Email List Archives - Page 7 of 7

People Have to Find You to Be Able to Join Your Email List

October 14, 2019 by Tanya Brody Leave a Comment

Everyone wants to build an email list. It’s an integral part of growing your business.

Many businesses don’t focus enough on this important task, which leaves them in the lurch when it comes to leveraging their current customers and nurturing potential customers.

Here’s an important question: Do you make it easy for people to join your email list?

Because if you don’t make it blatantly obvious, they won’t.

And if you don’t give them a reason to join, they won’t.

Here are some simple ways to drive traffic to the landing page you’re using to build your email list and some methods to make it blatantly obvious to your audience that you want them to join.

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How to Attract and Convert Your Ideal Audience with the Perfect Lead Magnet

September 30, 2019 by Tanya Brody Leave a Comment

Last week I talked about the end of your lead generation funnel, the welcome sequence emails.

(Well, okay, I talked about templates and gave you a set of welcome sequence email templates.)

This week I want to look closer to the beginning of your lead generation funnel.

The lead magnet or opt-in bribe.

This is the piece of information you offer in trade for someone’s email address.

And in order for it to attract your ideal audience, it needs to be something they actually want.

[Read more…]

Grow Your Email List with the Help of Your Current Audience using GoViral

May 2, 2018 by Tanya Brody Leave a Comment

A few weeks ago, I learned about a new tool called GoViral. It’s put out by Growth Tools, which is run by Bryan Harris of Videofruit. The best part? It’s free! Don’t worry, there’s a link to get your own account at the end of this post. Or, if you’re absolutely desperate to see how it works right now, click on the button below.

The idea behind this tool is you give away a lead magnet in trade for having people give you exposure to their friends, social media followers, etc.

Yes, this is a really standard method of growing your audience. But Bryan Harris and his team have made this ridiculously easy to use, and to track.

More importantly, they’ve made it ridiculously easy for people to share your lead magnets with their networks. It’s awesome.

I decided to experiment with GoViral to see how it works and what results I got from it.

Please note: My experiments are far from scientific, or thorough. But even this little foray into playing with this tool will show you how well this tool works.

Here’s what I did…

Experiment #1: Asking My Email Subscribers to Share a Blog Post

I have a very modest email list, which I email every weekday. (Even copywriters should get time off.)

GoViral gives the option to share on several social media and blogging platforms. So, I asked my email subscribers to share one of my old blog posts on their Facebook walls.

If you’re on my email list, you’ll recognize the email I sent below. If not, you really should be. Sign up here, or subscribe via the popup box at the bottom, right corner of this window.

Subject line: Would you share this for me please?

Hi there,

I’m testing out a new tool to grow your email list. I want to see how it works for me, then I’ll report back here next week.

The best thing about this particular tool? It’s free!

The best thing about this test? I’ll give you an awesome cheat sheet to build a better relationship with your potential customers.

Here’s what I need you to do:

Click on this link and follow the instructions to share one of my blog posts with your friends on Facebook.

Collect your Customer Relationship Cheat Sheet after you’ve shared the blog post.

Tune in next Wednesday when I tell you the results of this experiment.

Thanks very much!

Tanya

https://tanyabrodycopywriter.com/

To be fair, I really wasn’t done playing around with this tool yet, so I didn’t report in the next Wednesday. Instead, I’m reporting in the following Wednesday, via this blog post.

Of the 39 people who read my email, 6 of them shared the blog post.

That may not seem like a lot, and I did mention, my email list is small.

The results were noticeable.

My Facebook post reached 298 people. (I don’t know why Facebook registers this post as having been shared 5 times instead of 6, but there you are.)

Now, compare that to my last blog post, which only reached 80 people, and wasn’t shared at all.

Or this one from last year, which only reached 22 people, with no shares.

This is why GoViral is so effective. You get more exposure by sharing with your current audience, and asking them to share with their audience, and so on and so on and so on. (Which is why it’s called GoViral.)

Personally, I’m thrilled with the results, even though they’re small so far.

Experiment #2: Sharing Facebook Live Posts

Again, if you’re on my email list, you know that I performed this past weekend at the Carleton Artist Lofts Spring St. Paul Art Crawl.

All week long, one post a day, I posted Facebook Lives of some of the songs I’d be performing at this show and asked folks to share them with GoViral to get more exposure for my performance and for the Art Crawl itself. I offered 2 different free songs as lead magnets for 4 posts during the week. (Okay, I missed a day because of unexpected scheduling conflicts.)

The first Facebook live post I shared got 3 shares via GoViral. (Looks like some folks shared without clicking on the GoViral link, which is fine by me.) This post was shared a total of 8 times (according to Facebook), reached 568 people and got 243 views.

My second Facebook Live post was only shared once by GoViral (which was probably me) but according to Facebook, it got 4 shares, which netted 107 views and reached 319 people.

The third Facebook Live post got 3 GoViral shares, 5 total on Facebook, and reached 310 people. It was viewed 96 times.

My fourth and final Facebook Live post that was shared via GoViral only once (again, probably me) but got a total of 5 shares on Facebook, had 93 views and reached 239 people.

Now, compare this to the Facebook Live I did at the show itself, which I didn’t offer a GoViral download for. That one reached 142 people and was only viewed 57 times. And I know I’m the only person who shared it.

Now granted, the longer a post is out in circulation, the more it will be viewed and shared. The first post had a full week from the day this blog post was written to get more views, shares and reach more people, compared to the last post, which I apparently forgot to share myself until today.

By the way, if you want to hear any of these, visit my music Facebook page.

There are a lot of things that will affect how much exposure any given Facebook post will get, including how many people know you and/or like what you’re doing, so they view or share your post for those reasons, versus just sharing a post because they thought it was cool.

But the fact remains that the posts that were shared via GoViral did much better than the one that wasn’t, for this test.

Again, I do not claim that this test was scientific, accurate or precise. It is me playing around with a new tool. But it’s a really fun new tool!

What Can You Share with GoViral and Where?

So, here’s the cool thing. You can share pretty much any digital lead magnet, including:

Checklists
Coupons
Infographics
Buyer’s Guides
Spreadsheets
Resource Guides
MP3s

You do need a place to store your downloads online, GoViral doesn’t store them for you. But that’s pretty easy to set up. To be candid, I’ve got mine in a Google Drive folder. You can also use your website or other online storage like Dropbox.

Here is the list of places you can share lead magnets with GoViral.

You’ll notice at the bottom you can have someone email a friend or send them to a specific URL, which is a great way to share sales announcements, landing pages, your website and more.

Personally, I can see dozens of uses for this tool, for my clients’ businesses and for my own.

How to Set Up a GoViral Campaign

Once you’ve signed up for your free account, you do have to add a tracking script to your website. That way you can see how many people share a lead magnet or landing page on your site. Instructions for doing that are on the GoViral website.

Next, you click on the bright orange button on the main page that says Create Campaign.

Now, choose your goal for this campaign from the list.

You customize the landing page for your visitors and add the name of the bonus (or bonuses) they’ll receive for sharing.

Click on “more options” to add your own background image and change the overlay color to your preference. You can also create a “No Thanks” message and link to another page to give people a way to decline to share and still get another message, if you want to take them to a final Thank You page or another page on your website.

Next, you’ll choose the call to action you want to use, as per the dropdown menu above. You’ll link to the page or post you want to share and (depending on your CTA) choose the advanced settings to verify that someone has shared your post.

Finally, you’ll customize your download page by adding the link to your downloadable item(s). You can even add a special “Ghost Item” as an extra bonus.

Once you click “Next,” you’ll have the link to your GoViral campaign. You get the option of a standard link, which you can hide behind text or a button, or a “pretty link” which you can leave exposed. FYI, I used the “pretty link” option for all of my Facebook Live posts.

Add that link wherever you need to, including:

In an email asking your subscribers to share your post, landing page, etc.
As a Thank You page (or just before a Thank You page) after someone subscribes to your email list.
On another social media post.
On your homepage.

You can create multiple campaigns, depending on what you want to share and how you want to share it. You can duplicate a campaign, which makes it easy if you want to share the same lead magnet with different CTAs (so you can share it on different social media platforms, for example.)

By the way, the customer support folks at Growth Tools are fantastic and will help you get up and running ASAP.

Download Your GoViral Setup Checklist and Get Started Now

Of course, I would be remiss if I didn’t give you a content upgrade for this post. So I’ll give you a checklist of steps and marketing collateral you’ll need to set up a GoViral campaign.

After you opt-in for this content upgrade, you will be asked to share this post with your audience to get another lead magnet, my Lead Magnet Idea List. So, you’ll see how this works in the real world.

Finally, you’ll be taken to the GoViral website, so you can sign up for your own free account.

Click on the button below to get your free setup checklist and see GoViral in action.

Share the results from your GoViral campaigns in the comments below.

My Top 3 Small Business Tools to Grow Your Business Exponentially

October 6, 2016 by Tanya Brody Leave a Comment

I’ve decided to start a semi-regular blog post category of small business tools and resources for small business owners. (We need to stick together, after all.) Eventually, all of these recommendations will be added to a Resources page. But for now, I’m going to start with this short list.

These are the tools I feel every business needs to have so they can grow their email list and create a solid customer base. I have used, or currently use all of these. Yes, I do have affiliate links for these tools, so you will be benefitting me if you click on the link and buy.

But that’s not why I recommend these small business tools. I recommend them because they are easy to use, easy to understand, well supported and will help you grow your business. That is what this post is all about, growing your business.

Everyone will have their own opinion on which small business tools are the best. This series of posts simply reflects my opinion. Agree or disagree, try them, don’t try them. The most important thing is to find what works for you and your business.

Now that I’ve made my disclaimers, here’s my list of the top 3 small business tools you must have to grow your business exponentially.

Leadpages

Leadpages is an excellent landing page and lead generation software suite. It’s SaaS (software as a service) based, so you purchase a monthly or yearly membership. I recommend getting the Pro yearly account, which works out to $49 a month.

With Leadpages, you can quickly and easily grow your email list and promote your products. I use these 3 Leadpages’ features regularly:

Landing Page Templates

Leadpages began as landing page template software. The company provides over 200 landing page templates (some free, some available for purchase through their Marketplace) for you to use as a base to create your own landing pages. (I wrote a post about why you need more landing pages last week, just in case you missed it.)

Templates range from very simple squeeze pages that take about 5 minutes to set up, to long-form sales pages, where you can include video, pictures and lots of text. You can also create your own templates with their new Drag and Drop builder.

Leadpages integrates smoothly with over 20 email service providers (ESPs) and can be integrated with just about any other ESP, with a bit of effort. Once your ESP is integrated, all of the contact information you request on your landing pages will be instantly entered into your ESP lists.

All of the Leadpages templates are optimized for conversion in terms of location of call to action buttons, photos, videos, etc. You can set up automatic delivery of a file (Word doc, PDF, etc, MP3, etc) when someone gives you their email address on a landing page. It all goes through the Leadpages system, so you don’t have to worry about having an additional service to manage this.

Leadpages lets you publish your pages in 4 ways:

Immediately on their lightning fast server.
Via a WordPress plugin on your own website.
Exporting the HTML code to your website.
On your Facebook page. (Please note, you can only post one landing page to each Facebook page you have.)

Here are a few landing pages I’ve created for myself with Leadpages standard templates or the Drag and Drop builder:

Leadboxes

For those of you wondering, “what the heck is a ‘Leadbox?’” It’s that little pop-up box that appears when you click on several of the buttons along the right side of this page. They look like this:

Leadbox from the “Follow My Journey” button to the right.

Leadboxes are an easy way to add a form to any web page. You create a Leadbox in the Leadpages software, then copy the HTML code and paste it wherever you want it on your web page in the “Text” view.

I use them all the time to capture email addresses on the blog posts where I give away checklists, guides or other content upgrades. Again, Leadpages will automatically deliver whatever file I attach to the Leadbox directly to whoever gives me their email address.

I get analytics for each Leadbox, so I know how many people have clicked on it and how many people have actually given me their contact information.

You can put as many Leadboxes on a page as you want to. I usually have 2-3 on my pages (depending on whether I’m giving something away on a blog post) but I’ve seen many more on other websites.

Leaddigits

Leadpages has a built in SMS Text Message system. It only works for incoming lead generation, so you can’t use it to send text messages to your customers. However, it’s an amazing tool to use anywhere people have their mobile phones.

It’s a pretty simple system. You choose a unique identifier for your campaign. Then you set up your Leaddigit to deliver a lead magnet to anyone who texts your unique identifier to a specific phone number or short code, then texts you their email address.

The text conversation looks like this:

So if you text the word HARPMUSIC (all one word, ignore your autocorrect) to the short code 44222, you’ll get a free song.

It takes less than a minute to set up a Leaddigit, and I find them incredibly useful at conferences, performances, live events and speaking engagements. There are hundreds of ways to use Leaddigits. Here are some ideas I’ve seen in action:

On real estate signs
On flyers
To get a coupon for a free _______
Share slides from a presentation or meeting
Contest entries
At the end of a Podcast to download notes or another lead magnet
Share a code to download an app

Leadpages has other great ways to collect leads and make sales. They’re coming up with new lead generation tools all the time. Their entire platform is incredibly easy to use. (I’m a copywriter, not a tech person. I can use everything in my Leadpages account.)

Leadpages has an exceptional customer support team. If they can’t answer my question right away, they get back to me as soon as humanly possible. They’re also excellent problem solvers and can find work-arounds for most issues I, or anyone else, comes up with.

Leadpages does not offer a free trial, but they do offer a 30-day guarantee. If you don’t like Leadpages, just tell them within 30 days and they’ll give you a full refund. If you cancel after that, it will be pro-rated, according to your plan.

(In the interest of full disclosure, I used to work for Leadpages. But that’s only one of the reasons I recommend this tool. It really is an awesome small business tool.)

Drip

Once you’ve gotten all of your lead generation campaigns up and ready, you do need somewhere for all of those exciting new leads to go. Drip is an email service provider, or ESP. Drip integrates with lots of different apps and programs, including Leadpages.

I like Drip as a small business tool because it’s incredibly easy to use, but it gives advanced options for automation. You can set up a sophisticated email follow-up sequence without having to know absolutely everything there is to know about automation and coding.

Drip also gives you the option to resend an email a specified number of days later to people on your list who haven’t opened the original. They’ve got some other spiffy features that I haven’t really played with yet, but I’m looking forward to learning more.

Again, full disclosure, Drip was recently bought by Leadpages. Drip offers a free 21-day trial of their full service. After that, it depends on how many subscribers you have. You can have up to 2,500 subscribers to get their basic plan, which costs $45.

Square

Square is the original independent, low-cost, no monthly fee credit card processing company. A lot of other companies have come in and offered the same services, but I still really like Square as a company and as a service.

They’re already in compliance with the new credit card regulations, offering chip card readers. One of the nice things about Square is that you can either order a card reader directly from Square, or pick one up at Best Buy, Office Max or other, similar big-box stores. That way, if your reader goes out in the middle of a busy day, you can pick another one up right away.

Their system is easy to use and easy to manage. You get paid for whatever credit card charges you accept the next day, via direct deposit to your bank account. You can send invoices, set up loyalty programs, and manage your employees’ time cards and payroll.

Square even offers marketing tools, including a website builder, an email service provider and a calendar scheduling system. (FYI, I use different small business tools for many of these functions, but Square does offer these services.)

Again, there are many other companies that offer card readers and credit card processing. I recommend that you use the one that works best for you. But I really like Square.

Tell Me About Your Favorite Tools

I’ve given you three of my favorite small business tools. I’m sure I’ll give more in the future. But I’m curious to know what you use. Some of them may help me out. Tell me about them in the comments.