Test your Process


Do you know what happens when someone signs up for your newsletter? When they click that little SUBMIT button, where do they go? If you don't know, now is a good time to find out.

Your sign-up process is a critical piece of your newsletter strategy. Plan it from your potential subscriber's perspective. Of course, you need a prominent, simple form and a clear call to action with an explanation of what they'll get by subscribing. But what happens once that button is pushed? Test it yourself, start to finish.

Likewise, your unsubscribe process is something you should understand as well. Do your subscribers have an option to be on some lists but not all? Is your unsubscribe process simple or does it require entering information? Is it a 2-click process?

 Caution: Don't unsubscribe yourself from your own newsletter to test this process. Use an alternate email address.

These processes will vary greatly depending on the bulk email service provider (ESP) you use. Here is a screenshot from iContact:


Click to Tweet this Article

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How to Get People to Open Your Emails

Image
How long did you think about the subject line of that email you just sent to your brand new client? Will they be interested or excited to open it? Or will they leave it sitting unopened, floating closer to the bottom of their inbox? I've discovered a little quirk. In fact, it feels more like a secret I shouldn't acknowledge, maybe even a tad manipulative. It didn't start out that way but now I know what I know... well, I can't un-know it. Here it is. If I send an email to any of my work friends with the words 'no rush' in the subject line, it's likely to get opened faster than any other email I send them. Of course, this may not work any longer once my friends read this article. But let me be clear, I've never used that knowledge to manipulate. And that's why it works. When I send an email with 'no rush' in the subject line, I really mean there's nothing inside requiring their attention soon. Usually it's a business idea in
Keep reading »

Old Marketing Tricks

Image
"Yes, it's an old marketing trick to "accidentally" make a mistake in an email campaign so you can resend an email shortly thereafter to increase the number of times people see your message." This was the lead message in an email I received recently which included a correction to information which I had indeed received a couple of hours before. Making a deliberate mistake is a darn poor excuse to get into people's inboxes. Making ANY mistake doesn't reflect well on you, deliberate or not. Do your marketing well and you won't need to resort to tricks. And you won't need to fix mistakes. If a *real* mistake happens, here is my advice about how to deal with it . Let's avoid those made-up mistakes completely. Click to Tweet this Article
Keep reading »

How to Start Writing when you Feel Stuck

Image
Are you struggling when you sit down to write? Do those first couple of sentences elude you? Recently I learned a powerful technique for dealing with this dilemma. During a coaching session on writing with Neil Everton , I was asking him for help with closing my articles. Neil directed me back to the top of the examples I had brought and suggested we start at the beginning. You want your reader to nod and think “yes” , Neil told me. That first sentence needs to connect with the reader and bring them along for the rest of the article. One way to do this is to ask a question, as I did at the start of this article. Whether it’s a question or a statement, try to elicit feelings about the topic and empathize with the reader’s situation. Did I also figure out my endings? I learned that getting the beginning right made writing the closing so much easier. I simply need to answer that opening question. When you're stumped at the start, write out the question or problem that you w
Keep reading »

Get Read to Get Ranked

Image
Years ago when I first started doing email newsletters, each new client had questions about writing the introduction to their very first issue. Eventually, I prepared a tip sheet for new clients and also posted the info on my blog thinking it might be useful to others. That was in 2012. Three years later I realized 2 things: the advice I was giving needed to be refined/updated and this was the top-performing post on my blog (by far!) so others were indeed finding it useful. I published a refreshed version with a similar subject line. That was in 2015. Now you can see that these two posts account for a huge chunk of the traffic: all-time stats 2010-2019 And you can see what that organic traffic is searching: all-time stats as of 2010-2019 These readers didn't come to my blog because I did something magic to get Google to rank the posts. People came (and still come) because it's a topic they're interested in and the information is useful. (If you search &
Keep reading »

Home Office Holiday Party

Image
In preparation for our office party this year, I wrote a poem. Then I gathered together the things I would need to have a party with Romeo and Danielle. (The Temptations were for Romeo, the phone for Danielle, and the coffee for me.) Romeo, my cat, is used to hearing me talk out loud as I proofread and he was unusually excited about hearing the poem. Danielle, who lives several time zones away in Saskatchewan, also works alone (and helps me out lots) so I invited her to my office party by phone. It was a good move because she's a master at rhyming words. After much anticipation, I started to read the finished poem aloud to them. As you can see in the photos above, I had their full attention. Ode to a Midnight Blog Silent night, late at night, I've still got my blog to write. My laptop propped up on my bed, I'm hoping ideas will fill my head. Yawns escaping, eyelids drooping, Neck is stiff, my thoughts are looping. My brain is sore, I th
Keep reading »

5 Ways to Grow Your List this Summer

Image
Your contact list doesn’t grow on its own and summer is when we all tend to slow down. Here are some practical, yet easy ways to grow your contact list over the summer months and still enjoy some time off. eMail Auto Responder When you set up your ‘out of office’ vacation notification, include a call to action and link to your newsletter sign-up form. Scheduled social media posts Set up a series of posts using Hootsuite or similar to encourage sign-ups . You can direct people to your sign-up form, to your archive, or to specific past issues that still make good reading. Review your current and prospective client list When you’re preparing for your fall sales activities, also note those that aren’t already receiving your newsletter and encourage them to sign up by sending a personal note. Review not only the contacts in your CRM system, but also those you’ve connected with on LinkedIn, Facebook, etc. You could also consider mailing a copy of your most recent newsletter. Net
Keep reading »

Perpetual One-question Survey = Evergreen Content

Image
You and I both know it can be a lot of work to keep the content machine going - blogging, email marketing, social media and more. When I find an idea I can execute in 15 minutes that will give me social media posts and blog content (plus market intelligence) for years, I'm all over that. It's easier to explain if I give you an example - here's my own one-question survey: What is your content creation stumbling block?   Why run a one-question survey? You get market intelligence which is a fancy way of saying you can find out about your target market's problems, or preferences, or habits, or whatever you want to find out. I was curious to know what it is about blogging that people struggle with the most because I want to write articles that are helpful. You get three kinds of content: Calls-to-action to get people to complete your survey - on social feeds, in your newsletter, on your blog, in your email signature, and so on. Sharing the results periodically - on social
Keep reading »

Re-opt-in: a Messy Word for a Messy Process

Image
It's a word that didn't exist a few years ago... and maybe still doesn't? For those of you still on the fence about whether to ask your current mailing list to re-opt-in before July 1st, here is some information copied exactly from the Government of Canada website: Under section 66, consent to send commercial electronic messages (CEMs) is implied for a period of 36 months beginning July 1, 2014, where there is an existing business or non-business relationship that includes the communication of CEMs. Note however, that this three-year period of implied consent will end if the recipient indicates that they no longer consent to receiving CEMs. During the transitional period, the definitions of existing business and non-business relationships are not subject to the limitation periods that would otherwise be applicable under section 10 of CASL. Businesses and people may take advantage of this transitional period to seek express consent for the continued sending of CEMs. You
Keep reading »

Prevent Scope Creep

Image
All big projects have the potential for scope creep - uncontrolled changes in project scope. It results in missed deadlines, budget overruns and altered deliverables. We entrepreneurs can be guilty of this when it comes to operating our businesses. It’s easy to get distracted by new opportunities and ideas. It’s sort of what small business is all about: being flexible enough to jump on opportunities. I’ve been guilty of doing this myself. It can be fun and challenging but sometimes not very productive. I’ve created 30 or so workshops that I have no desire to sell. My branding and website have undergone many renditions. Was I being productive during those hundreds of hours? It felt like it. I was busy but, oops, I wasn’t making any money. In January 2010 I set my theme for that year to be ‘FOCUS’. It stayed my theme for 2011 and I’m finally seeing the results of my intentions. (In fact, I’m satisfied enough to pick a new theme for 2012.) I did it by creating simple rules for
Keep reading »