5 Ways to Create an Irresistible Call to Action

A successful email series is only as strong as its call to action (CTA). Read through our top tips to make sure yours are truly clickable.

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An Email Marketer's Guide to Smart Automation

Email automation doesn't have to be impersonal. Used correctly, it can actually help marketers get hyper-personal messages to the right subscribers at the right time. Read our guide to find out how.

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Platinum Bay: Cracking the Code on Special Needs Employment

Steve Andrews was diagnosed with Asperger's at the age of 33. Gaining a new understanding and perspective on his life led him to create Platinum Bay, a company that allows individuals on the Autism spectrum to gain employment by learning to code.Related Articles

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Quick Tips Video: How to Create an AWesome Email Newsletter

The email newsletter. It’s one of the most iconic types of emails out there, and it’s easy to see why. The newsletter provides the perfect format for communicating a variety of information with your subscribers, such as company updates, new blog posts and more.

But what’s the right formula for creating one that people want to engage with?

In the latest episode of Quick Tips, we discussed a simple recipe for creating the perfect email newsletter:

In case you missed a tip, read the transcript here:

Oliva (O): Hey everyone – welcome back to Quick Tips. I’m Olivia.

Monica (M): And I’m Monica. Today we wanted to take a couple of minutes to talk about a popular type of email: the newsletter.

O: You know, I’ve always been a big fan of those.

M: Me too.

O: It’s a great way to get a sample of different types of content and updates from a company, and it usually means that I get less frequent emails too, which my inbox definitely appreciates.

M: Agreed. And if you’re looking for an easy way to engage and grow your email audience, the email newsletter is a perfect format for you.

O: What if you’re not sure what to write in a newsletter?

M: Here’s a good place to start: Come up with a template for your newsletter that consists of 3 or 4 different brief topics. This can include your most recent content (like a blog post), curated content, and company updates.  

O: Since you’ll be covering different topics, keep your list of updates brief. Many of your subscribers will be reading your emails on mobile, so your email content should be easily scannable.

M: So now let’s take a closer look at what you can write in your newsletter.

O: If you regularly blog or create long-form content or host weekly podcasts, your email newsletter is a perfect channel for which to share it with your audience.

M: This gets your content in front of more people and lengthens its life. Not to mention, it’s also an easy way to drive traffic back to your website.

O: Why not include your most popular post of the week, and even one that didn’t get as many views.

M: You can do this for any type of content you regularly produce, whether it’s a blog post, podcast, YouTube video, ebook –  you get the idea.

O: You can also use this as a chance to share any contributions you made to other blogs or news outlets. If you authored a unique post that was published on another company’s website, share it with your subscribers to spread the word!

M: Aside from content you’ve written, you can also curate content from your favorite reliable sources. This is a great way to share trending information related to your industry/niche that your subscribers should be aware of.

O: For example, a food blogger might link to an article that talks about a recent food recall. In addition to summarizing the article in a couple of sentences, consider adding your own views on the matter.

M: This helps present yourself and your business as a thought leader in the industry, and it shows that you really understand the people you’re talking to.

O: Now you already have two slots filled in your newsletter – your own content and a piece of curated content. For the final section, consider adding a company update.

M: This can be an upcoming event, webinar, podcast or a new contest – whatever you want to spread the word about, this is your chance to tell your subscribers! It’s a great way to breathe more life into your business and get subscribers engaged.

O: Just make sure the update is relevant to your subscribers and their interests.

M: While that pretty much wraps up our three-pronged approach to creating an email newsletter, there are other things you can share in your newsletter too.

O: Maybe you want to create a newsletter that only has recent blog posts, or has two posts and one company update.

M: There’s no right or wrong approach, as long as you’re meeting the needs of your subscribers. But using your own content, curated content, and company updates is always a great place to start.

O: What ideas do you have for your email subscribers? Tell us about it in the comments!

M: And of course, be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel to make sure you never miss a quick tip.

O: That’s it for today; we’ll see you in two weeks!

The post Quick Tips Video: How to Create an AWesome Email Newsletter appeared first on Email Marketing Tips.

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No Time to Maintain a Business Blog? Use LinkedIn Instead

Creating and maintaining a blog is time-consuming, which is why many business owners give up on it. However, sharing content with your audience can attract and support customers.

If you don’t want to take the time to set up and contribute to a full-fledged blog, consider writing a few posts each month on your LinkedIn page. LinkedIn has a blog-like publishing feature that allows you to post content that is attached to your profile.

With 300 million users on the platform, you have access to a captive audience. Plus, a report from Econsultancy shows LinkedIn is responsible for referring 64 percent of traffic from social sites to business sites. That’s more referral traffic than Facebook and Twitter combined.

Ready to start blogging on LinkedIn? Here’s what you need to know:

How to post

Look for the “Publish a post” button at the top of your homepage. This takes you to the publishing tool. Write your long-form post, adding hyperlinks, images or video. Click the “Publish” button at the top right. Then confirm that you’re ready to publish your post by clicking either “Yes, publish it” or “No, not yet.”

What to post

Like other social media platforms, your LinkedIn page lets you publish virtually every form of content: articles, photos, quotes, company news, videos and even SlideShare presentations.

You’ll want to include a mix of useful, entertaining and promotional information. LinkedIn recommends that for every post promoting your company you create or share four that focus on industry trends or information that positions you as an expert in your field.

As for length, aim for a minimum of 300 words. If you can naturally add a link to a partner or relevant expert on LinkedIn, do so. While it can be tempting to always write short posts, more in-depth pieces are more likely to be featured on LinkedIn Pulse, a content hub that recommends articles to users.

Be sure to tag your post to increase its chances of being found. Current tags include industries like retail, skills like web development and fields like project management. You can choose up to three tags per post, but you can’t create your own.

When to post

According to LinkedIn, posting 20 times per month reaches a minimum of 60 percent of your audience, but even writing a few posts a month is beneficial.

In addition to frequency, it’s important to know the best days and times to post to maximize your reach. According to LinkedIn, most members use the platform during business hours. If you write something at night and on Saturday morning, wait to post it on the next business day.

Promoting your posts

Be sure to create a call to action at the end of each post. Encourage your followers to “like” your post, comment and share it. Add a question at the end to encourage people to comment, or add a sentence that asks readers to like your post.

Share your post on other social media sites. You can also include in an email campaign or newsletter by writing a summary paragraph and link back to LinkedIn. If you’re in LinkedIn groups and your post is relevant, share it with the group.

Responding to comments

Comments are flattering because they mean someone took the time to read your post. Keep the conversation going to build trust, establish your role as an expert, gather additional feedback and strengthen brand loyalty.

Like other sites, you can flag offensive comments made on your posts.

Analyzing your reach

Curious which topics garnered the most reads? Check your posts’ analytics by clicking on “View stats” next to “Edit post” underneath the cover image. You can see statistics like number of views, shares, and demographics.

You can use this information to tweak your content to improve traffic. See which days get the most views and which topics spark conversation. Use your demographics to gear content to that crowd.

LinkedIn is an excellent marketing tool that has the power to position your company as an authoritative figure and increase your customer base. Try creating a handful of posts each month and see what kind of results you get. 

Learn more by checking out, “What LinkedIn’s New Blogging Tool Means for Your Business.”

 

Wendy Burt-Thomas is a full-time freelance writer with four books and thousands of published articles to her credit. Contact Wendy at WendyBurt@aol.com.

 

© 2015, VerticalResponse Blog. All rights reserved. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.

The post No Time to Maintain a Business Blog? Use LinkedIn Instead appeared first on VerticalResponse Blog.

Getting the Most from Your Email Content

Email is a vital tool in distributing content across all channels.

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Grow Your Business with Data Insights From Dasheroo + AWeber

Real business goals rely on real data.

Unfortunately, they’re not always the easiest thing to obtain, analyze and digest. Data typically exists in multiple reports or websites, and aggregating all of the metrics into one place can be tricky. As a small business owner, entrepreneur, or whatever your career path may entail, you probably have way too many spinning plates to get bogged down in the numbers.

However, the moment you neglect the metrics, you can start losing sight of your goals. If only there was an application that could pull it all together… (Spoiler alert: There is).

Delightful data insights for the modern marketer

Enter Dasheroo, the simplest way to capture all of your top marketing metrics in one easy-to-use dashboard. Now that Dasheroo integrates with AWeber, you can easily monitor your list growth, email engagement, bounce and unsubscribe rates, and get a list of recently sent emails alongside your other important marketing metrics. Having your AWeber stats displayed with your Google Analytics, Facebook, Twitter, eCommerce, and other custom insights allows you to do more than just track your goals – it helps to connect the dots that’ll help your business grow.

Dasheroo’s insight displays can help marketers easily see the correlation between sent emails, social engagement, site traffic, and sales. When side-by-side, it’s apparent what social campaigns may have lead to a jump in email subscribers, and what emails aligned with increases in conversions. You can even create custom insights from feeds or Google Sheets, to leverage and display data from unconventional places.

Turning a Novel Idea into a Successful Project

Last April, I challenged myself to write my first novel in one year. I’ve never written a book before, but wrestled with the desire to do so for over a decade. Finally, I set this big ugly goal, with no plan or metrics to measure myself along the way. Big mistake.

I quickly discovered that without tangible metrics for success, I wouldn’t be able to grow my audience, track my writing progress, and ultimately complete the novel. After outlining milestones, I used Dasheroo to help me along my journey by setting up the following insights.

AWeber Email Marketing

I didn’t want to write my novel in a vacuum. My plan from the beginning was to build an audience and platform through email marketing using AWeber while I was writing, not after it was released. This required me to begin creating regular content on a new blog, and use contextual opt-in forms in my articles to attract subscribers. As the list began to grow, I became focused on improving my email engagement stats. Dasheroo insights can display the overall open and click rate on your emails, and the percentage of bounces and unsubscribes, which is key to gauging engagement.

I was also able to monitor recently sent broadcasts and total number of subscribers.

This information also comes in handy, as it reveals areas for you to make improvements and increase engagement. If you notice your open rate is fluctuating, for example, consider tweaking your send times and subject lines. Do emails sent in the early morning get a better open rate than emails sent late at night? Do your personalized subject lines perform better than those that aren’t? These are a few questions you can begin to ask yourself as you dig into the data and analytics.

Custom Charts

Aside from email stats, one of my favorite features within Dasheroo is their ability to display custom data from Google Sheets. Using this integration, I created two custom word count insights to keep track of my most important metrics. With these data points, I can see how many words I’ve written to date, how many words I have left, and my average word count per day. These stats help me see how much closer I’m getting to completing my novel.

If I can create a dashboard to measure the progress of my novel, think of all the awesome things you can do for your business. If you have a goal that can be represented in Google Sheets, you can easily create multiple custom insights to help you measure and achieve success.

For example, you can use this to track inventory of a physical item, track employee performance on a custom leaderboard or track daily events that happen in the physical world – like the amount of high fives your customers might give you each day! With this integration, the possibilities are truly endless.

Google Analytics

If you have a website, you are likely capturing a slew of metrics through Google Analytics. However, the Google Analytics interface can be difficult for novices to navigate. Using Dasheroo, I was able to connect my Google Analytics account to view various insights (e.g., top pages, total daily sessions) alongside my other data to track my blog’s progress.

With this data, you can begin to see how your email, social and content strategies all work together to yield results. And when you can look at it in one place, you can analyze trends and iterate on what works best.

For example, using a Google Analytics insight, you might easily be able to identify that content published and promoted on a Tuesday performs significantly better than content published on a Thursday. Identifying top pages also helps you identify where users are flocking on your site, which can speak volumes about their interests and needs.

Facebook and Twitter

To continue building a platform for my project, I set up a Facebook Page. Dasheroo’s Facebook integration allows you to track a variety of metrics, including clicks, shares, likes, comments, total number of new fans and overall reach. Although my Facebook traffic is admittedly dismal at this time, this dashboard serves as a constant reminder to create and experiment with more engaging posts.

Since my novel is a bit of a hobby, I haven’t invested in any paid social efforts to expand my reach. If you are investing in Facebook’s paid options, these Dasheroo insights will be of much greater use for your brand or business.

I purposefully didn’t create a separate Twitter account for my book project, but that didn’t stop me from syncing with my everyday Twitter account and taking advantage of some awesome charts. Dasheroo can pull in a graph of your follower growth, highest engaging tweets and much more. Seeing which tweets received the highest engagement in the past 30 days can have a strong impact on how you plan and create your Twitter content.

All the data, all the time.

I recently read a fantastic blog post by Michael Hyatt titled How to Jumpstart a Stuck Project. In the post, Michael writes, “If we don’t know where we’re headed, it’s impossible to know what it takes to to arrive.”

Whether you want to grow your subscriber list by 20 percent or increase your revenue by 1000 percent, the first step requires setting the goal.

Using a tool like Dasheroo can help you visualize your goals and progress. As an email marketing fanatic, I’m most excited to see my list growth alongside my Google Analytics, social stats and custom wordcount metrics. Checking all of these sources individually would be so time-consuming, and I probably would have given up by now.

So here’s my advice… set the goal, track the data and don’t give up.

Get started with Dasheroo + AWeber and continue to grow your business and hit your goals.

The post Grow Your Business with Data Insights From Dasheroo + AWeber appeared first on Email Marketing Tips.

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