Category Archives: Email Marketing

How to Build an Evergreen Sales Funnel

By Lisa Nelson  |  Email Marketing

sales-funnel
Do you have a sales funnel in place currently that continuously works to convert new subscribers into paying customers?

If you currently have a low level program created and available for purchase on your website, this could be an easy addition to boost this income stream.

Step 1:

Make sure your free opt in gift (the gift you use to entice people to give you their name and email) is in some way connected to the program you want to offer.

Example: How to Lower Cholesterol in 8 Simple Steps is an opt in gift. It is a natural entry point that acts as a teaser for the program Heart Health Made Easy.

If your free gift does not tie in well with your program, consider creating a new free gift to make this function well.
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3 Must Have’s for a Website to Generate Income

By Lisa Nelson  |  Email Marketing, Marketing, Website

Don’t think of your website as a glorified business card. Think of your website as your business hub. All online marketing efforts should funnel into your website, BUT when that traffic comes in you need to some key components to convert sales and generate income.

Yes, you do want an attractive website with a good design. However, if you want to make sales online you need to consider more than just text and images.

  1. Blog — Blogs are an easy way for you to highlight your expertise while sharing valuable tips and resources your target market seek. Consistently providing new content via a blog keeps both your target market engaged and google regularly scanning your site.
    • Video — Blogs can be text or video format. Video is a more powerful way to connect with a potential client. It allows a relationship to grow faster because you are providing a face and voice for your potential client to connect with. Plus, YouTube searches are at times as high as Google searches.

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Are you collecting names and email addresses?

By Lisa Nelson  |  Email Marketing, Marketing

Do you need to have a fully functioning website before you start collecting the names and emails of individuals interested in your services?

No.

The sooner you start collecting contact information for individuals interested in what you have to offer, the better.

When marketing your services online it takes time to foster a relationship. Potential clients need to get to know and trust you. An offline relationship can grow much faster because face to face communication allows you to learn so much faster who someone is, do you like them, and do you trust them. Online it takes many different points of contact, or “touches”, before someone feels confident working with you. This is all part of your email marketing strategy.

An aside: The above point is why video is becoming so popular and such a useful marketing tool. While it’s still not the same as face to face communication, it does allow someone to see and hear you. This is an invaluable way to let potential clients learn who you are faster.

Since it takes time to foster a working relationship online, the sooner you begin developing these relationships the better for your business goals long term. Waiting until a website or program is complete and fully functioning isn’t necessary. All you need is a landing page that offers visitors an “irresistible offer”, so they provide you with their name and email in order to receive the “freebie”.

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Are you utilizing your email signature to grow your business?

By Lisa Nelson  |  Email Marketing

You want to keep your email signature short and to the point, but you also want it to provide clear information on how to contact you and entice people to learn more about you.

Here are 7 items you may want to include in your email signature:

  1. Your Name
  2. Business Name – Don’t forget to identify yourself and your business. . .maybe your business tagline would be appropriate.
  3. Telephone Number – Pick your top preference for people to contact you, not all ways possible.
  4. Email address (as an active hyperlink)
  5. Website (as an active hyperlink)
  6. Invitation to connect on social media – Stick with your top preferences, such as links to your Facebook and/or Twitter profiles.
  7. Free Offer – Instead of just listing your website you may want to have a short sentence or question enticing them to check out your free offer where they then enter their name/email to gain further access.

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5 Tips to Ensure Email Gets Delivered

By Lisa Nelson  |  Email Marketing

Email marketing remains a valuable way to stay in touch with potential customers and clients interested in your services. However, you must be careful that your email address does not become recognized as spam.

You don’t have to be a “miracle weight loss” type sender to be flagged as spam. You may be legitimately marketing your business, but if your reader perceives your email as spam all they have to do is hit the “mark-as-spam” button and your email gets a strike against it.

Too many strikes and your email deliverability will decrease and no longer reach your readers inbox. . . including those who like your material.

Here are 5 steps you can take to ensure email gets delivered.

1. Only add people to your list who specifically give you permission to do.

I recently attended a business conference which involved a lot of business card exchanges. I was amazed the number of newsletters I started receiving the week after the conference. During all of my conversations, I never once gave permission for my email address to be added to a list. You can bet I unsubscribed from everyone. . .and it wouldn’t have been quite simple to check they box saying “yes, this is spam” during the unsubscribe process. I did not do this, but that doesn’t mean others don’t. Protect the integrity of your email and do not add people to your list unless they ask you to do so.

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5 Changes to Grow Your List and Increase Conversion Rates

By Lisa Nelson  |  Email Marketing, Social Media, Website

Do you get a decent amount of traffic to your website everyday, but your list size continues to grow at a snails pace? If so, here are some suggestions I encourage you to analyze and tweak if need be.

1. Are you asking people to ‘Join Our Mailing list’?

Just about all online sites are now trying to collect names and email addresses of their visitors. That’s why just having a ‘Join Our Mailing’ list box doesn’t cut it anymore. You need to entice people to give you their name and email address and this requires more than just a subscription to your newsletter. Examples of enticements would be a free report, ecourse, or audio file that focuses on the reason they came to your site in the first place. For example, if your ideal client is trying to lose weight your free report may be geared toward ‘The Top 10 Steps for Lasting Weight Loss’. Whatever your ‘freebie’ is you want it to be something they just can’t pass up.

Tip: If you have a freebie and it’s not converting well you may not need to change the content of your freebie, just do some trial and error with the title to increase conversion rates.

2. Are you leading traffic to an opt-in page or your website home page?

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Create a Swipe File for Writing Ideas

By Lisa Nelson  |  Business Manager, Email Marketing, Website

Are you struggling to come up with a topic idea for this week’s blog post or newsletter article? If so, it’s time to start a swipe file for writing ideas. This is simply a place you can store ideas when they come to you.

That’s exactly how I’ve come up with the topic for this blog post. I made myself the following note I don’t know how long ago:

Where to get content ideas

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