Email marketing - ready to get serious about this
-
Ok, I have my PILE of business cards from Chamber of Commerce meetings and different networking events I have attended.
I have 8-10 blogs that are worth sharing on my website - www.sawwebmarketing.com (I realize that's a pathetically low number)
I am committing to and excited about blogging MUCH more starting today! I have a huge list of ideas.
I am adding a signup to my site and putting up a pop up to collect addresses.
I have 15-18 clients that are paying me for ongoing seo / Internet marketing (or simply had my team build a new site for them)
AND AN ACCOUNT WITH AWEBER I HAVE USED ONCE!
Where do I start!? Any advice? I want to start building a LIST of subscribers and grow my list by sharing great advice, strategies and tips to help people put their website to work.
A) Send one email to EVERYBODY (ongoing clients, past clients, contacts who subscribe, website visitors, blog subscribers) or customize my messages for different groups?
B) Put whatever I want to share on my blog and share it via social media AND send an email to my list inviting them to check out what I posted so I get the most bang for my time? (LINKS BABY!)
I feel like an idiot I haven't got on this sooner but truly ANY ADVICE from somebody who has been there and done it would be GREATLY APPRECIATED!
Thank you!
Matthew
-
Good point Keri - I think it would probably be appropriate to have a link to this as well http://www.business.ftc.gov/documents/bus61-can-spam-act-compliance-guide-business
-
I'd add that just because you have their business card doesn't mean they gave you explicit permission to add them to a mailing list. In the weeks after a major conference, I'll see Twitter and Facebook complaints from people that exchanged business cards and were now on a newsletter. You may want to reach out individually and ask if people would like to be on your list, but be sure to not automatically add people.
-
Matthew,
Looking at your blog page, you should have an opt in form on the right bar and maybe something at the top also. The good thing about aweber is that it's very easy to set that up.
You can incentivize people to sign up by offering a short eBook that would be useful and interesting for your target market. Maybe 7 Ways to Increase Your Traffic
Re starting up, you should look at Neil Patel's blog -- Quicksprout. There's a lot of useful information there
A) Send one email to EVERYBODY (ongoing clients, past clients, contacts who subscribe, website visitors, blog subscribers) or customize my messages for different groups?
That depends on what you plan to send out. If you send out a general newsletter or a new blog post, then you can put them all on one list. If you have something specific that you want to say to ongoing and past clients for instance which could potentially increase your revenue, then you're better off segmenting them.
When you add emails to aweber, you should segment them anyway so you know what source they came from.
When you send out an email, you will see which emails engages which groups the most. You will probably find current clients to be the most engaged in terms of open rates and click throughs.
Also be mindful of the fact that aweber does require double opt in sometimes so if you add a person's email from the CoC meetings, they will be sent an email confirmation that will opt them into the list. You can turn it off but you also need to delete the email confirmation message which is on by default if you don't want them to receive the email.
In any case, strictly speaking, you're not suppose to add the people you met at the meeting to your email list as it may be considered spam. So it's better to write them an email and tell them about what you're doing first and mention all of the really interesting stuff that you'll send them by including your best posts or something.
http://ug.infusionsoft.com/article/AA-00352/152/Marketing/Email-Delivery-SPAM/What-is-SPAM.html
B) Put whatever I want to share on my blog and share it via social media AND send an email to my list inviting them to check out what I posted so I get the most bang for my time? (LINKS BABY!)
That's the best way to share your blog. You should also ask in your email for them to comment, share etc. People on your email list are much more likely to do these things than a casual visitor
-
Hi Matthew
In order to capture more email addresses I would advise that you have some sort of incentive that makes it worth signing-up for - maybe a discount or some free aspect to your service.
I would also make sure that you customize your messages to different groups where possible - for instance you would want to hit a different angle with existing customers as against potential customers.
I imagine you are already planning on doing this but I thought I would mention it - create and integrate your form from AWEBER as this will make list management so much easier and you can create auto-responders easily. For instance if a person signs-up with your form you can have it set so that an automatic email with an introductory article or an offer is sent.
Always make sure you capture the persons name in the form so that you can personalise your email campaigns.
When sending your campaign with links to your blog I would write the email so as to encourage readers to leave comments on your articles as this will be beneficial in many ways..
I would also consider encouraging customers to forward emails that are promoting your blog posts. This will increase your traffic and will help capture more email addresses in my experience.
I would also encourage you to push your blog posts via social media as well as by email, but I would try and make sure subscribers are getting extra value for being part of your email list - like I say maybe occasional promoted giveaway or discount etc.
Chamber of Commerce specific - personal email maybe saying something like it was great to meet you at the chamber of commerce. I thought I would email you as I am starting an new periodic (weekly, fortnightly, monthly?) email about current SEO and our experiences/findings/knowledge so I thought you would be interested. As well as receiving some great information you will also be entered into a free prize draw or x amount discount on work (you would have to decide which works best for you), which is only available to those on our email list.
I find http://blog.deliverability.com/ a very useful resource when it comes to email marketing - lots of interesting information that will be of great use to you.
There are so many things you can do with email marketing and it is such a powerful tool if used right! These are just a few of my thoughts on your subject which I hope will be of help and will get you thinking...
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Thoughts on Net Neutrality Repeal & Digital Marketing
Hey everyone I was having a discussion with a friend and colleague recently regarding the repeal of net neutrality and what it would mean for marketers and website owners. I wanted to reach out to the community and get your thoughts on what you foresee this FCC decision meaning for your efforts and if your plans have changed at all. Obviously, there are appeals happening and any changes are said to be subtle and gradual, but I'd still like to see what is on everyone's mind at this time should the repeal stick. Excited for the conversation!
Industry News | | PatrickDelehanty2 -
If someone was brand new at all of marketing, where would you send them to get educated?
If someone had no marketing education, where would you send them to get a thorough education covering all aspects of marketing/advertising? Would you say you have to go to school for that? Would you recommend an online course set from CMI or MarketingProfs? If so, which one? Thank you 🙂
Industry News | | Crystalline_151 -
What's on your ultimate online marketing wish list?
Hi everyone! I'm one of Distilled's new online marketing analysts and will be writing my first blog post for them right before Christmas! I'm thinking about writing a post that combines the holiday spirit with what we all wish Google would give us. So fine people of Moz Q&A, tell me, if you could have anything from Google, no matter how ridiculous, what would it be and why? Any great quotes may even be featured in the blog post itself and attributed to you! Thanks everyone and happy Friday!
Industry News | | MorganChessman0 -
Is it getting harder to sell SEO services?
Is it just me, or is it getting harder to sell SEO services? SEO costs more now and takes longer to achieve results There seem to be more good SEO agencies out there (gone are the days where the primary competition was offshore outsourcers and web design agencies) It seems that the number of agencies is growing faster than the number of companies buying services As online competition heats up, it takes more and more budget to really "win" in a market, but so few companies are willing to invest enough Any others notice similar trends? What will the future look like?
Industry News | | AdamThompson0 -
Internet Marketing Ninjas
I'm interested in working with this company. I found out about them through the recommended companies here at SEOmoz but would like to know if anyone here has any experience working with them. They seem knowledgeable but I would love to hear any feed back (good or bad) before I commit. Thanks in advance.
Industry News | | raph39880 -
Questions to help get to know a potential client and see what the possibilities are for there campaign?
OK so I am putting together a list of questions to refer potential clients to. The purpose of these questions is to: 1, Help them understand the difference between "just give us your keywords and we will make you rank" seo and the full range of options that are advocated here on seo moz. .... 2, Get them to see that there are different levels of involvement that are available for different aspects of a campaign and give them ideas and options on how much input they want to have as well as make them see that we can help them with even the stuff they are gonna do themselves or do it for them with there input and permission. Thats where things get a bit confusing I was thinking of having a list of fifty linkbuilding/linkbaiting techniques and check box options beside each one so that they can read a little bit about the particular technique ie forum participation for example and then see how they felt like that related to there industry , wether they would want there staff to do it with some training from us wther they would want us to help them find the right forums and show them how to link back and to which page, or wether they would just want us to handle everything or simply not feel that that was right for there business .. then they would move on to the next thing ie video creation or user generated content and in the end we would have a big list of things to discuss with them and they would have a better understandiing of how much there is to good seo and what might work for them and also how we could help them and how a relationship/ partnership might look I would love some feed back on this is it possible will it help us to build trust with potential clients (which is diffucult for a new biz in this industry) how would you lay it out would it be a usefull resource for other seo companies etc thanks so much seo mozzers this forum is awsome and i know you will steer me in the right direction oh ps this would be something we would keep on our site
Industry News | | duncan2740 -
Which affiliate marketing network to choose?
We want to promote our services across a network of business immigration lawyers site. There are some many affiliate marketing out there. I could spend an entire month just studying who is doing what. Please help any suggestion? What the shortcut to get to the right affiliate network who has the publishers we target? Regards, Jean-David
Industry News | | sarenausa0