Watch This Video: Are You Too Busy to Learn If You Have Prediabetes?

Is it just me, or are we in the Age of Convenience? Everything is at our fingertips: information, food, entertainment. I mean, Netflix. Do I need to say more? We don’t even need to put in the effort to search for shows we want, or even change channels anymore. Which is great, since our hands are too full with whatever deliciousness we’re binge-eating on the couch at the moment.

So commercials have to work HARD to break through my self-induced haze. Mostly, they fail. This one, though…Well, just watch it for yourself.

The video was created by the Ad Council, a non-profit organization that creates and runs campaigns for other non-profit and US government agencies. The Ad Council works with advertising and creative agencies, who craft the ads pro bono. Their goal is to inspire dialogue, engagement, and action around significant (and non-partisan) public issues, creating a “measurable difference in society”.

Why is this video awesome?

Of course video marketing does have a subjective quality to it – what speaks to me won’t necessarily speak to someone else of a different demographic, or someone who has a different sense of humor, or who isn’t interested in similar topics. But there are a few interesting aspects of this video that I think help it achieve its goals:

It doesn’t sell anything.

Say what? Why is this good for video marketing? Don’t companies want to push their products on people? Well, one of the things I love about this campaign is it doesn’t push anything that viewers need to buy. If you’re like me, you don’t love commercials interrupting your shows, shouting at you to buy this and buy that, and shoving products you don’t necessarily need down your throat. But I do love ads that pique my curiosity, teach me something, and make me want to learn more (but leaving it up to me to decide if I do want to learn more).

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This tactic makes me think viewers are similar to puppies or teenagers – if you demand they do something, they won’t, even if they were sort of interested. But if you engage them and let them decide for themselves, they’ll follow through and take action. Another great example of this tactic is the “Who Am I?” campaign for Ontario tourism. If you haven’t seen it, check it out:

Ontario itself wasn’t mentioned in the ads – it was up to the viewer to want to play along and learn more, which I think was a great and innovative way to engage and entice viewers, rather than demanding, “Hey, take a trip in Ontario, wouldya?”  

You might think this strategy wouldn’t work for your company or product because maybe you want something more direct. But just think of the possibilities – this approach could be just the first part in a series that entices people and then informs and sells them.

It’s unusually funny.

Video marketers know that if you want great engagement on your videos, you probably want your video to be either A) emotional, or B) funny. A lot of commercials directed at your health take a morose angle – think of all the commercials you see for prescription drugs. I’m likely to instantly tune out, even if I had the affliction, because the ads are too depressing (the emotional tactic gone wrong!) or too cheesy, filled with people struggling to get out of bed or watching their loved ones through a window.

Humorous videos about your health, now those get attention. Who doesn’t remember one of the first Viagra commercials with the guy who hopped and skipped and cartwheeled his way to work after a good night?

Much more engaging than a commercial showing a sad and rejected husband and wife, right? This prediabetes commercial could have been a real disengaging downer, but the actor is amusing and the script is well-written and even light-hearted for a serious topic, helping to get – and keep – the audience’s attention.

It engages a broader demographic.

When you think of prediabetes, what demographic do you think of? Older people who struggle to maintain a healthy weight? The thing about a lot of commercials directed at your health is, unless you already know you’re suffering from the problem, you may not be listening or think it applies to you.

This is why this video works so well. It doesn’t show the ‘sufferer’ so that we can envision anyone, including ourselves, in that role. It poses a question (“Do I have prediabetes?”), making us curious about the answer, rather than “You have prediabetes, here’s what you can do about it”. It engages people who may not have initially thought the message was meant for them.

Right off the bat, the ad talks right to us. It relates to us, makes us feel understood (we’re all busy, and we’re all likely sitting on a couch watching the ad) and pulls us into the conversation, so we’re more willing to see ourselves as part of the intended demographic, and engage in the message. This is a perfect example of relating to your viewers and leading them along a story instead of trying to yell for their attention.

It does the work for you.

A lot of commercials fall more into the top of the marketing funnel – you aren’t necessarily getting into the nitty gritty of your product or service, but just trying to create awareness, excitement, and interest, and trying to connect with people amongst a very broad demographic of viewers. Knowing that viewers are busy, bored, and just waiting for their show to come back, it’s just too hard to relate to them, snag their interest, and then actually educate them in a short period of time, right?  

This video proves otherwise. The great thing about it is that it calls out viewers’ own pain points – they’re busy, just watching a show, they may not feel your message will be relevant to them, and they just don’t care about ads. So this video does the work for us, educating us in the simplest and quickest of ways – it poses a few yes-or-no and easy-to-answer questions so that after a mere minute, we’re much more educated about our own likelihood that we’re at risk for prediabetes. We don’t have to lift a finger, get a pen and paper, visit a website, remember stats, or really do anything but follow along. That’s how to engage even the most disengaged and uninterested! Talk about impressive.

It doesn’t shame you…

Like I’ve been saying throughout this post, this video is great at speaking our language, saying what we’re thinking, and relating to us. We’re busy! We’re tired! We want our show back! We don’t want to do work and find out about our health!

This is a similar approach to what a lot of fitness clubs do – people don’t want to feel alone in their struggles. The other day I heard a radio ad from a gym talking about how their club is a welcoming place for people of all fitness levels to come in, work out, get the help they need, and not feel judged – because not many people would rush to the gym or feel comfortable if they’re surrounded by winners of fitness competitions.

This prediabetes ad works the same way – if we’re inundated with facts and checklists and made to feel ashamed about how we treat our bodies, we may be more likely to bury our heads in the sand rather than face the music and change our behavior. Did you know that about 25% of people even lie to their doctors about the status of their health? People don’t want to admit when they aren’t doing what they know they should do. This video acknowledges that general feeling, and helps us feel like we aren’t alone, it’s okay, and it’s going to help us along.

…Until it does shame you.

You’re not alone, and it’s okay to sit on the couch and binge-watch shows and not pay attention to your health. Buuuut only to a point. The video hooks you on its relatability, but it still needs to close you and make you take action. There’s where the final little bit of shame comes in to help close the deal: now that you’ve gotten the quick and easy education and you know where your health stands, you can’t bury your head in the sand anymore. The “doctor” has to be blunt and tell you like it is because you’re busy, but now it’s up to you to take the next step and visit the website. The ad has done most of the work for you already, so the least you can do is “just go to the site”!

So what do you think? Did this ad make you take the quick quiz? Did it make you want to learn more, or help ease your fears about your health?

What video marketing have you seen recently that you think worked really well? Have you checked your dongle yet or enjoyed the Ford barking lot?

The post Watch This Video: Are You Too Busy to Learn If You Have Prediabetes? appeared first on Vidyard.

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Is it True That Long-Form Blog Posts Perform Better?

As a blogger, you spend an enormous amount of time creating content. And you want that content to succeed, right? If you’re like most bloggers, though, it’s possible that you’ve fallen into a “comfort zone” where you’re consistently publishing content of a particular length.

And if this length is shorter than about 2,000 words, you may be damaging your conversion and engagement rates. There’s a lot of evidence on the web right now to support that long-form content performs better than short-form content.

Here’s everything you need to know about long-form versus short-form content performance, and why you should be publishing more of the former.

Why People Think Short-Form is the Answer

Today, people cruise the web on tiny screens, and it doesn’t seem like anyone has time to sit down and slog through a Moby Dick-sized blog any longer. That said, it makes sense that people believe short-form content is the answer. After all, what’s not to love?

While short-form content may be easy for readers to digest, it doesn’t convert very well. Unless, however, you have a site with an incredibly high DA score.

If you don’t, short-form content won’t cut it, and you’ll find yourself falling short.

Long-Form Blogs and Google SERPs

If you evaluate the top ten results in Google’s search engine results pages (SERPs), you’ll notice that the average content length of content that ranks in the #1 position is 2,450 words. For proof, check out this SerpIQ graphic on the topic:

As the content on the graph moves from the number one to the number ten position in Google, you can see that the corresponding length drops, as well.

So why does long-form content perform so well? The answer is simple. In the last several years, the number of customers searching Google with long-tail keywords has increased, and people have begun to turn to the web as a primary source of information.

While some Google users do want short, fast content, others want in-depth, ultra-informative material. What’s more, Buzzsumo reports that there is 16x more content out there with less than 1,000 words than content with more than 2,000 words.

Since long-form content has less competition at the outset, it’s likely to rank better and find its niche of users easier than short-form content, which already saturates the web.

How to Rank With Long-Form Content

So you’ve decided you want to create more long-form blog content, but what’s next? Follow these tips to develop successful, long-form posts your readers will love:

– Format your long-form accordingly. Long-form content, when improperly formatted, can feel like a brick of text that users can’t access. Keep it accessible by formatting it accordingly. Use headers, subheaders, bulleted lists, and links to break the content up, and keep your sentences and paragraphs short.

– Include images. One of the best aspects of long-form content is that it provides all the room you need to include graphics and visuals. These graphics and visuals enhance the content and make it more valuable for readers, thus helping it rank higher. To keep your long-form content on the up and up, include visuals throughout.

– Keep it longer than 1,500 words. Content that is 1,500 words or longer will perform best. Bonus points if you invest in content that is 2,000 words or longer.

– Make it a list. To keep your long-form content skimmable, format it into a list post that readers can skim easily.

The Verdict: Creating Long-Form Content Will Help You Rank

While long-form content takes more time, energy, and effort to produce than short-form content, it’s an excellent way to help your site rank and gain more visitors. By creating more long-form content, you can easily distinguish yourself as a content leader and enjoy a higher ROI from the material you publish.

Dave is the CEO of Dave’s Computers Inc. He writes a weekly column for Daily Blog Tips covering the best tips about blogging and Internet marketing. You can also find him on LinkedIn.

Original post: Is it True That Long-Form Blog Posts Perform Better?

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3 Things to Know Before Getting into Ecommerce

You might think that since most of the hard stuff is complete — initial funding, cash flow and inventory management— that you are prepared to open up an online retail business. There might even be some semblance of a budding marketing plan to drive traffic to your neck of the World Wide Web. While ecommerce is a great industry to get into with huge growth across the country (the United States Census reported a 14.6 percent increase in overall ecommerce sales from 2014 to 2015), and world (2015 worldwide sales totaled $1.55 trillion and expected to grow to 3.4 trillion by 2019), there are some things that you might not be prepared for before you launch your new online business.

Customers Aren’t Always Nice
Working in the retail industry is difficult — whether it’s in-store or online there will always be someone out to get something for cheaper than what you’re offering.

For example, sometimes as an online retailer, you will have clearance products that will sell at discounted prices. This is a great way to clear out inventory as well as make your customers happy. However, imagine that someone bought one such clearance item from your store, and upon shipping, it was determined that the item was not fit for sale. You check around other similar retailers or manufacturers, but everyone of this item is sold out and gone. This is the nature of clearance.

If you do not have a healthy customer service plan to deal with the backlash caused by not being able to provide your customers with the products that they have paid for, you might be in trouble.

Many of the best ecommerce site builders, like Shopify, will have customer management services built-in to their platform, which makes dealing with difficult customers, returns or exchanges a breeze.

Carrier Services Sometimes Lose Packages
According to their website, UPS delivers 18.3 million packages and documents a day. Now, they are the number one delivery service in the United States, but 18 million packages and documents is a lot of stuff – it would be crazy to think that none of those items were ever misplaced.

If you want to run an entirely internet-based ecommerce store, you are going to experience these lost parcels, and you should have a contingency plan for it — or else people are going to get mad.

The best way to be prepared for this is to consider all aspects of the shipping process. It takes a long time from the purchased item to go from your warehouse to the customer. The item has to travel through various vendors, shipping providers and technologies, whether you know about it or not.

While FedEx and UPS may be the biggest names in shipping, they may not be the most affordable. Drop shippers and other third-party logistics can help keep your shipping costs low. Drop shipping is when a retailer sends a customer order to a manufacturer that then ships the product out from their warehouse. This is a particularly attractive option for many ecommerce businesses that want to boost sales, while not needing to increase the amount of space needed for their own inventory.

Be Explicit with Your Terms of Use
Of all the things you will need to know, this one may or may not be the most surprising depending on how much faith you hold in the average consumer’s ability to pay attention. You will need to be crystal clear on all labelling of products, offers, and policies. Many, if not all of your customers, will skim over the material and misunderstand what you mean.

For example, let’s say you are a small business that sells designer hats, and you want to run a contest that will showcase all the cool places people have worn your brand. You have your prize, you have your submission forms – next, you need to have blatant and explicit verbiage explaining that the contestant must be wearing your particular brand in order to be eligible for the prize. Otherwise, you are likely to sift through a veritable mountain of disqualifying submissions.

You are going to learn a lot when you open up an online business, so be sure to prepare yourself as best as you can!

Original post: 3 Things to Know Before Getting into Ecommerce

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5 Joomla Tips To Improve Your SEO

Search engine optimization is has become so prevalent that it can’t be considered a matter of choice anymore. With the number of websites indexed by search giants rapidly growing, the competition to have your website at the top of the search results has grown fiercer. Bringing in traffic, specifically, unique visitors who are looking precisely for the products and services you are offering can only be accomplished by optimizing your web page. Couple that with analytics and you’ll see the first real results in a matter of few months.

Unlike similar content management systems and web tools available out there, Joomla has a set of tools designed specifically for website optimization. Bear in mind that this is not something that can be accomplished and mastered overnight and the optimization itself can prove itself to be somewhat expensive. This is why it may be a good choice to consult a professional before diving head first into search engine optimization, some practices are easy to handle, but some will require first-hand knowledge and experience on the subject.

1. Choosing the right type of server

Before you start fiddling around the serial configurations, check if the server you’re using is suitable for hosting a Joomla-based website. Using a Mac on an IIS Windows server can only result in lost equipment and the fear that the rewrite modules just won’t work well with the URL rewriting becomes a reality when installing and configuring Joomla. This is why choosing the right server is so important and Joomla generally works best on an Apache webserver with a mod_rewrite module integrated beforehand.

2. Sitemap installation

Sitemaps are used by to update search engines whenever you add new content to your website. The most important thing about sitemaps is to keep them up to date with your website structure, because and old sitemap cannot truthfully represent the current organization of your menu items. One of the best and the simplest way of creating a sitemap is to use an extension called XMap. This tool takes only second to create an XML map in a matter of seconds. All there is to do is to submit it to Google’s and Bing’s search consoles.

3. Submitting to search engine consoles

Submitting the sitemap you generated previously to Bing and Google webmasters, or search consoles is a very useful practice. This allows you to monitor the changes in your search engine optimization practices and provides you with invaluable information regarding your website, such as links, search queries, keywords and even crawl errors. Using these services provided by search engines, in conjunction with good SEO practices guarantees that your website will be indexed properly and you don’t lose any potential visitors.

4. Optimizing texts and images

This is done best using Joomla’s content management interface by adding specific META descriptions to all of your pages. Most people tend to forget this, but making a habit out of it can really make a big impact when it comes to placing your website at the top of the search results page. The descriptions themselves should not be longer than 130 characters. Furthermore, remember no never use the default image title and to add a keyword-abundant alternative short description with a well thought out title instead. Avoid using duplicate META tags as they can have a negative effect on the optimization and overall ranking of the individual web pages.

5. Creating SEO-friendly URLs

More often than not, search engines are more likely to index clearly readable URLs. Unindexed URLs simply won’t show in the results where the indexed ones get the chance of being put in the top of the search results page. Changing the old URL into a search engine friendly one is a fairly simple task once you know how to. All you need to do is log into Joomla’s administration panel, go into Global Configuration area and enable the following:

– User URL Rewriting
– Search Engine Friendly URLs

The first option addresses the issue of removing the /index.php/ part of the URL. This action requires using the .htaccess file and the mod_rewrite module used in Apache. The second option is responsible for removing the random characters generated in the URL and replacing them with the menu item list set up by the user. If you have just started using it, the experts strongly recommend leaving the rest of the options in the Global Configuration area on default settings.

It’s worth mentioning that no SEO job is complete without getting links from web pages that are in the same, or at least similar industry profession as you. Developing a good link building strategy allows your site to be picked up by search engines and being ranked at the top of the search results page. Additionally, make sure to provide the users with relevant content they could comment on and share with their friends. No matter how good your website may be optimized, nothing beats well-thought out content.

Author bio: John Stone is a Joomla developer on Nirmal.com.au. Through years of experience as a, he became a devout believer in the notion that form should always follow function and that developing the ability to think outside of the box is a prerequisite of being a successful entrepreneur.”

Original post: 5 Joomla Tips To Improve Your SEO

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How to Grow Your Email List by 750 Subscribers Per Day – Mark and Lauren Greutman

How to Grow Your Email List by 750 Subscribers per Day with Mark and Lauren Greutman

Episode: 287
Who: Mark and Lauren Greutman
Website/Blog: LaurenGreutman.com

Do you want to grow your email list, but you’re not sure where to start?

Are you sick of relying on social media to bring you traffic?

In today’s episode, I’m on the line with Mark and Lauren Greutman. They run one of the largest personal finance websites in the country: LaurenGreutman.com.  Lauren is a regular guest on the TODAY show, Dr. Oz, Fox & Friends and many more national TV shows, as well as the #1 best-selling author of The Recovering Spender.  Mark is the content and website manager, as well as an email and paid advertising guru. Together, they work hand in hand to continue to build up their email lists using multiple strategies, which often net them 750 email sign ups per day. You’ve heard me say it before: your email list is one of your most valuable assets. So Mark and Lauren are here to share their secrets for boosting growth on your email list.

Mark and Lauren’s Story

It’s Mark’s first time on the show, but Lauren has actually been here twice before! If you want to know more of the backstory, check out Episode 147: How to Get Media Exposure for Your Blog and Episode 173: A Pinterest Strategy That Makes Sense.

The last time Lauren was on the podcast, Mark had just quit his job as an actuary to come home and work with Lauren full time. Both of them say that the first year working together was difficult, but now they’re in a good groove.

I had two questions right away: what does an actuary do? And why was that first year so rough?

Mark says that an actuary basically does lots of number crunching. You can find them in many different places, but he worked on pension plans and healthcare. As a result, he’s really, really good at spreadsheets. He’s got a spreadsheet for everything, which is super helpful when it comes to the email list!

The first year was rough because Mark stepped into Lauren’s world, but they hadn’t set out clear roles ahead of time. The website had been up and running for four years at that point, and the business was doing well. But Lauren wasn’t prepared for taking on another full-time employee. At the time, she would do things because she knew they worked, but she wasn’t necessarily able to explain them to someone else.

Mark will also be the first one to tell you that he didn’t understand Lauren’s audience at first. He would spend all day writing some amazing content, only for Lauren to throw it out because it wasn’t speaking to their audience.

Mark and Lauren Greutman with their four children

Mark and Lauren also have four children, and they didn’t plan out clear roles or put together a schedule for who would do what around the house when Mark left his job. There was also a lot more pressure for the blog to be successful once they didn’t have the fallback of Mark’s separate income. So basically, Lauren says, “It was just a big, jumbled mess.”

So what happened? How did they get out of the mess?

Lauren’s book deal was a game-changer. Once she got offered the book deal about a year ago, she had to let a lot of things go. It was physically impossible for her to write and promote the book and do the website full time and be a full-time mom and cook dinner every night. So the book helped Mark and Lauren to find a balance.

Let’s Talk Email Lists

Was an email list always a priority for Lauren?

Nope. She did an RSS email for years.

Then two years ago, when Facebook had its big algorithm changes, Mark and Lauren decided they needed to build their email list. They realized that they couldn’t just be dependent on social media to reach their audiences any more.

Emails with a personal touch and a freebie

So they stopped the RSS emails and started writing emails to the list with a much more personal tone. Lauren says she doesn’t use “form emails,” where you’re just getting a digest of new content. It has to look like you personally have written the emails. You’ve got to write them as if you were writing to a close friend.

Mark and Lauren also started offering freebies for signing up the email list. They’ve got different freebies available depending on what content you’re looking at when you sign up.

They’ll also start the email with your first name, when possible. Now, it’s true that the more details you ask for when someone is signing up to an email list, the less likely they are to sign up. Mark and Lauren only ask for your first name and your email address, most of the time. But on the mobile version of the site, they only want your email address, because it’s harder to fill in multiple fields on a phone or tablet.

Mark and Lauren use ConvertKit to manage their email marketing, but Lauren also responds to every single email that comes to their inbox.

Convert Kit

 

Wait, what?! 750 new subscribers per day, and she answers every single email?!

Yes! Lauren is careful to say that she only gets about 20 emails per day, even though they have lots of new subscribers. And she does use some canned responses, if people send frequently asked questions. But she does spend one to two hours per day just answering email.

This really sets the blog apart: Lauren and Mark are willing to invest in the people who come to their website. The community is everything. Lauren says, “if we don’t have them, we don’t have anything.”

Where Do I Start?

So if I want to build my email list the way that Mark and Lauren have, where should I start? How do I up my marketing game?

Offer a ton of value in your free giveaway

The first thing, Mark says, is to think about what kind of people you want on your list. Then, make sure that your freebies match the audience you’re targeting.

For example, Mark and Lauren were previously giving away a meal plan as a freebie, but they have since changed the focus on their blog. Where they were more about food before, now they are more focused on budgeting and debt reduction. So the meal plan giveaway no longer attracts the right kind of audience.

You need to think about who specifically you’re targeting, even within your niche. What are their needs and problems? Then, think about what you can create that will be attractive enough to them that they’ll want to sign up to your list.

You also want to offer a ton of value in your free giveaway. This helps to build trust in you and your brand. Don’t just throw them a one-page printout. Lauren says that kind of thing is just “lame.” Instead, really “knock their socks off.” Lauren and Mark are currently offering a 15-page budget pack with an explanation of how to use it and a customized spreadsheet. That’s the kind of thing they could charge for, but they’re happy to give it away if it gets people in the door.

One thing that stands out to me is the utility of that budget pack. This freebie is something that Lauren and Mark’s email subscribers will use every day in their life or in their business. And because the spreadsheet is branded, they’ll be reminded of LaurenGreutman.com every time they open it. Genius!

So think: if you were in the position of your target reader, what would actually be useful for you? I could picture giving away an affiliate tracker spreadsheet, or an income tracking spreadsheet for bloggers, for example.

Write a really creative, compelling, long form piece of content.

Okay, so you’ve created your awesome resource to give away. Now what?

Write a really creative, compelling, long form piece of content with an emotional hook that gets people to sign up for your list. For example, Mark and Lauren recently did a post called “How to Budget When You Don’t Make Enough Money.” It hits all the pain points of people in debt or up at night worrying about bills.

The invitation to download their budget pack is embedded in the article copy, repeated at the end of the article, and in a pop-up. So a reader has three different opportunities to sign up.

Using Social Media Advertising

Then, once you have the content, get it out there on Facebook, Pinterest, and Instagram.

Keep in mind that you’ll pay less for ad space if you are promoting content. It costs significantly less to promote a blog post as compared to a landing page.

Your goal is to get people to this piece of content in the cheapest way possible. The secret? Really good copy for the text you see on the ad itself. This is so important. It has to be super engaging if you want the cost per click to go down–which you do!

Get Your Content Out There

The first step to creating amazing copy is to test it out with organic reach. Mark and Lauren have 134,000 Facebook fans, so they can usually tell within the first hour if something they’ve posted is doing really well and is worth promoting. We’ll stick to tips for Facebook here, since that’s where most of my audience is focusing.

That might seem intimidating if you only have 500 or 1,000 followers, but your audience are still the best gauge of how strong your copy is. If you normally get 5 shares, but something you post gets 20 or 30, you know you’re onto something.

Mark also emphasizes that shares and click-through rates are much more important statistics than likes when testing your copy. Then, when you set up your ad campaign later on, make sure you’re measuring clicks, not engagement.

In the organic phase, it can be good to test copy by posting the same content a few different ways. Or, you can just go in and edit a post that isn’t performing as well as you’d like. Mark and Lauren have done this before, and they always see an increase in engagement once they adjust the copy.

You want to be paying attention to your RPM. That’s your ad revenue per 1,000 page views. If you know your RPM, and you divide that number by 1,000, you’ll have a rough sense of your ad revenue per page view. So if your RPM is $10, you’re getting a penny per page view.

So now, the goal is to get people onto your site for a penny each, because then that’s free traffic. In other words, you want to be earning the same amount from each visit that you’re paying for each click. And then, once they’re there, everything you make through autoresponders and your own products and affiliate links is “gravy.”

Getting Cheap Clicks

Sounds good, but these are hypothetical numbers. Like, it’s not possible to get down to a penny per click…right?

Actually, Mark and Lauren say, “YES.” It is definitely possible to get down to a penny per click. It takes some testing and experience, and it won’t happen every time, but it is possible. They’ve done it.

So how do we get those cheap clicks? Unfortunately, there’s no single formula that works every time. Mark said that it takes testing. So what does he test? And how?

You’ve got to test all kinds of things: the audience you’re targeting, the image you’re using, the copy… Basically, you have to do some kind of split testing if you want to get the cost per click relatively low.

Split Test Social Media Ads

If that sounds intimidating, there are some third-party sites that can help. Mark and I have both used AdEspresso in the past, which makes split testing really easy. It costs $49 per month, but it will auto-generate ads with all the different variables for you, which is a big help, especially if you’ve never done split testing before.  

You’ll also need to think about who you’re targeting, and how. Hit your own fans first, and then branch out to a “lookalike audience.” A lookalike audience just means an audience that has similar demographics to yours. Facebook’s ad manager can help you identify and target these audiences.

Sometimes, it’s even easier to just target Facebook pages similar to yours. If you know that there’s an audience within your niche who would be interested in your product, you can target them directly through a Facebook fan page rather than targeting a generic lookalike audience.

It can also help to have multiple email lists. So, for example, if Mark and Lauren have a cookbook list, and they want to target them with a budgeting freebie, they can upload that cookbook list to Facebook and target those people with ads for their new product.

You’ll want to cast your net pretty wide with all of this stuff. Sometimes, your cost per click goes up because your ads are just landing in front of the same people over and over, so they’re not clicking again. You need to be able to scale up once you have a formula that works.

Final Tips?

Make sure you’ve got autoresponders set up! Once you get people on your email list, you need to engage them right away. Make sure that they’re a “warm” list.

Engage with the people on your list

When someone signs on to Mark and Lauren’s email list, they get a thank-you page with a video of Lauren right away. It helps to put a face to the name.

Then, they get multiple emails from Lauren over the course of the next week through one of the autoresponders. Again, it’s important to give these emails a really personal tone. You want your audience to feel like you’re just talking to them. This helps them to feel more engaged and keeps your unsubscribes down. That way, you can focus on selling them, and you can use the list when you launch a new product. In addition, your list will come back to the site and generate even more ad revenue.

Mark points out that it’s also important to have relevant affiliate links. You should also make sure that you tag them, so that you can keep track of exactly what people are paying for and how much each person on the email list is worth to you (but that’s a whole other podcast…!).

If the numbers in this podcast seem intimidating, don’t worry! These tips will help you grow your email list no matter what stage you’re at. If you’re currently growing your list by 5 people per day, and you can get that up to 20 or 30 just by spending some money on ads in a targeted way, that’s a huge, huge improvement! Those are people that you can nurture and build a relationship with. It doesn’t have to be hundreds of new subscribers to make a difference.

And, finally, remember that “your money is in your list.” Mark and Lauren say that their email list is the number one most valuable asset in their business, and it should be yours, too!

Where Can I Learn More?

If you want to know more about what Mark and Lauren are up to, or you want to take advantage of that awesome budget pack, or maybe you even want to buy some of their products, head on over to LaurenGreutman.com.

Resources Mentioned

• Website – LaurenGreutman.com
• The Recovering Spender – best selling book written by Lauren
• Previous interviews with Lauren at Become a Blogger:
  • Episode 147: How to Get Media Exposure for Your Blog
  • Episode 173: A Pinterest Strategy That Makes Sense
• Tools used:
  • ConvertKit – helped them manage email marketing
  • AdEspresso – helps make ad split testing easier by auto-generating ads with all the different variables for you

Infographic

How to Grow Your Email List by 750 Subscribers Per Day

The post How to Grow Your Email List by 750 Subscribers Per Day – Mark and Lauren Greutman appeared first on Become A Blogger by Leslie Samuel.

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Check Out This Chrome Extension to Network Like a Boss!

As you probably know, networking is essencial, regarless of your professional field. Whether you are a lawyer, teacher, corporate employee, freelancer or business owner, having a large and active network of contacts can make or break your career.

Back in the day networking was all about going to conventions and trading business cards. Today, thanks god, things are digital. Instead of trading business cards you add people on social networks, which include Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook to get started.

With me so far? Good.

The problem is that the vast majority of business communications take place over email. Even people who still like to trade business cards will only include their email addresses and phone numbers on the business cards. That is a problem because while email helps for networking, it’s not ideal.

Networking is also about getting to know the other person, her interests and areas of expertise, her latest career moves and so on. Likewise you want to show to your network of contacts your interests, areas of expertise and so on.

Social networks are the ideal platform for that, but so far we only have the email of our professional contacts.

Is there a solution? Yes, and it’s a clever Google Chrome extension called ManyContacts.

I say clever because it’s a very simple yet quite useful idea: simply visit a web page and it will recognize all the emails there and display their respective social networks. For instance, if you open your gmail, it will display the social networks of all your contacts. Sweet huh? Here’s a video showing how it works:

Now get off your bu** and start adding those contacts to your social networks. If you have a lot of them, do so in daily batches (20 or so every day). It’s a bit of work now, but it probably will pay its dividens in the future!

Original post: Check Out This Chrome Extension to Network Like a Boss!

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