Twitter Updates You Should Check Out

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AppId is over the quota

Not so long ago Facebook introduced updates that significantly changed the way your content was presented to the users, and Twitter is just following the Zuckerberg team’s steps. Prepare yourself for more visuals, completely different layout, and new tweet options that can become an opportunity for your business profile. Intrigued? Read on and find out all you need to know.

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If the first thing that came to your mind when you thought “Twitter” was the 140-character long bit of text, it’s time to change your way of thinking. New Twitter layouts are much more focused on visuals.

The First Lady’s profile page

Awkwardly enough, the new Twitter layout resembles Facebook with its profile picture and cover photo, but mind the different dimensions to be used for your new Twitter profile:

Profile header photo - the one that used to be displayed behind your profile picture – is now located at the top of the profile page. The optimal dimensions for a profile header image are 1500×500 pixels. In case you don’t have one at hand, you can choose one of the header photos offered by Twitter.Profile picture – this one looks much larger in the new layout, too. The required dimensions are 400×400 pixels. Instead of appearing in the middle of your profile, it will be located on the left-hand side, overlapping with the profile header picture.Takeaway: since the new layout is much more picture-oriented, you can now use images with more details than previously. This gives you new design opportunities when creating your social media visuals!

Apart from your own profile images, other parts of the service are also barely recognizable compared to their previous versions. Check out this “Following” list. Now you know why choosing a captivating profile image works!

Channing Tatum’s following list

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Twitter also launched an exciting way to post your pictures – now you can combine them in a collage (but there’s just one “but” – you need to use an iPhone to have access to mobile version of Twitter). Here’s what you do to create one:

Open Twitter, select the photo icon and choose the first picture.Once the picture appears as a thumbnail in your tweet draft, tap the photo icon again.Choose the remaining pictures – you will notice that after you select each picture, a number will apear over it. This is the order of display in a collage 2 – top right, 3 – lower left, 4 – lower right).Post the tweet! Your followers will see the collage, while all other users can access it using a link inside the tweet. Oscar winners in @theacademy tweet

This fun tool lets you create mini albums of connected pictures or even short stories. You wait for the first GetResponse Monster collage :).

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More visual layout is not all that has changed about Twitter’s new face. Now, it lets you manage your tweets by assorting them to one of these new categories:

Best tweets – your tweets that get most replies, retweets or favorites will appear a bit larger on your profile than other tweets. This distinguishes your best content and encourages your followers to interact with it.Pinned tweets – you can promote the content you wish by pinning selected tweets, which will appear at the top of your profile page – just like pinned posts on a Facebook fanpage (what a coincidence!). Just select “Pin to your Profile Page” option in the “More” menu for a particular tweet.Filtered tweets – this option proves useful when you want to browse a particular type of tweets on someone else’s profile. You can select text tweets, photo or video tweets and enjoy them as much as you wish.

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Another recently announced Twitter update was the launch of pop-up notifications for those who tweet using their desktop computers. You will be informed about new replies and retweets, new followers or direct messages in your inbox.

The fun part is that new updates will be totally interactive – you can easily follow someone back or reply to your direct message in a snap. We can’t wait to see if this feature works out!

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Your account probably hasn’t been updated yet. Don’t worry – we still look the same, too. But if you’re curious about the way new Twitter profiles look like, check out this list of new profiles available for all of us to see:

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According to Twitter CEO Dick Costolo, the social network’s aim is to become more accessible to users globally. The resemblance to Facebook might be just one of the steps to achieve this goal. On the other hand, numerous frequent users started complaining about Twitter’s loss of specific text-oriented look. But those will probably stick to TweetDeck, the Twitter’s tool for managing your profile in a more advanced way.

How do you feel about upcoming Twitter changes? Do you think its visual layout will drive more new users to the site? Share your opinion with us in a comment!

Building a Killer Email List From Scratch #infographic

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AppId is over the quota

To most beginning marketers, building a list of engaged contacts might seem like one of the most challenging marketing goals. But it doesn’t have to be a chore, as long as you stick to some simple rules. Today’s infographic will provide you with quick action ideas on where to start.

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Despite the growing impact of corporate social media profiles, email remains one of the most powerful channels of business communication. There are 3 times more email users than Facebook and Twitter users combined (currently there are 2.4 billion email users globally). Today’s standard is to have at least two email addresses. What’s more the trend isn’t on a downswing.

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More personal. Email facilitates one-to-one communication and is so much better than phone and snail mail for reaching out to people in the global market across time zones and continents. Besides, exactly how personal do you want to get on someone’s Facebook page?More serious. Grown-ups discuss business and build business relationships in emails. It is the core of business communication and actually took over the role of standard mail. Even serious business offers are handled via email.Attention grabbing. Messages sit in the inbox ready to be viewed again, with fewer distractions than social media.More targeted. With advanced segmentation and automation, email lets you customize your offer and send maximally relevant information.Cheaper. It’s the most profitable marketing channel, with ROI still around $28 per dollar spent.

As long as you have a high quality email list.

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The people on your list should be those who care about your organization and its products and services. It’s not easy to reach out to them and convince them your email will be of value to them, but there are a few things that always work.

Don’t buy email lists. Unless the vendor is highly reputable, purchasing an email list is worse than a waste of time. You could end up having your company listed as a spammer.Start with current clients, business partners and followers. You already have them in your contact directory. Many email management services have tools to let you easily move them from your contact book and email history to your email-marketing list.Leverage membership lists. Many chambers of commerce and professional organizations provide contact lists as a membership benefit. This is great for B2B market, but only when used intelligently.Ask online. Use multiple online locations to host your sign-up form: website, social media profiles, blog, online ad, infographic, whitepaper download, squeeze page, ecommerce checkout, and more.Ask offline. Use sign-in sheets at stores, events and shows; collect business cards; use QR codes or an SMS signup service.Use incentives to encourage sign-ups. Offer free stuff that is relevant and matches your brand and industry: exclusive webinars, industry reports, eBooks, how-to videos, and special offers.

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Once your list-building strategies are in place, you also need nurture your leads. Like relationships and houseplants, email lists require a little TLC:

Keep the list engaged by providing good quality content.Keep the list clean by making list hygiene tactics part of your routine.Keep your list secure by never divulging contact details to third parties.Keep opt-out easy. Paradoxically transparent unsubscribe policies can improve your stats.

To learn more about building a killer email list, please take a look at our latest infographic. Which list building strategies are effective for you?

To embed the infograhic at your blog or site, please use the following string of code:

Wakeup Call: Begin Your Emails with a Call to Action in Mind

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AppId is over the quota

Every email has a goal and 99 out of a hundred times that involves the subscriber taking an action. So the call to action is one of the most important parts of any email. But what if you can’t find them? While it could have been a Call to Action hero, you can imagine that an email that doesn’t include a CTA that spells out exactly what is it the subscriber should be doing, is doomed to fail. Fail. Fail. 

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Before you start writing and designing your email, know what you are working up to. The email should be in function of the Action, not the other way around. Or as a famous email marketing quote says:  The email is the invite, but the party is on the landing page.
Examples of Actions that you want them to take can be:

Buy a product,Register for an event,Renew your subscription,Request a quote,Do a demo, take a trial,Requesting a call back, they are all working up to a sales.

Sometimes it is very specific actions to your industry or product, like request a test drive for automotive.

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But not all actions are the same as goals or even outcomes. Your (end) goal might be to increase sales or increase customer loyalty. But there can be a couple of steps before that happens, like the action to view a video or read an article. Especially in B2B there are long sales cycles and complex products, that require some extra steps. Examples of these are:

Read an article or a blog post,Watch a video,Take part in a prize draw,Update their preferences,Download a whitepaper.

See the example by Secret escapes, they use an extra step “visit sale” instead of “Buy now”. The outcome is actually exactly the same, it takes you to the product page. But “visit sale” is a smaller ask. There is also a second CTA, “Set reminder” this sets an email alert that is sent just before the offer ends.

These intermediate CTAs are definitely allowed and can boost the end results quite a bit. So think about what the steps leading up to a sale are. Or are you having an email disconnection - asking too much, too soon? What you can’t do, however is to hide in the valley and not include a clear CTA.

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Sometimes you might be tempted to not include a (clear) call to action. Don’t give in. Or your colleagues might not see why the CTA and whole email isn’t strong. Don’t give in.

You can definitely rationalise any type of email and any misuse or leaving out a CTA in your email. The key word is “rationalise”, because we all feel it when we see it; it could be clearer, cleaner and more obvious. Every email should be caveman-proof, totally clear without any additional explanation.

I have heard many, many, many different excuses over the years. Including beauties like;

this email is purely informative,we feel it wouldn’t be appropriate,they will surely understand,the CEO wants it this way,it is meant to drive offline sales,it is perfectly clear to me,we already had an approval on this version and continuing…

They will share it by themselves, we don’t want to come over as pushy, it is lead nurturing, we want it to be extra classy, the product isn’t available yet, the offer isn’t that good, we don’t want everybody to buy, etc, etc. No kidding, people say these type of things and mean it. On top of those excuses, a new instant classic of for not adding a clear(er) CTA: it was meant to be content marketing.

An example I ran into recently was with a pre-announcement / teaser mail. Even if the product isn’t finished yet, you can still ask for an action; let them pre-register, add comments, share or save-the-date.

Reasoning like this is like staying in the cosy (and costly) valley of low conversion. Not that every email should be a hard sell, but it does need a perspective for action. So don’t stay in the valley, go find yourself some action!

If you can really find no action, you are probably best off not sending that email. So before anything else, always start with an action and outcome in mind.

Write an Ebook That Sells Itself (and Builds Your Email List) Pt. 4

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AppId is over the quota

If you are reading this post, I can safely assume that you are interested in creating an ebook as you first information product. Or perhaps you sell premium coaching or consulting and you want to introduce an entry level product that will lead people down the sales funnel as they become interested in become one-on-one coaching. Yes, we are talking ebooks.

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In the first part of this series, I talked about why you should create an ebook and why it makes a great entry level product (so people can sample your stuff and are ready to buy your higher priced offerings.) I also talked about the eight big reasons which stop people from writing an ebook – even when this is something they really want to do.

In the second part of this series, I talked about how to make sure you pick an idea that will be a sure-fire winner. I explained how to do your research and survey your audience to ascertain their interest in your idea.

In the third part of this series, I discussed the 5 steps that will take your ebook from idea to the final product.

If you haven’t read these posts, go check them out now!

In this final installment, I will tell you how to sell your ebook as well as build your email list at the same time.

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If you think that selling your ebook means writing your ebook and putting up a ‘buy now’ button on your website and that’s it – then you are in for a shock. A lot of work goes into getting your ebook sold.

Remember all the time you spent researching your ebook idea and your competitors to access market demand, then getting the approval of your list and finally the number of hours it actually took to create this product and have it ready?

Well, don’t waste all of that effort. Sure, you probably need to invest a lot of time promoting your ebook, but this is the fun part. This is the money-making part. This is the creating-a sales funnel part. Yes, it is tons of work but it is also fun work which will lead to loads of cash (hopefully) and tons of new email subscribers. Now, don’t wait to begin this process until at the end. Meaning, you don’t have to finish your ebook before you start the ‘pre-launch’ process.

You will be launching your ebook in three phases.

In the first phase, you are getting prepared to launch your ebook. I’ll call this the getting ready phase.In phase number two, you will start warming your list and getting people interested in what’s to come. You will give early access to your email subscribers or special bonus to them as a way of saying thank you. You will also aim to get guest posts published on the leading blogs in your industry.In the last phase of this process, phase three, you will open the cart and continue with your ebook promotion.

So let’s take a look at how you would go about implementing this process.

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There are certain elements of your ebook launch process that needs to be done in advance of your sale period.

#1 You need a sales page.

#2 You need reviews and testimonials.

#1 You need a killer sales page

Yes, you do. A poorly written sales page will destroy your sales. But don’t stress.

If your offer is unbeatable, what you are selling is of top quality and being offered at the right price, you don’t need to be the salesman of the century. The product will sell itself. Just be clear about your ebook and at what price (the offer), what the benefits are and who this is for.

Remember, people are used to your content. Go ahead and write the sales page that only you would write. That is not to say that don’t include all the parts that make for an effective, highly converting sales page, but try not to copy someone else’s formula. Even if you end up hiring somebody to do the job for you, tell them explicitly what you want.

You want to ‘speak’ and appeal to the right person. You don’t want to focus on their pain too much. You want to highlight the key benefits of your product. You want to make an unbeatable offer. That’s all you need to create your sales page that works.No red text, yellow highlighting required.

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So once you get over the initial resistance to writing your sales page, the rest becomes fairly simple. But before you even put a single word down on paper, you’ve got to list the answers to the following questions.

Who is your target audience?What problem are you solving?What do they struggle with?What do they want?What is your product? (ebook)How do you describe yourself (coach, consultant, therapist, speaker.)?What results would they get as a result of using your product or service?What would prevent them from buying it? (Objections such as too expensive, looks time consuming, will it work for me?)

Once you have all the answers to these questions, you can start writing a very basic, first draft of your sales page.

Let’s begin.

You need a headline for your sales page.

This headline needs to communicate the main benefit of what you are offering, and to whom. (It doesn’t have to scream, be sleazy or hypey in any way.) You can also pair it up with a sub-heading and supercharge your messaging.

The headlines differ vastly across industries so the best thing for you would be to do some research (you are probably already familiar with similar products or even competing products). Check their sales page and take notes. Your headline doesn’t have to be perfect. Often times, it the hardest element on your sales page and it is okay to get help.

In the first section, start with what they want.

Talk about the problems they are facing. Paint a picture of what it’s like to not have all the answers but don’t make it so overwhelming that it becomes hard for them to read any further. Now tell them you have a solution. Tell them what is possible.

Give them details about your ebook. What do they actually get when they buy?

Next, go into the details of your product benefits.

What will they get out it? How will their lives improve? What results will they get?

Now it is time to handle their objections.

Start by saying something like, ‘Now, you might be thinking ….’. Be straight with them and address their concerns head on.

Reinforce what you promise them with testimonials.

Show them the proof that what you say is true and your ebook have brought success and results for people just like them (testimonials). You can keep adding these elements slowly.

Back it up with a rock solid guarantee.

Reassure them that if for some reason, they are not 100% satisfied with their purchase, you will happily refund their money in 30 days, no questions asked; or state your terms clearly.

Give them one last benefit and tell them what you want them to do. Be confident.

Click here to purchase. Buy now. Download instantly – let them know what will happen after they purchase. Will they get an instant download?

Give them a deadline, if there is one.

Will your price go up? Will the bonuses go away? Let them know clearly.

That’s all!

That’s all you need to create you first sales page. It doesn’t have to be a scroller. As long as you answer all these questions, you have an effective sales page selling your ebook.

Remember, there are many nuances when it comes to creating a brilliant sales page. Copywriters charge thousands of dollars for this service. So I am not saying it is easy – but there is no need to make it complicated.

#2 You need reviews and testimonials for your ebook

Everybody wants to see great reviews and testimonials for the ebook. Here are my fail-proof tips to get killer review – and testimonials.

You would love to get your ebook reviewed by the top influencers in your industry but unless you have a relationship going on, don’t waste your breath. You need to connect with them way before this process begins.

In fact, if you are reading this post with an intent to write an ebook, or if you are writing one, start creating relationships with these people now. Be genuine and helpful. Help them first before you ask for a favor.

Instead, start by asking your peers. Sure, they don’t carry as much clout but 2-3 very good reviews can do wonders for your ebook sales.Contact people well in advance. (This is why this falls in the Getting Ready phase). Don’t send them the ebook and expect their review the next day. Ask them first than give them a minimum of two weeks. Even longer if they are super busy.Tell them who else is reviewing your book to motivate them to say yes.Offer a chapter and ask for feedback on that chapter if they are too busy to read the whole book.Give them a deadline so you don’t have to harass them in the future. Make sure you leave plenty of wiggle room in case they are late. Follow up one week before deadline to see if they need help with anything.You can also give them prompts on what type of feedback you are looking for. Create a feedback request form based on your ebook content and send it their way to make things easier for them.Delight them with a testimonial or a review for one of their own products if you can, before they give feedback. This will motivate them to finish things on time.Schedule twice as many reviews so you don’t end up disappointed with the number that actually turns up.

Now you might be thinking, how could you possibly get testimonials for your ebook before it is even out? Surely someone must implement what you are teaching, get some results and only then they’d report back.

Here is how to get testimonials and user reviews before your ebook is officially out:

Select 2-3 go-getter, action-taking type people from your email list. Select the people who have been leaving comments on your blog and generally engage with your content. Give them a particular section from your ebook and ask them to implement what you teach and report their results in exchange for a discount on the ebook (or give the whole ebook if you feel like doing so. It is totally worth it as there testimonial will lead to even more sales.You don’t need many testimonials. People are not expecting any at this moment. Having a few will pleasantly surprise them.

Got the sales page, your reviews and user reviews?

Now you can start working on phase two of your launch process.

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In the pre-launch phase, you want to get as many people excited about your upcoming book as you possibly can. You have got to work on two different set of audiences here:

One, people are you already on your list.Two, people who are not on your list yet, they may or may not have heard of you.

Let’s have a look at how you can accomplish that. Usually people would tell to expect anything from 1-5% conversions. Meaning, if you have 500 people on your list, you can expect 25 sales. What? That’s no good. But don’t start stressing just yet. There are couple of ways to make sure you get loads of sales at the time of the launch:

You grow your list, of course.You increase conversions from your list.

You should do both, but let’s look the second scenario first.

Warming your email list

So far you have been talking to your list about their problems, topics they want you to tackle, surveying them and what not, they know something is coming. Now it is time to do a whole sequence of pre-launch content.

You should never, ever announce any product without publishing some pre-launch content unless you have a super duper relationship with your list. Even then, some content is beneficial. You see, the better your relationship with your list, the better are your sales going to be. If you put in work to solidify your relationship with people on your list, you can increase your numbers dramatically.

Let’s say you have 500 people on your list. All things being equal, you can expect 25 sales. But what about connecting with more people on your list so that you double that number? Now you have 50 sales. How about if the people on your list loved you to pieces. You will convert 20%. That’s a whopping 100 sales.

You see what I am saying here? When you invest in your relationship with your subscribers, it pays off. But the higher the price point, the more you have to work at it. If you were to sell an online course or launch a brand new coaching program, you might want to warm your audience for an extended period – especially if you haven’t been in regular touch for a while.

For an entry level, low risk product, you don’t have to make a big fuss. You don’t necessarily want to want a big splash. However you do want some excitement. Here are some things you can do to start creating some buzz about your upcoming ebook:

Plan a series of super relevant content related to your ebook topic. This will get the attention of all those people who are interested in the idea and also of those who didn’t think this ebook would be relevant to them. This will also clearly let people know who it’s not for. You will see unsubscribes but that’s okay.Start publishing your content three – four weeks ahead of launch date. Any longer, and people will start getting bored.Remember all the topics that didn’t make it into your ebook? They make great pre-launch content. You can also go and repurpose some of your older content if you don’t have time to create more.Follow your usual publishing frequency. Email at least once or twice a week.Start off with your best piece of content. You have to get their attention here. If your first piece fails to get any traction, you have to work extra hard on pieces that are to follow.Try to from a logical sequence in your content pieces. It doesn’t have to form a step by step but it would be helpful to you if the second piece naturally follows the first one. This way your audience is looking forward to what is next to come. Also, if somebody comes across your final piece in social media, they would want to check out the first there blog posts.Do an internal launch where you offer a significant early bird discount or a special bonus to your list and open the cart for your subscribers only. Don’t make it any longer than 2-3 days or people will put it off and forget all about it. You are doing this to reward early action takers (and to give yourself some piece of mind that yes, your ebook is selling.)Run your sale in the middle of the week and try to get testimonials from your list that you can use for promotion. Make sure you take the sales page off or people will not trust you again.Lead them through the pre-launch content and announce your ebook to your list only and when it will be available for sale.

When you publish your pre-launch content in the form of blog posts, you get two benefits:

You deepen your relationship with your list (the intended purpose).Your content gets shared on social media bringing you new subscribers which grows your list at the same time (the second advantage).

However, you should also be doing other things to grow your email list. Since you have been creating the ebook, hopefully you have been doing all the right things to grow it. Leaving comments on other blogs, guest posting, sharing and forming relationships on social media, maybe even paid traffic via Facebook advertising.

Here is a list of things you should be specifically doing during the pre-launch and launch phases:

Try to get as many guest posts published as you can in these 3 week period (2 weeks of pre-launch and one week of actual launch with special price).If you were connecting with influencers while you were writing the ebook, perhaps you can reach out to them and see if they would share your content.Hold a webinar.Reach out to people and see if they would interview you.Have a contest on social media where you will give away a few copies of your ebook.Run ads on Facebook to get people on your list.Continue to do all of the above well into the launch mode till your cart is closed.

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Remember all the hard work that you have been putting in for the past 3 months or so? Now it is time to reap rewards. It is finally time to open your cart and see the sales start rolling in.

Here is what you need to be doing in this phase:

Announce to the world that your ebook is on sale and open cart.Make sure to edit any early bird sale details (that you offered to your list earlier) before you publish the sales page.Double check the checkout and payment process beforehand. Ask two people to test it for you.Start publishing (and sharing) your launch content.If you normally email your list every week or every other week, you have to increase the frequency to create momentum. It is totally fine to email these folks two-three times a week. This way you need at least four pieces of content.At the end of each piece, remind them to buy your ebook and give them the link.For the launch period, you want the maximum number of sales. To encourage people to buy now rather than later, sell it at the special launch price which will go up as your ebook goes into your store for example $10 off the full price of $49. This discount shouldn’t be less than what you offered your own list.You can do two sets of pricing. You can offer just the ebook for $39 and the ebook plus 45 minute coaching at $129. Let everybody know that the special price and the coaching offer will go away and the ebook goes into store at the full price – maybe $49.Send two emails on the last date of launch. One in the morning and one final ‘few hours remain’ one.Make sure you are adding all the buyers to a customer’s email list so that you can continue to follow up and upsell other services later on.Launching any product is a nerve wracking, overwhelming, exhausting process. The more you are prepared for it (reviewers ready, sales page ready, sales process checked, guest posts and social media updates scheduled), the more relaxed you will be. Still, this is going to be no park in the walk. Create time in your schedule accordingly. Don’t say to anything else during the launch week.Be ready for unexpected results and things that go wrong. Especially if this your first launch, treat it as a learning process. Cut yourself some slack.If you don’t get as many sales as expected, rejoice anyway. Look at how much you have accomplished. You have created a high quality ebook, you have developed so many new relationships, possibly some even with the influencers. You got yourself published on the leading blogs. Best of all, you grew your email list like nobody’s business.Lastly, increase the price to its full ticket price and move it to your store. You will see sales continue to trickle in.Give yourself a big pat on the back and put your feet up. You have done it.

Phew.

Writing an ebook is a daunting process, and now you can why. It is extremely rewarding at the same time. If you do everything to the best of your ability, get help when you need it and keep moving on, you are going to come out a winner.

So, will you finally start your ebook?

¿Conoces estas 3 fórmulas de escritura esenciales?

A veces puede revelar la verdad de una cosa por explicar cómo se diferencia del otro. Esta es la fórmula de comparación y contraste que aprendiste en la escuela, escribiendo ensayos como "por qué el"yogur helado es mejor que el helado.

Es especialmente útil en la escritura de negocios. Se usa para explicar cómo su negocio se diferencia de sus competidores. O para motivar a un prospecto a tomar medidas: "aquí es ¿qué sucede si usted compra nuestro producto; Aquí está el riesgo si no lo haces".

Tip: gente como para componer su propia mente, así que evite la tentación de sus puntos como techista clavar las tejas del martillo. Si tienes demasiado dura, puede desencadenar la resistencia.

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Hay algo místico acerca del número tres; es señal de que estás tratando de resumir un tema entero:

Gobierno: Legislativas, judiciales y executiveReligion: padre, hijo y SpiritValues: verdad, justicia y el estilo americano

Y este post — tres fórmulas de escritura — además cientos de chistes que comienzan con algo como, "A Ministro un sacerdote y un rabino estaban pescando en un barco...".

Tip: para captar la atención, poner tus puntos en 1-3-2 orden — abrir con su punto más interesante, cerrar con su segundo más interesante y su tercer punto en el medio del emparedado. O para cerrar con una explosión, que la orden 2-3-1.

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En la escritura del negocio, a menudo verás las listas de productos, funciones, servicios, testimonios y clientes. Una lista de más de tres envía un mensaje sutil que el tema es demasiado grande para rodearlo con sus brazos.

Los estándares de prueba son un poco menos rigurosos que en las otras fórmulas, pero eso no quiere decir que puede ser descuidado. Haz tu tarea. Proporcionar los datos exactos.

Tip: Utilice esta fórmula para ganar una posición top-of-mind. Es la psicología detrás de puestos de la lista e infografía: el lector no puede sostener todos esos elementos en mente, así que tienen que aferrarse a su pieza y se refieren a ella una y otra vez — una manera inteligente y eficaz para comercializar su marca.

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Can Opt-in Pop-ups Get You 42 Times More Leads? (And How to Do It Yourself)

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota

Everyone hates pop-ups, right? Ever since I’ve been connected to the Internet back in 1995, people have been cursing them and complaining about how annoying and useless they are. Yet, almost 20 years later, pop-ups are still part of our daily life. Popovers, pop under, light box pop ups etc.

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As an Internet marketer and webmaster, I’ve rarely seen online marketing practices last for this long. So I came to the only possible conclusion: they probably work very well. This is when I decided I needed to give these a shot on my own site, to see if the benefits of running them outweighed the annoyance they cause.

Since I’m mostly running authority sites, I decided to make these opt-in pop ups to try and grow my list and transform one-time readers into rabid fans. 1 year later, I’m collecting hundreds of daily leads, using a combination of Getresponse and opt-in pop-ups on my various sites.

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When I first launched opt in pop-ups on my sites, they were very simple pop ups, offering people to join my newsletter. At first I went at length about the benefits of joining my newsletter, trying to highlight every single thing I give to my subscribers hoping my conversion rate would be higher.

Pro tip: it wasn’t. After A/B testing the text heavy versions against simple headlines generally stating one main benefit, I saw a 30% uplift in conversion rate.

This made me realize one thing:

It’s not really about the offer and exactly what people get when signing up to your newsletter. It’s about what they already know about you and their experience with your brand/site.

Therefore, if you make a complicated offer with numerous points, it’s going to be more confusing and people won’t necessarily opt-in. However, if you emphasize the good experience they’ve had on your site and make one compelling offer, they’re more likely to opt-in.

I also set my pop-up to pop on every page of my site without any specific rules after 20 seconds. The results were already much better than when I was not running an opt-in pop up. I was getting around 0.6% conversion rate at the time and collecting a few dozen leads a day.

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After the first implementation, I was collecting more emails than ever, but I kept hearing about successful marketers getting above 3% conversion rates from their pop-ups and to be honest, I was far from it.

Was my traffic wrong? No, not really. The issue is, the other marketers were bribing people to subscribe to their list. “But I can’t afford to pay people to join my list!” Don’t worry, I’m not talking about that kind of bribe.

Successful email marketers tend to give something for free to people. Something that literally costs them nothing to produce an extra unit of – something like a free e-book or video course. It’s something that you produce once and it serves you forever. Thanks to the autoresponder function in Getresponse, the delivery can be completely automated as well.

So, following that idea, I worked with my copywriters to put together a free e-book with breakfast recipes to offer to our readers in exchange for joining our mailing list.

Here’s what the pop up looked like:

Instantly, my opt-in rates jumped to 1-1.2% depending on the pop-up variations I was using. That’s almost double the rates! I’ve since repeated the experiment on several sites with the same kind of results.

Bribing people and offering them a freebie works in opt in pop ups.

Pro tip: One thing I’`ve done recently was brainstorming different ideas for freebies, then followed by a/b testing these in opt-in pop-ups. When people opt-in, send them to a page explaining it’s not ready yet but will be emailed to them soon. After you’ve identified which freebie gets the most opt ins, build it and send it to everyone that opted-in.

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Over 1% of people opting-in, now that’s amazing considering most people get under 0.1%. Yet, I was still way behind the email marketing gurus and their 3%+.

One thing to note is that the site I was experimenting with has a broad spectrum and that created a hurdle to jump: the offer wasn’t always well matched to the content people were consuming.

I therefore, decided to match the content and opt-ins closer by creating a different pop-up for every category on my website.

Here’s the example of what the juicing category pop up looked like:

As you can see, nothing special. I’m no designer, but the good news is that you don’t have to be one to succeed! This pop up got me over a 3% opt-in rate, pretty much 3x more than the site wide pop-up! I finally caught up to those other marketers.

I was also able to add people to different lists, so I could email them things and offers that are more relevant to what they’re interested in via Getresponse. This increased engagement as well as revenue for us.

All of my sites use pop-ups one way or another these days. I just try to make sure the offer matches the content and that they only pop-up on strategic pages, not throughout the entire site, and the offers are very targeted. This allows us to collect a huge amount of new leads while not being too annoying to our visitors.

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Gael Breton is a co-founder of Authority Hacker, a website helping people build authority sites out of their passion and pay their bills with it. He specializes in Inbound marketing and conversion rate optimization.

Using Content Marketing Strategies in B2B Emails #Infographic

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota

With 191.4 billion emails sent daily around the world, grabbing your customers’ attention with your message can be a shot in the dark. One of the most effective strategies emerging in global marketing is to use content marketing for your newsletters. Today’s infographic will tell you why it’s worth it.

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Today almost 93% of B2B marketers are using content marketing strategies to engage current customers and attract new ones. 78% of marketers are producing more content than a year ago, and only 35% of them find it hard to produce good quality content.

But producing good quality content is one thing. Making it work for your business, that is – engage and convert – is another.

To promote the content and make it reach their audience, B2B marketers use social media (87% of marketers) and their own websites (81%).

How about email marketing? Can it effectively promote your content? Read the infographic to learn more.

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Marketers use different forms of content to engage their prospects and customers:

Customer testimonials are rated #1 most effective content marketing technique. Testimonials give customers an independent outsider’s point of view on your products and services.Case studies are considered effective by 88% of marketers. They help your audience visualize how they themselves can benefit from your services.Videos can help online shoppers make buying decisions, according to 96% of consumers.Whitepapers are still considered an advanced way to communicate with your audience. But they’re a great and appreciated way to share your expertise and knowledge. They also improve your position as an industry thought leader.Infographics. People love them. And they can be a perfect way to present a lot of dull stats in an attractive, digestible format.

These are all great types of content marketing you can use. But the real key to creating successful content is to understand your customers, their needs, and routines. When you’ve got that, you can create content that really helps solve their problems.

Read the full infographic and let us know what type of content marketing you find most effective for your industry.

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