two types of subscribers and recommend that my clients do so as well. Although this practice may be perfectly legal under CAN-SPAM, I consider it not very ethical.

However, depending on how you phrase the ad copy in your pop-up, you may get away with it, e.g. if you say: “Sign up for updates from my blog and also receive my ezine.”

Be aware, though, that the spam issue is ultimately in the eyes of the subscriber.

Additionally, problems may arise when somebody opts out. Because these two lists are usually handled by two separate systems, you need to manually update one of them. Ideally, your email service provider would have some sort of RSS Feed plugin or connectivity. Email Service Provider MadMimi recently introduced this upgrade to their very slick email publishing platform. iContact has it, Aweber, too, I think. GetResponse also has a limited feature which allows you to send an automated email to your ezine subscribers announcing the new content is available on your blog, but it doesn’t actually deliver your blog content by email.

I use FeedBurner for handling email subscriptions to my blog and it can only collect the email address, not the name of the subscriber. This is just one of the reasons I wouldn’t use the blog subscribers list the same way I would any of my other confirmed opt-in email marketing lists.

What do you think? How do you let your blog subscibers mingle with the ezine subscribers?

Boris’s seminar was filled with incredible, usable information on how to make my business more visible on the web. His deep understanding of the inner workings of the web and email is apparent and his presentation is very interactive. This seminar is a must for anyone who is interested in learning internet/email best practices and how to maximize this effective marketing medium.

Boris’ Top qualities: Great Results, Personable, Expert

Nelson Martins
General Manager at DiPaolo CNC Retrofit Ltd
DiPaoloCNC.com

Note: This testimonial was originally published as a recommendation on Linkedin

If you ever attended one of my seminars, please leave your own comment - Thanks!

Did you know that 70% of all sales now start as research on the Internet - are your ideal clients finding you?

Invest 3 hours and I guarantee I will teach you how to:

	Attract Contacts (Generate Leads) creating a powerful online presence what makes a good web site: basics of design, layout and content search engines: basics of SEO or how to build a Google-friendly site web site is not enough - what else you need online attracting visitors (contacts) with relevant and useful content blogging article writing participating in online forums, etc. online networking (Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter) entice visitors to sign up to receive more information about you and your services or products with discount coupons special reports or whitepapers on your topic of expertise regularly published email newsletters how to integrate all your online efforts
	Build Relationships (or, How to Get Prospects to Know, Like and Trust You) follow up with automated and semi-automated messages, delivering your expertise via email create communities, followers and friends engage with your audience in a meaningful conversation once they know, like and trust you they’ll be ready for the final step
	Close Deals (or, How to Convert “Friends” to “Raving Fans”) use gentle email marketing tactics to introduce your services or products to your contacts close deals on line or off line - depending on your business model finally reach your business goals in 2009 - regardless of the state of the economy

Please visit the Contacts to Clients page to learn more and to register.

I recently purchased a great little add on for MadMimi called BigTie! for MadMimi. It will automatically copy all of your blog’s subscribers to your MadMimi email marketing account.

I am testing it now and will publish a full article soon.

In times of recession, most small business owners tend to do the wrong thing: trying to save money by cutting back on their marketing spending. I hope you’re not one of them, and that you know that we must promote our businesses all the time, even when times are great, but even more so in tough times.

Well, I can say I’ve never been busier, and I’d like to share some of the secrets of how I got myself booked solid for the next several months!

Join me for a 3-hour training seminar in Oakville and learn how to

► Build an Email List
► Create Effective Email Campaigns
► Get More Clients

Did you know that Email Marketing has the highest ROI over all other marketing channels?

In my seminar I will teach you:

How to Build an Email List of Contacts and Subscribers

• How to use your web site or blog as a lead generator
• What you need to sign up visitors to your email list
• Secrets to generating traffic to your web site, or other online presence
• How to entice visitors to sign up to receive more information from you

How to Easily Create Effective Email Newsletters and eFlyers

• Follow up with automated and semi-automated messages
• Learn about auto-responders, e-newsletters and email flyers
• Find out about the technology needed to deliver email marketing messages
• Learn how to prepare email campaigns yourself

How to Make More Money with Email

• You don’t need an e-commerce site to make money with email
• How to take credit cards, e-cheques and money transfers online
• Find out the hidden potential in your business - any business
• Learn how to create products or services to sell online
• Finally reach your business goals in 2009 - regardless of the state of the economy

What Do You Get?

• 3 hours of coaching, tips, strategies you can use immediately
• You will create your 1st email newsletter - bring your laptop!
• Ask any questions you might have in Q&A sessions throughout the seminar

Bonuses:

• bonus CD audio+PDF presentation of my Email Marketing Tips and Strategies for Solopreneurs a value of $27 on its own
• Chance to win 50 Tips on Growing your Business Online 2 hours+ videos and eBook package valued at $47
• Free online Email Publishing Account - use it as long as you want to grow and manage your list
• Enjoy complimentary refreshments: hot coffee, tea and muffins!

For more information and to register now visit: iBizAcademy.com/Oakville-Apr-2/

Want proof?

See what other small business owners have said about my training courses!

These two Email Service Providers (ESPs) are as different as they can be.

Aweber is primarily an auto-responder service, enewsletter service second. To take advantage of all its features, you really need to be familiar with some Internet technologies, such as HTML, FTP and RSS.

If your intention is to self-publish a company newsletter, then Constant Contact is a better choice (not the best choice, though, but read on). They have an extensive library of ezine templates which can be customized relatively easily. CC provides hosting space for a small number of images, and more can be purchased. Aweber does not offer image hosting, so images need to be uploaded to your web site or blog - by FTP, for example.

When sending HTML emails, such as newsletters and e-flyers, it is advisable to also send a plain text version along with it, for people who prefer to read text-only emails, or their email programs don’t support HTML, or HTML is blocked by the company firewall. If you’re using one of Constant Contact’s many templates, the system generates the TXT version for you. With Aweber you need to manually create the TXT version which can become tedious quickly. However, a tool such as Premailer can help with that, however your HTML ezine needs to be hosted on your web site for this tool to work.

If you plan to publish several different email newsletters, and collect subscribers online, then Aweber provides an easier way, as you can have separate sign up forms for each list (newsletter). Aweber also offers pop up sign up forms, which have been proved to be very effective. Also, in terms of user experience during the sign up process, Aweber offers more choices as you can direct subscribers to different pages on your site, for example to deliver a sign up bonus or freebie.

Constant Contact would be a better choice if you already have an existing list of subscribers, or clients, which you can import into your account. Ideally you would import only people you know would be interested in receiving your newsletters, and have given you permission (either electronically or in person). When importing any number of contacts into an Awber account they are automatically sent a so-called “confirmation” email. This email contains a link each individual contact must click to give you permission to send them additional messages. This process can sometimes decimate your list, even ones which contain previously confirmed contacts. With Constant Contact, it’s up to you if you want to send your contacts this message, or you can confirm them “softly” over time, by including a “reminder” at the top of each email you send them. When a confirmation message is sent, you can not send your contact ANY more messages until they click on the confirmation link.

If it’s important for you to get detailed reports on opens and click-throughs, CC comes ahead of Aweber again. CC offers a very detailed report on how many people were sent an email, how many (and which ones) were opened, who click on which links, and how many times, who forwarded your email to a friend, etc. Aweber (in its basic package) offers limited reporting capabilities, to get the similar reporting to Constant Contact’s you need to upgrade your account.

If you’re looking for a system to easily create and send email newsletters and e-flyers, consider MadMimi instead of Constant Contact, as it’s much easier to use, at about half the price.

For a full-featured, yet easy to use auto-responder and newsletter publishing system I know use and recommend iContact.

You probably heard that Social Networking is the next great thing (among others), so I’d really be surprised if you never heard of Facebook, but Linkedin is probably one of those hidden-gem online resources you may not be so informed about.

While Facebook started as a students-only networking site which in the last 2 years has become the place to be online for anyone, including businesses - and big businesses as well - Linkedin started as a closely-knit professional networking site, and remains true to its origins to this day.

Today Linkedin has over 36 million users world-wide. That’s a great place to hang around if you’re looking to grow your business: either by finding clients or customers to hire you as a consultant, or buy your products. But Linkedin works for you on another level, too: it can provide contacts to help you grow your practise or business by supplying services and/or products you need to grow.

For example, if you’re a product designer, you can link up with a local speciality print shop owner to supply 3-D decals for your products. The printer can in turn hook you up with engineers she may have in her network to hire you as a consultant - and the circle continues - you get the idea…

I use Linkedin for both of these purposes I outlined above, but also for one more, not so apparent one: to grow my email marketing list! You see, the way Linkedin is structured, you cannot easily send mass emails to your whole list of contacts, so if you have several hundred, or even several thousand connections, it would be close to impossible, and certainly not very practical to send each one a personalized email.

That’s why you need to find a way to selectively “move” your Linkedin connections to your own email list (hosted by your Email Service Provider of choice), so that you can reach out to them with information and special offers targeted to their particular needs.

One way that’s been working for me is: I create events, such as my free tele-seminars, and then use Linkedin’s application called “Events” to create a page where I can describe the event and in effect advertise it. From there I go on to send an invitation to my Linkedin contacts - I can send it to 50 recipients at a time. I only send one invitation and leave it to them to take action: if they are interested they follow up by registering on my web site - outside of Linkedin - in effect adding their name to a special list I create for each event.

If you’d like to learn more about using Linkedin to generate qualified leads, sign up for my free tele-seminar. Even if you can’t attend the live event, register anyway because you will receive a free audio recording 2-3 days later. The event is scheduled for Wednesday, March 11 at 1 pm ET. Register here.

Did you know that 70% of all sales now start as research on the Internet - are your ideal clients finding you?

Give me 3 hours and I guarantee I will teach you how to:

Attract Contacts by creating a powerful presence online, using your blog site as the hub of all of you online activity. You should also have a presence on Facebook, and at least one other, more specialized social networking site, such as Linkedin. On all of these platforms you need to create content — articles, videos, podcasts, PowerPoint presentations — which search engines will pick up and then prospects will find. Great thing about content is you can create it once and re-use it again and again.

Build Relationships by following up with your contacts, using automated email marketing messages; engage your audience in a meaningful conversation online, in user forums, for example.

Close the Deal by offering your products or services, educating your contacts about your expertise, all by using email marketing strategies and online shopping carts.

The training event is scheduled for February 26, 10am-1pm. Learn more about this live business training event in Oakville today!

Blogging for your business is not an option anymore, but does it work better that Email Marketing?

How do you make the these two marketing strategies work together to create a powerful tool to boost your small business or professional practice?

On Wednesday, February 11, I will be asking ask Denise Wakeman and Patsi Krakoff, the dynamic duo also know as the BlogSquad, some tough questions:

• Is blogging an option for any kind of business?
• How to use blogging to strategically market a business?
• How to choose which blogging platform to use?
• What are some of the pitfalls and how to avoid them?
• I have a web site - why do I need a blog, too?
• I already have a web site - how do I connect my blog to it?
• I have an email newsletter - how do I use my blog to generate more subscribers?
• What is RSS, FeedBurner, FeedBlitz - and do I need to be a tech geek to create and maintain a blog?
• How do I blog without having a blog of my own?

These are a few of the questions Patsi, Denise and I will answer for you.

This is a FREE tele-seminar, LIVE on Wednesday, February 11, starting at 3pm EST

There will be no pitching or selling on the call, just pure content.

Seating is limited, so register for your chance to jump start your blogging efforts in 2009, or if you’re already blogging, to find out how to make the most of business blogging to promote your business.

If you can’t make the live event, a downloadable MP3 recording of the call will be available, so register now:

http://www.ibizacademy.com/blogsquad/

See you on the call!

Boris Mahovac - Email Marketing Coach

The Can-SPAM act is in force in the US (other laws in other countries, but if your Email Service Provider is doing business in the US, and/or your email subscribers reside in the US, than your email marketing also must be CAN-SPAM compliant!)

In short:

• Subject lines must clearly and conspicuously identify advertisement or solicitation. In other words, the subject line must be indicative of the actual content of your email.
• A valid electronic return address working for at least 30 days
• A postal address (P.O. box is OK) must appear – add a phone number as a best practice
• Must provide an opt-out mechanism for subscribers. Instructions for opting out must be clear and conspicuous and honoured within 10 business days.
• Don’t falsify or obscure the real sender.
• Don’t “harvest” email addresses from the Internet.