Work Better, Not Harder

Recently several small business owners have asked me about how to set up a lead magnet to encourage more subscriptions to their newsletter . Here are instructions for you DIYers. First, prepare your lead magnet - the thing that you're giving away. It should be something of value to your target market. Next, you'll prepare two pages on your website: a landing page where people can sign up for your newsletter (this may or may not be on your website menu) a redirect page ("Thanks for signing up" page) where people will receive your lead magnet (this should not be on your menu and you'll want to discourage search engines from finding this page) Let's do your redirect page first. Create the page and name it something like 'thanks' or 'download' or... it doesn't really matter what you call it. If you're using WordPress, you can set it to discourage search engines. On this page, you'll place the item you're giving away. It might be...

You've got your first lead magnet all ready to go and you've got a great landing page for it. You're anticipating a rush of new visitors to download your giveaway and discover how valuable your small business might be to them. If sending a series of promotional emails is the next step in your plan, did you tell subscribers to expect that? Near your sign-up form, you have to tell people what they're opting in to - the general content of the emails and the frequency - to be compliant with CASL (and other regulations). No one opts in to receive a series of promotional emails.  So how can you legitimately build your list and then get people's attention? Your best option is to opt new subscribers into regular, valuable content. Build the relationship over time and then send promotional emails based on the subscriber's interest and interaction with your content. Give subscribers opportunities to express their interest with call-to-action buttons and links. T...

Do you, like me, cringe if someone points out something about your marketing they don't like? Recent chats with other marketers have me realizing... I don't get enough complaints. How are complaints useful? Disqualifying prospects: If complaints are from people who aren't in your target market, you might be doing something right, rather than wrong. Don't water down your message to try to appeal to everyone or it will resonate with no one. Differentiation: Thinking about "the opposite of" or what something is NOT is extremely helpful in developing your marketing messages. Recently, when receiving feedback from friends about a landing page I have under development, the "negative" comments specifically led me to think about what my new program is not. And listing what my program is not has helped me to focus in on why it's different. Feedback: Complaints are just one form of feedback - and like all feedback, should be evaluated for the...

If you have a sign-up form, you want subscribers. If you want subscribers, you need to get them to your sign-up form. To get people to your sign-up form, you need to tell them where to find it. Check your own subscription process now If you have a sign-up form on your website , try this short exercise. Prepare a call to action with the appropriate link to send a new social media follower to your sign-up form. Really, do it now or you won't get this. It'll only take a minute. Go and post it now. Here is an example I might use: Free with sign-up! Immediately get a mini workbook with 10 Content Templates to make your writing time more productive.  http://daleyprogress.com/newsletter.html Ready? Pretend you're that new follower. Read your call to action and click to follow the link. Now stop and take your fingers off that mouse. Is your sign-up form staring you in the face, bold and beautiful with no other distractions? If it's not, that might explain why yo...

A redirect page is a webpage where someone ends up after filling in your subscription form. This is something you have control over and it's worth putting a little effort into. After all, someone has just said they trust you enough to sign up for your newsletter - it's a good time to dazzle them with more of your brilliance and give them some value right away . Here is a screenshot of Anita Kirkbride's redirect page. When someone subscribes to Twirp's newsletter, this is where they end up. Here's why this page is great: It clearly describes what the subscriber signed up for. There's a free giveaway, which was promised in the call to action. There's a link to get immediate value by going to Twirp's blog. Also those cute little Twirplings at the bottom of the screen jump up and down... which made me feel kind of happy to have subscribed. Is it time to take a fresh look at your own redirect page? What is the most important message you want t...

You know that a killer marketing campaign is critical to your event's success. But, wow, it's a lot of work! While every event marketing project I take on is a little different, there is a general process I follow to create the marketing collateral. Creating the various items in an overlapping sequence allows me to save time...  and my clients to save money. Perhaps my process can give you some ideas to improve your productivity, too. #1. Assemble, create and edit all the components of the marketing message. This includes things like logos, graphics and images, taglines and text, biographies, PayPal button code, and ALL the logistics, such as date, location and price. #2. Create and edit images. Canva for Work doesn’t give you all the power of Photoshop but it pulls its weight when it comes to productivity. I can quickly make a whole raft of sizes and versions to suit every online or print need. #3. Create the email message in a bulk email program. I usually s...

Getting someone to your sign-up form is one thing. Getting them to actually subscribe is quite another. To make that happen, here's what I recommend: Have a sign-up form on its own page , or at least immediately visible on the web page (aka landing page) where you send people to subscribe. ( read more about this ) Avoid other calls to action that may distract your potential subscriber. ( read more about this ) Clearly describe what’s in it for your subscriber and how often they’ll get it. ( see our sign-up as an example ) Provide examples via links to past issues in your archive. ( our archive ) Include a brief disclaimer that you won't sell or share contact info. Ask only for an email address unless you have a pressing need for more information. The more you ask for, the less likely someone will be to sign up. With the new Canadian anti-spam legislation (CASL) , building our mailing lists via 'express' consent will become increasingly critical to e...

photo by Andrew Pescod Unless being used for a drip campaign, I typically don't recommend the use of welcome auto-responders at all. Not even for event registrations or other uses of sign-up forms. The goal is to not send any emails that aren't necessary and aren't what subscribers signed up for. What I do recommend is using a redirect web page , also called a landing page. You can typically put more types of content on a web page, such as maps, video, files for download, and PayPal buttons. I really do think it's a much better way to deliver important follow-up information. And you don't have to be concerned with delivery issues like a full mailbox or spam filters either. The redirect page will pop right up for them as soon as they click the sign up button. To see the value in a redirect page, click here , enter your email and hit submit. (You'll also be signing up for our newsletter!) Click to Tweet this Article

photo by alborzshawn Marketers encourage you to use welcome emails as an opportunity to market. Those same marketers are the ones writing all the articles about how integrity and relationship-building are so important to your content strategy. If you've succeeded in getting someone to sign up for your newsletter, don’t muck it up! I’m pretty sure they didn't sign up for a welcome email. Several times now I have signed up for a newsletter and then immediately unsubscribed when I received a welcome email that: had no value whatsoever for me contained (a lot of!) advertising was long, boring and ugly made me think, “If this is an indication of what is to come...?” and then hunt for the unsubscribe link There is another, much better, way to communicate to your new subscriber – use a landing page , also called a redirect page, in your sign up process. I can think of some situations where a welcome email might be desirable but, in most cases, a landing page can accom...

Many of the people connecting with you online are arriving at one of your redirect pages at some point. A redirect page is the 'thank you for signing up' page you send them to when they sign up for your newsletter, or the event registration page you send them to when they sign up for your events. Often, these pages contain minimal, basic information. A thank you message in the case of the newsletter or confirmation of event details (location, time, date, etc) in the case of event registration. But why stop there? For one moment, you have managed to connect with that person. You have them at your website and they have already let you know they are interested in what you are doing by signing up for your newsletter or registering for your event. Why not think about what value you can offer them while they are there? How can you expand on that connection? With both your target market and your marketing strategy in mind, take a fresh look at your redirect pages and con...