50 Ways to Get New Clients

get-clients

1. Speak at local events. Look for groups, meetups and gatherings of people who’re in or related to your industry. Speak at these events to position yourself as an expert and gain more exposure.

Nicole Munoz Speaking
2. Speak at seminars and conventions. Offer to speak at seminars and conventions. If you have a recognizable brand name, most organizers would be thrilled to have the opportunity.
 3. Sponsor an event. If you’re a solo service provider, sponsor a small event in your area. If you’re a large service provider, sponsor a bigger event.
4. Get covered by the press. Come up with some unique angle and pitch it to reporters. Use tools like Help a Reporter Out (HARO) to find reporters looking to do stories. 
5. Take out a small newspaper ad. This works great if you provide services to local clients.
6. Network and follow up. Go to minglers, mixers and professional events and meet people in your target market.

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7. Give free advice. Do it both online and offline. Demonstrate your credibility first before trying to sell.
8. Answer questions on LinkedIn. This helps build your credibility online, which often translates into real world contacts.

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9.Build a professional website. Having a great looking website helps create trust with people who’re considering hiring you.
10. Ask for referrals. Talk to people you know, including but not limited to past clients and ask for referrals.

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11. Run a mailing list. Develop a relationship with others in your field over time by mailing useful content regularly.
12. Run a Q&A mailing list, blog or website. Become known as the person to go to for questions in a particular arena.
13. Copy your competitors. How are your competitors getting clients? Do what they do. In fact, see if you can do what they do, only better.
14. Join a Business Networking International (BNI) network. BNI can be a great source of leads for offline service providers.
15. Get on Yelp. Try to be the most positively reviewed provider in your area. Yelp profiles often rank very well in search engines.
16. Put your USP (unique selling proposition) on your business card. People who look at your card should instantly understand your value offering and what sets you apart.
17. Get to know university professors. Professors are fantastic connectors and know people in all kinds of different fields. They often know very powerful people. Reconnect with old professors and see if they can help connect you with anyone who could help your business.

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18. Network with lawyers and accountants. Every business needs a lawyer and an accountant. If your clients are businesses, networking with lawyers and accountants can be a potential gold mine.
19. Mail your legacy clients. Most people only ask for referrals or sales from current clients or recent clients. But your legacy clients, meaning clients that dropped off a long time ago, could still harbour a lot of good will towards you. See if you can tap into that for more business or for more referrals.

cold-calling20. Cold call. Many Fortune 100 companies were built initially by some guy in his bedroom, cold calling. Humana is one prime example, as was Microsoft. Bill Gates just cold called both the programmer of DOS and the buyer of DOS. Cold calling might seem scary, but it does work.

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21. Offer to write guest posts. Write fantastic articles for other people’s sites and send the traffic back to yours with a link in the article.
22. Offer to write for small time publications and trade newsletters. If you have experience, reputation or background in the industry, they’ll often be happy to have you.
23. Start a blog. Help people in your target market by providing great content.

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24. Be active on social media. Regularly post great content to your Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+ profiles. People who follow you will come to see you as more and more of an expert.
25. Call in to a radio show. Give your name and either ask a well informed question or make a comment that really helps listeners.
 
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26. Ask past clients to give you credit on their website. For instance, if you did some graphics for a client, ask them to put that the graphics were by you on the bottom of their site. If you were their coach, ask them to talk about their experience on their blog.
27. Join your local chamber of commerce. You’ll often meet valuable contacts that can either become clients or people you can work business deals with.
28. Advertise on popular message boards. Look for message boards in your industry where your target market gathers and advertise there.
29. Submit proposals on oDesk and eLance. Look for jobs other people are posting up that fit your specialty.
30. Offer to work for a freelance shop. For example, if you’re a freelance writer, look for a freelance writing agency and offer to be one of their writers.
31. Practice your elevator pitch. Have a strong 30 second answer for the “what do you do” question. Sometimes your best clients come from chance meetings.
32. Wear a T-Shirt to locations where potential customers are. For example, go to a trade show with your brand’s logo on your shirt.

33. Befriend connectors. Develop connections with Twitter users, bloggers, Facebook page owners and other individuals who have a lot of connections. See if you can help them, so sometime later they might help you.

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34. Buy Google AdWords. Bid on keywords related to your industry. Focus on “buying keywords,” words that someone who’s ready to buy might type in.
35. Buy banner ads on related sites. Find websites that your target market frequents and buy banner ads on those sites.

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36. Write a free eBook and give it away. This helps you build credibility. Put as much great content as you can in your free eBook.
37. Produce a big virtual event with other people in your industry. For example, if you’re in the social media business, get 10 social media consultants together to do a big online workshop about social media. Use the leads to market your services.
38. Do a publicity stunt. Google publicity stunt examples and see if you can do something similar for your business.
39. Join competitions and win. If you’re a writer, look for writing contests. If you’re a designer, look for design contests. Consultants could look into speaking contests. Put a lot of time into your entry, as a winning placement could mean a lot of exposure.

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40. Use Craigslist. Post in the services section and respond to posts in the “gigs” section.
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41. Mail or email companies with free advice. If you’re a website conversion specialist, mail possible conversion improving advice to companies.
42. Yellow pages advertising. Buy an ad in the appropriate section in the yellow pages.
43. Co-work with other freelancers. Working with other people is a great way to network and meet both potential clients and people who could refer you to clients.
44. Host your own meetup. Go to http://www.meetup.com and create a meetup on your topic. Having your own meetup is a fantastic way to get more exposure, meet potential clients and build your network.
45. Publish a book. Write a book about your subject and get it published. Even if you never sell over a thousand copies, being a published author will still massively boost your credibility. Nobody will ever ask you how many copies you’ve sold.
46. Get your work featured on a compilation site. For example, if you build websites, enter a website you built into a website that compiles examples of great website designs.

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47. Create a referral reward system. Give clients and other referrers rewards for sending you new clients. Rewards can be financial or non-financial.

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48. Play with your prices. Sometimes when you raise your prices, you actually get more clients. Working with a few high priced clients might be a better model than a few lower priced ones. Alternatively, you might be priced to high and might need to lower your price to attract more clients.
49. Contact your former employer. Your former employer can be a fantastic source of leads. They could even be your first client. 
50. Put flyers up in relevant local boards. For example, post a flyer on your chamber of commerce’s board, or post flyers on boards in co-working spaces. 

How to Build Your List in WordPress

 

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Aweber & GetResponse SlideUp

The Aweber and GetResponse SlideUp plugin allows you to create a footer bar with either an Aweber or GetResponse opt-in box in it. It will “slide up” from the bottom and stay there, prompting users to sign up.

Because the controls are essentially the same, with Aweber’s having just a couple more options, we’ll just demonstrate the Aweber SlideUp here. The GetResponse SlideUp works the same way.

 

Step 1: Install the Plugin

Go to your Plugins tab and do a search for “slideup.” Install either the Aweber or GetResponse plugin, depending on which service you use.

1-Install-the-Plugin

Activate the plugin once it’s installed.

2-Activate-Plugin

Step 2: Access the Plugin Settings

Scroll down on the left to the Settings tab. Click the drop down arrow and go to the plugin’s settings.

3-Plugin-Settings

Step 3: Insert Hidden HTML Code

Copy and paste your Aweber or GetResponse form code into a text editor file. Make sure you don’t use Microsoft Word or any word processing program, but a text editor program that doesn’t add formatting.

Look for the code with the input type “hidden.” It should be right below the <form> code and above the rest of the code. This is the code that the SlideUp program needs to generate their own opt in box.

Copy this code to your clipboard.

4-Hidden-Input

Then paste the code in the plugin settings’ “Hidden Aweber Form Fields” box.

5-Paste-HTML

Step 4: Additional Options

The plugin gives you a few more options to customize the look and feel of the SlideUp.

6-Additional-Options

Here’s what each of these forms do

  • Heading Tag Line: Puts a line of text directly above the email signup box.
  • Tracking Image URL: If you have a tracking pixel to track your opt in rates, put it in this box.
  • Header Image URL: This places an image to the left hand side of your slideup. It’s a good place for a logo of some sort. Make sure it’s not more than 35 pixels high.

 

Step 5: Save and Preview

Save your settings and reload your blog. You’ll see a footer opt-in bar slide up along the bottom.

It’ll look something like this:

7-Footer-Example

 

That’s how to download the Aweber or GetResponse SlideUp, setup the code and configure its additional settings.

 

Add Signature Plugin

The Add Signature Plugin allows you to easily add different signatures to your posts, pages and archives. You can choose to automatically include them on all posts and/or pages, or manually insert the signature in each post.

Here’s how to setup and use the Add Signature Plugin.

 

Step 1: Download and Install

To download the Add Signature Plugin, go to: http://www.dagondesign.com/articles/add-signature-plugin-for-wordpress/

The file is a text file, so to prevent your browser from automatically opening your file in the browser, right click and select “Save File As.”

1-Save-Txt-File

Next rename the .txt file to a .php file.

2-Change-to-PHP

Upload the php file using your FTP client. Go into your Plugins tab and click Activate.

3-Activate-Plugin

Step 2: Access the Settings

Click on DDAddSig in your Settings tab to setup your signatures.

4-Go-to-Settings

Step 3: Write Your Signatures

Write your primary signature, along with up to 6 additional signatures.

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You can use HTML in your signatures, along with content insertion codes:

6-Codes

Once you’ve written your signatures, all you need to do is save the options and insert <– ddsig –> in any of your posts or pages to quickly insert the signature.

 

Step 4: Set Default Display

If you want Add Signature Plugin to automatically add your signatures to all your pages or posts for you, just check the corresponding boxes on the bottom of the setup page.

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That’s all there is to it! You’ve now setup your own signature to be easily added to any page or post.

 

Thank Me Later

Thank me later is a plug-in that allows you to automatically email your post commenters. You can set the plugin to send the email out after a delay, giving the reader the sense that you read their comment and personally sent them an email.

Here’s how to setup and use Thank Me Later.

 

Step 1: Installation

Go to your Plugins section, click Add New and click Install on Thank Me Later.

1-Install-Now

 

Step 2: Go to Thank Me Later’s Settings

Thank Me Later’s settings is located at the bottom of the Settings menu. Click the link.

2-Settings-Thank-Me-Later

Step 3: Create Your Message

When you land in the settings screen, you’ll immediately be prompted to create your first message. Click the link.

3-Create-a-Message

Tell Thank Me Later who the email should be from, the subject and the actual message. You can customize the message with tags to insert your name, their comments, their name, etc.

4-Write-Message

 

Once you’re finished, hit save.

Step 4: Add More Messages (Optional)

If you want Thank Me Later to randomly select from a few different messages, you can. You can also set it to send someone a different message every time they comment.

To do this, first create several different messages by clicking the Add New Message link.

5-Add-More-Messages
Set the probability to determine how likely a message is to be sent. .5 is 50%, 1 is 100% and so on.

 

Step 6: Message Settings

Your message settings will determine exactly how Thank Me Later interacts with your readers. For this plugin in particular, it’s best if you don’t just leave it on its default and instead customized it to behave exactly as you want.

To access the options, click on Additional Options along the top.

6-Additional-Options
This is what the message options screen looks like:

7-Global-Message-Options
Here you can choose exactly how your users receive your messages. Here’s what each of these options means:

 

  • Maximum Number of Messages: How many emails from you any particular user can receive over their lifetime.
  • Send Unique Messages Only: Never send the same user the same email.
  • Comment Gap: If comments are posted in close succession, you can set Thank Me Later to only email users once.
  • Send Gap: To prevent users from getting to many emails, you can put a waiting time requirement between emails.
  • Opt Out: Allow users to opt out.

 

Step 7: Set Your Message Restrictions

In addition to your Global Options, you should also set your Message Defaults. Click on Message Defaults to access this panel.

8-Message-Restrictions
Here are the options available in this tab:

  • Message Delay: How long do you want Thank Me Later to wait before sending a message?
  • Restrict by Tags: If you don’t want Thank Me Later to email posts on a certain topic, you can block them out.
  • Restrict by Categories: Same as above, but sorted by categories.
  • Restrict by Users: Choose whether to send emails only to logged in or logged out users. Leave it unchecked to send it to everyone.

The two other tabs, “Miscellaneous” and “Installation and Information” deal with more technical issues and don’t really affect functionality.
It’s that easy! You’ve just learned how to install Thank Me Later, customize it and use it to send messages to your readers.

 

Free WordPress Autoresponder

Did you know that instead of using an outside autoresponder, you can run it all from your own server? Using the Free WordPress Autoresponder, you can place subscribe boxes, add leads, schedule emails and send email blasts.

Here’s how to download, install and configure Free WordPress Autoresponder.

 

Step 1: Download and Activate the Plugin

To download Free WordPress Autoresponder, go to: http://freewordpressautoresponder.com/

Scroll down to the bottom and enter your contact information.

1-Enter-Contact-Information

Check your email and click on the confirmation link. Go to the members area.

2-Enter-Members-Area

Scroll past all the sales and promotional material until you reach the download link.

3-Download-Software

Once you have the .zip file, upload it to WordPress and activate the plugin as usual.

Step 2: Setup Your Options

Scroll down on the WP Admin panel to access Free WordPress Autoresponder’s settings.

4-Access-SettingsGo to Setup to setup your unsubscribe messages, footers and other basic options.

5-Setup-Text

Step 3: Add Fly-In HTML (Optional)

If you want to have a hover-over style of opt-in box, do it in the Fly-In HTML box tab.

6-Setup-Fly-In

Start by customizing your fly-in box to look however you want. By default it edits in WYSIWYG, but if you want to edit in HTML just select “Plain Text” from the drop down box.

Once you’re ready, click “Test Fly In Display” to make sure the fly-in look show you want it to.

Then click the “Activate” button and hit submit. Anyone who’s coming to your site for the first time will see the fly-in opt in box.

Step 4: Add Normal Opt-In Box

To add an opt in box anywhere else on your site, use the Form HTML tab.

Again, start by editing the opt in box in WYSIWYG. Once it looks the way you want it to, change the display option to “Plain Text” and paste the HTML anywhere on the blog.

7-Normal-Opt-In

Here’s the “Plain Text” view:

8-Plain-Text-HTML

Alternatively, you can also just drag and drop a Widget from your Widgets tab into any sidebar. This works just like any other Widget.

9-Autoresponder-Widget

Step 5: Add Autoresponder Messages

Now that you have your basic setup complete, it’s time to add some messages to your autoresponder.

Go to the messages tab to get started.

10-Messages-Tab

Click on Add New Message.

11-Add-New-Message

Enter in your first autoresponder subject.

12-Create-a-Message

Click Add Message when you’re finished. Repeat the process for each email you want in your autoresponder.

Step 6: Send a Message Blast (Optional)

Want to email your entire list? You can do so from the Send Message tab.

Just specify which parts of your list should receive your message, enter your message and hit send.

13-Send-a-Message-Blast

Step 7: Manage Your List

To import contacts, export contacts or manually delete contacts, just got to the leads tab.

14-Leads-Tab

Then click “Delete Checked,” “Add Leads,” or “Export Leads” to do just that.

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Congratulations! You’ve now learned how to install, setup and use Free WordPress Autoresponder. It can do just about anything an industrial grade autoresponder can do, right from your WordPress setup, for free.

Top 10 Email Marketing Mistakes

 

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How many times have you unsubscribed from an email list? How many emails do you get every day that you just don’t read? The web is full of bad email marketing. In fact, it’s almost rare to see email marketing that’s truly impressive.

When done right, email marketing can help you build a relationship with your clients, create trust, make repeat sales and build a powerful following. Unfortunately, marketers often make many mistakes that end up costing them dearly.

These are ten of the most common email marketing mistakes people make. These mistakes can sow distrust, stop people from reading and damage both your brand and your sales.

 

Mistake #1: Not Sending Great Content

This mistake is so basic yet so common. People just don’t put enough time, energy and attention into sending truly top notch email content.

Your content needs to be fantastic, right from the very beginning. When someone receives your first autoresponder message, they should think to themselves: “Wow, I just learned something new!”

They should walk away with that impression every time they open an email from you.

Writing and creating great content takes time. Putting in that time is what will set you apart and provide that wow factor.

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Mistake #2: Over Selling and Over Promoting

Another common mistake is selling too much. Many marketers start blasting sales messages right out of the gate, before they’ve built any real goodwill or trust with their readers.

The ideal content to sales ratio will vary depending on your list, but do spend a good chunk of your time nurturing your list and building your list. Even when you’re selling, keep your audience in mind and add value to your product promotions.

Your first few messages should be especially heavy on content. This is when your audience forms their impression of you. This is when they form habits around whether or not they open your emails. Build trust early by giving good content, not by hammering them with sales messages.

2-Overselling

Mistake #3: Not Mailing on a Semi-Regular Schedule

If you mail 3 times this week, once the next week, 5 times the next and then don’t mail at all for two weeks, you’re going to confuse your audience. While you don’t have to stick with a rigid schedule, there should be some predictability, so your readers can look forward to your emails and know what to expect.

It’s not the frequency of the messages that counts. It’s the consistency. If you’re going to send one email every Friday, great. If you’re going to mail every other day, great. If you really want, you can even mail every single day.

All of these frequencies work, as long as your audience knows what to expect. Let people know upfront how often you’ll be mailing them, then stick to that frequency. Sticking to a pre-set publication schedule allows people to look forward to receiving your emails.

3-Not-Mailing-on-a-Regular-Schedule

Mistake #4: Not Split Testing Your Autoresponder Series

Your autoresponder series is a pivotal part of your conversion cycle. In fact, it plays an even bigger role than your salesletter. A good salesletter might increase conversions by 0.5% or 1% – But a great autoresponder series can increase conversions by 3% or more!

Don’t just write one autoresponder series and hope you nailed it on your first try. Split test it.

Try different mailing frequencies. Try different combinations of sales content and useful content. Try different tones and try different messages. Split test as many different autoresponder series as you can.

4-Split-Test-Autoresponder

Mistake #5: Not Separating Out Buyer Lists

Once someone actually pulls out their credit card and hands you money, they put themselves in a different category than the rest of your list. You should treat your past customers very differently from everyone else.

Statistically, it’s seven times easier to sell someone who has already bought something. Once someone puts themselves on your buyer list, the way you market to them should change. More specifically:

1)     You should avoid hammering them with low value messages.

2)     Avoid using flashy subject lines for non-sales messages.

3)     Sell them higher ticket items.

4)     Stop trying to sell them products they’ve already bought.

5)     Assume they already like you, instead of writing to prove yourself.

Once your reader becomes a customer, you need to start treating them like a customer. Remove your buyers from the lead gen list and put them in a different list.

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Mistake #6: Making Unsubstantiated Claims

Are you telling them they can make $10,000 a month in 30 days? Or that they can have six pack abs in six weeks? Making claims and promises is great, but you must be able to prove and substantiate your claims.

People are tired of being over promised to and lied to. By and large, customers would rather hear a believable claim – Even if it’s smaller – Than a huge claim with no proof to back it up. If you make large unsubstantiated claims, you’ll damage your reputation and reduce the trust you have between you and your readers.

Always try to prove what you’re saying. Before you come out with a claim, look at your proof and try to objectively determine if you have enough proof to make that claim. Never make a claim that’s bigger than you can prove.

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Mistake #7: Promoting Products That Aren’t Relevant

It doesn’t matter if the product creator is your good friend, or if they’ll mail their list in return for you. Promoting products that don’t directly contribute to your readers’ lives is highly detrimental to your list.

When customers see you promoting products that aren’t relevant to them, they’ll think two things:

1)     You’re just trying to make a sale. They feel used rather than taken care of.

2)     They don’t feel understood. They’ll think that if you knew what they wanted, you wouldn’t have sent the email.

This leads to fewer people opening your emails and fewer people buying.

There are plenty of relevant products out there that you can promote. Don’t promote the ones that don’t make sense for your market.

7-Wrong-Products

Mistake #8: No Flow Between Emails

It’s okay to send individual emails. Most of the time, that’s what you’ll be doing. However, if you’re not also leveraging the power of email flow, you’re missing out on a lot of potential sales.

Using cohesive and sequential email campaigns allows you to really amplify your message and get people to listen. One great example of this is a product launch.

When you’re launching a new product, you might send a series of 5 to 8 emails. The first email might describe the problem in detail, while giving value. The second might give potential solutions. The third might hint at a product, while the fourth and fifth get people excited about buying when it comes out.

You keep giving valuable content while getting people excited about the product. By the time the product hits the market, you have a flood of buyers ready to give you their money.

This could never happen with a single email. You can use this kind of strategy for launching products, for making affiliate sales, for launching contests, for launching forums or just to go in depth into a specific topic.

Single emails might be your most common type of mailing, but don’t neglect the power of sequential campaigns.

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Mistake #9: Using HTML Emails for Response Based Marketing

If you’re sending out HTML emails for your response based marketing, there’s a good chance you’ll get tripped up by technology.

First of all, your headlines and graphics might not display properly. Different email clients display images and HTML differently. Gmail, the most popular web client in the world, doesn’t display images by default. If your headline is a graphic, it instantly loses all its power.

Most response based marketers choose to use plain text emails instead. If you sign up to the mailing lists of any of the big marketing “gurus,” you’ll find that they almost always just send text emails. It’s not that they can’t afford a designer, it’s that text emails just plain work.

If you care more about response than branding, use plain text emails. HTML emails carry a large risk of not being displayed properly.

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Mistake #10: Your Subject Lines Aren’t Catching Attention

Finally, if your subject lines aren’t catching attention, then none of it really matters. People won’t open your emails and all your messages will just get lost in the crowd.

If you want to build a relationship with your list and make sales over and over again, you first have to get your emails opened. That’s where the attention catching subject lines come in.

Your subject lines should get people to turn heads. It should make people’s eyes widen and get them to drop all their other emails and click on yours. It should surprise and shock people. It should also hint at a benefit. People should get the sense that their life could be improved by clicking on your email.

If you have trouble coming up with email subject lines, just look through your own inbox for inspiration. What subject lines tend to catch your attention? How can you use the same principles to build your own subject lines?

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These are ten of the most common email marketing mistakes. These mistakes can reduce your readership rate, get you spam complaints and seriously hurt your business in the long run. If you spot any of these mistakes in your business, fix them immediately. Fortunately, the internet is a forgiving place. Once you’ve fixed the mistake, your customers won’t hesitate to give you a second chance.

Top 10 List Building Mistakes

Mails List At Laptop Shows Ongoing Messages And Communication

Making mistakes in the list building phase can be devastating for a business. It has an exponential effect on the rest of your sales funnel. Fewer email signups means fewer phone calls, fewer free gifts, fewer initial purchases and fewer sales all the way down your product line.

Many of these list building mistakes can seem quite small on the surface. It could be as simple as failure to click one button. Yet the effects could be as drastic as a 30% drop in revenue (or more!)

Building a strong email list is the cornerstone of any successful internet business. Knowing about these mistakes can help you avoid them – And save you and your company a lot of time and money in the process. Without further ado, here are the top 10 list building mistakes.

Mistake #1: Assuming You Know What Works

Internet marketers can often get a little too confident in their own abilities. It happens to everyone, from seasoned 10 year marketers to the brand new marketer.

If you ever start assuming you know what works or what your audience responds to, you can be fairly certain that you’re leaving money on the table. The right way to design a squeeze page is to come up with several “best versions” and let the statistics do the talking.

Never, ever assume you know what works in your industry or with your audience. Always split test it.

1-Assumptions

Mistake #2: Split Testing Too Similar Pages

Another common mistake is split testing pages that are far too similar. For example, marketers will often split test different fonts, different colors or variations on a headline (like adding “who else wants …” to the front.)

These are all great things to test. However, those tests need to come down the line, a long, long time later.

In the early stages, you need to test completely different pages. Page 1 might have an autoplay video, page 2 might have a giant image and page 3 might be only text. Each might have a completely different message.

Paint with broad strokes first. This is what will really swing the needle. Figure out broadly what works, then gradually narrow things down. After a few weeks or months of testing, then and only then should you test the small stuff.

2-Similar-Split-Tests

Mistake #3: Using Double Opt In

Using double opt in is one of the worst decisions you could possibly make when you’re building an email list. You can easily lose as much as 30% to 60% of your email list simply because you’re using double opt in.

Many marketers fall for the double opt in trap because their autoresponders push it so heavily. Some of them make it sound like you’re a criminal if you turn off double opt in.

The reality is that turning on double opt in is the best interests of the autoresponders, but not the marketer.

When you turn on double opt in, you instantly guarantee that you’ll lose a segment of your list. It might be 10%, it might be 30%, it might be 60%. There’s absolutely no reason to do this. Your spam rate won’t lower significantly, your total opens will go down, as will your total revenue.

The argument that it “improves your open rate” is absolutely meaningless. Out of 1,000 who signed up, if you lose 500 of them and of the other 500 you have a slightly higher open rate, it doesn’t mitigate the fact that you lost half your subscribers to begin with.

The lesson is simple: Use single opt in. Every time.

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Mistake #4: Not Having a Strong Sales Hook

People are very hesitant to give out their email addresses these days. They’re already bombarded with more emails than they want to handle. In order for you to get someone to give you their email address, you have to really make an offer that stands out.

The hook for your autoresponder should be something that they really want. They should be dying to get their hands on whatever it is that you have to offer.

If your hook sounds like a “me too” product, people are just going to leave your page. In order for your hook to work, it needs to sound unique and powerful – And it needs to seem like it’ll benefit their lives in some way immediately after reading it.

4-Weak-Hook

Mistake #5: Under Delivering on the Hook

This one is an extremely common mistake. A lot of marketers do understand the importance of a good hook. That’s why they go out of their way to make some very big promises.

Unfortunately, many of them end up not delivering on those promises. They get people’s hopes up and get them excited, then deliver a shoddy report or freebie.

What happens then? Sure, you may have gotten their email address. But they’re never going to open your emails again in the future. They’re never going to link to you. They’re certainly never going to buy from you.

If you’re going to give away a free hook, make it good. Make it phenomenal. Make it so good that it exceeds your promise. People should be shocked at how much great content you’re giving away.

This not only builds your list, but helps you create a list of avid readers who’ll open every email you send.

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Mistake #6: Using a Slow Autoresponder

When you promise to help someone solve a problem, they want that solution right away. If you promise to help someone lose 20 lbs in 20 days by giving you their email address, they want to read that solution immediately after typing in their name and email.

Yet many autoresponder services can take as long as several hours before delivering the welcome message and the accompanying free gift. This can cause people to be frustrated and disappointed as they stare at their blank inbox waiting for your promised freebie.

They might then step away from their computers. When they come back, they won’t be as excited and might not even end up opening your email.

Use a fast autoresponder. Don’t use your own mailserver unless you really need to. Go with top name email services that have a reputation for speed.

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Mistake #7: Relying on Just One Contact Point

You should give people as many opportunities to sign up as possible. Don’t just use one contact point.

For example, many marketers simply use a lightbox popover as a kind of squeeze page. When the visitor lands on the site, the opt in box pops over. They have no other opt in boxes on their site.

However, there could be many reasons why this customer doesn’t sign up at the popover. For one, they might just have an ingrained habit of closing any and all popovers immediately. Also, they might not know who you are yet. After reading something you write, they might be a lot more inclined to join your list.

Put your signup box beside your content, under your content and occasionally even in your content. Use squeeze pages and popovers on top of that to boost your opt-in rate. Use multiple contact points to catch people in different parts of your funnel.

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Mistake #8: Not Experimenting With Different Traffic Sources

Most small marketers pick just one traffic source that works for them and stick with it. For instance, if what has been working for you is SEO traffic through blogging, then chances are that’s what you’ll focus on.

While focusing on and doing what works is a great habit, it can also be limiting. Truly successful marketers never use just one traffic source. They use a multitude of sources that turns their trickle of traffic into a torrent.

Try different traffic sources. Yes, many of them won’t pan out. But if you try six new traffic sources and end up with two that work, that’s all you need to double or triple your traffic. That means a massive increase in your list growth rate.

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Mistake #9: Using a Stock Squeeze Page

Your squeeze page should be personalized to the wants and needs of your audience. If you’re simply using squeeze page templates along with “time tested” headlines, chances are your squeeze page is going to look very generic.

In very low competition markets, this can work. But in moderate to high competition markets, where people have seen squeeze pages before, you’re most likely just going to get an eye roll and a page close.

To catch attention, both how you present your material (your design) and what you say (your copy) has to be original and authentic. You can use other people’s pages for inspiration, but ultimately what you put out into the world has to be your own.

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Mistake #10: Buying Subscribers

You can easily buy hundreds, thousands or even tens of thousands of subscribers for just a few dollars. You can buy lists of email addresses from many different vendors. You can massively expand your list in a matter of minutes … Right?

Wrong. Almost invariably, buying subscribers is a bad idea. If they didn’t explicitly opt in to receive your mailings, chances are they’ll never buy. In fact, they’ll probably end up clicking the spam button, which can get you in trouble with your autoresponder.

There are a few exceptions to this.

First, you can pay affiliates on a per lead basis to generate emails for you. The key is that they have to explicitly opt in to your list.

Second, co-registration leads can be profitable. It’s a very difficult industry to break into and get a profitable ROI on. That said, co-reg leads when done properly can be both ethical and profitable.

Straight out buying subscribers or email leads should always be out of the question.

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These are ten of the most common mistakes email marketers make when building their list. Some are complex, like testing many traffic sources. Some are very simple – Like flicking a button to turn off double opt in. All of them can make a big impact on your bottom line.

 

30 List Building Ideas

Idea Innovation Solution

Building an email list is an intricate dance of psychology. You need to get people excited. You need to build trust. You need to create a sense of urgency. You need people to think they’ll get value from your list. You need social proof.

You need to put together all kinds of social, psychological and emotional factors that all combine to create a spontaneous urge to sign up for your mailing list.

How can you increase your list opt in rates and get your list exposed to more of the right people? Here are 30 ideas to help.

Ideas

  1. Offer a freebie. This is one of the most common and popular tactics for building a list. Give your visitors something for free if they sign up.
  2. Use a lightbox. A lightbox is a popover that greys out the rest of the screen when it pops over. It’s one of the most attention catching ways to build a list.
  3. Give massive free value first. Give a ton of free value on your site before asking them to sign up.
  4. Set expectations for how often they receive mail. People hate spam. But if you tell them exactly how often you’ll mail them, (E.g. “We’ll email you once a week”) they’ll often be much more willing to sign up.
  5. Clearly tell the benefits and have a clear promise. Tell them in no uncertain terms what the benefit is of being on your list.
  6. Link to a sample issue. Link to an issue of your newsletter that people can look through. Make sure to put your best foot forward.
  7. Use PPC to promote your mailing list. Do this once you know you have a good opt-in rate and that your email list converts.
  8. Try contextual ad networks. Buy traffic to your opt-in page from other similar sites.
  9. Try Gmail ads. Try to use keywords that get people who’re similar to the people you want on your list.
  10. Write a guest post around your freebie. For example, write a guest post about “17 Mistakes AdSense marketers make” if you have a free report about how to succeed with AdSense.
  11. Promote your list on social media. Especially try posting relevant responses to popular hashtags in your industry.
  12. Create a viral video. Have a link to your signup page on the video or the video’s description.
  13. Launch a podcast. Promote your list in your podcast.
  14. Offer a “Secret Blog Post”. Tell your blog audience that you’re going to release a blog post only to your email list.
  15. Give a discount. Offer a one time discount to only list members. Let people know they can still join your list to get the discount.Ideas2
  16. Add a signup box on every page. Add it on the right, on the bottom or both.
  17. Give a stern warning, then the solution in the email. For example, write a blog post about how most people’s businesses aren’t setup to scale and will stall out in a couple years. Then offer the solution in an email.
  18. Segregate your list. Split people who’re interested in specific sub-topics into different lists. This allows you to be more tailored in both your marketing and your mailings.
  19. Do a solo ad mailing. Buy solo ads from other people with mailing lists to promote your list.
  20. Do an ad swap. Mail a promotion to your list, then have someone else do the same with their list.
  21. Tell people who email you their question will be answered in the email list. Answer questions on your list rather than privately.
  22. Write a mini-book series to be released via email. For example, a 7 part series on one specific skill. Market the book heavily.
  23. Gather testimonials for list building. This helps demonstrate social proof for your list.
  24. Buyers must sign up to buy. Make it a mandatory part of the process.
  25. Wall off long content. For example, on a 5 page article, make people sign in to their mailing list address after 2 pages to continue reading.
  26. Host discussions about an article only sent to your list. People will join your list just to join the discussion.
  27. Run a CPL affiliate campaign. Pay affiliates for every email signup they generate, rather than for sales.
  28. Make it mandatory for free online tools. Give away free web tools, but make sure they sign up before using it.
  29. Add a signup form to your fan page. Many autoresponders will provide the code for this.
  30. Use Facebook Auto-Fill. Facebook allows you to automatically fill in someone’s email address into a form. This can increase your opt in rates.

50 Ideas on What to Send to Your Mailing List

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Continually coming up with ideas on what to send to a mailing list can get very tough, especially after you’ve been mailing for some time.

This is a comprehensive list of some of the things you could mail to your readers.

Whether you’re in a teaching mood, an interactive mood, a spontaneous mood or an analytical mood, you’ll find something in this list that you can use.

Here are 50 ideas on what you can send to your mailing list.

1)     Recommend an Article You Loved. You can also include your own ideas, your own analysis or share why you loved it.

2)     Send out a survey. Ask about your products, your service or about what they want to see next in your product line.

3)     Analyze a trend. Is everyone buying yellow shoes this year? Talk about why that’s the case and how it goes with other clothing.

4)     Recap the last year or quarter. What were the most important changes in your industry?

5)     Create a contest.

6)     Announce a Fan Page, Twitter account or Twitter hashtag. Announce a new social media initiative. You can also announce a new conversation on a Twitter hashtag.

7)     Recommend a product. Is there another product that really impressed you? Give it a shout out in your mailing list. You can also make it an affiliate product.

8)     Announce your most popular posts or pages. Look at your website’s analytics and figure out which posts have been the most popular on your site. Let your audience know which articles those are.

9)     Give away a short eBook, report or whitepaper. Pick a topic and give away a non-promotional eBook.

10)  Promote and host a webinar. Get people excited about an online class you’re going to teach.

11)  Send a copy of a recorded webinar. After your webinar is finished, send a recording to your list. Limit the download time to create a sense of urgency.

12)  Video content. Film yourself on camera talking about a certain topic.

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13)  Video interview. Interview another expert or prominent figure in your business.

14)  Audio interview. Audio sometimes does a lot better than video. People like being able to consume content on their iPhones.

15)  Conference review. If you went to a conference, talk about what you liked and didn’t like about it.

16)  Product review. If there’s a popular product on the market, purchase it and give it a review.

17)  Product recommendations. Make recommendations for products for specific issues your users may be facing.

18)  Summary of a product or workshop. Summarize all the most important lessons for people who don’t have the time or inclination to consume the product or attend the seminar.

19)  Book review or recommendation. Read the popular books in your market. Summarize it, then tell people if you recommend it.

20)  Announce an event.

21)  Give a special discount. Make sure the discount is one time only and that it expires in a set time window.

22)  Give a one time bonus. Tell customers that for a limited time, if they buy now they get a bonus. For example, anyone who orders in the next 72 hours gets a free email consultation with you.

23)  Have an employee or executive do a post. Have someone else from your company write a post. It can be a great way to give an inside perspective.

24)  Send a guest post. Have another expert in your industry write an email for you. Again, this is a great way to offer a different perspective.

25)  Analyze new ideas or tactics. Are there new ideas or approaches floating around in your market? Do an in depth analysis of the pros and cons of the new approaches.

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26)  Find a problem and offer a solution. Go on forums and locate problems that people are frequently having. Solve those problems.

27)  Rant about something. Pick a topic you’re passionate about and just go on a rant. Be unrestrained.

28)  Give advice. Instead of taking on an “expert” or professional tone, try taking on a “from a father to a son” kind of tone.

29)  Write something humorous or satirical. Make fun of a popular idea, a popular line of thought or a public figure.

30)  Dispel a myth. Are there things people commonly think that just aren’t true?

31)  Talk about common mistakes. What trips up your audience frequently?

32)  Give X Top Tips. For example, “55 Tips for Better Web Design.”

33)  Give tips for specific locations.  For example: Fishing in salt lakes, shopping in local markets, making money in Asia, etc.

34)  Do an in depth case study. Take an example of something you or someone else has done and use it as an in depth example.

35)  Talk about news stories. Was there something significant on the news that may influence your industry? Talk about it.

36)  Do a multi-part series. Pick a complicated topic and explain it in detail.

37)  Give away simple software. Go to eLance or oDesk and have someone code up a simple piece of software for you. Give it away for free.

38)  Help people establish a plan. Guide people through the process of creating a step by step plan.

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39)  Ask a question. Have them answer you by email, Twitter or Facebook.

40)  Offer a chance to correspond with you. If you have some free time and want to deepen your connection with your market, try giving away some one on one time.

41)  Do a mailbag. Have all your customers mail in their questions, then answer those questions in your email list.

42)  Split test. Test different kinds of emails and see which ones generate the highest open and click through rates.

43)  Try out a new design. Email out a website with a new design template. See how people respond.

44)  Ask them to be a part of a co-created video. Ask members of your audience to send in short videos. Compile them all together into one completed video project.

45)  Make a confession.

46)  Share your mission or vision. For your business, for the world or for your customers.

47)  Offer to help someone on their project. For example, if you run a business newsletter, offer to help someone write their business plan. Make sure you record the process so everyone can learn from it.

48)  Start a cause or movement, or contribute to one. People love being part of something that makes an impact.

49)  Do an FAQ post. What are the most frequently asked questions in your industry?

50)  Recap the most interesting blog posts of the week. Look through all the blogs in your industry, then recap the most interesting posts.

Top 10 Things Your Autoresponder Should Have

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Picking the right autoresponder is no easy task. There are dozens of things you can look for in an autoresponder, as well as dozens of autoresponders to choose from. Choosing the right one is essential, because your autoresponder is the backbone of all your customer communications. Choose the wrong one and you risk communicating and selling poorly – Which will directly result in lost profits.

So how do you choose the right autoresponder? Here are the top 10 things to look for.

#1 – Deliverability

Of all the features you could look for in an autoresponder, none are more important than deliverability.

Deliverability is the number of emails that actually end up in your customer’s mailbox. That means it wasn’t caught by spam filters and it didn’t disappear in some black hole somewhere.

Deliverability is a big issue. People have often found that switching from a shopping cart autoresponder to a professional autoresponder can increase their open rates by as much as double. Why? Because their emails are getting delivered.

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#2 – The Right Price

There are many different levels of pricing for autoresponders.

On one end, you have autoresponders like Mail Chimp that are literally free as long as you have fewer than 2,000 subscribers. On the other end, you have autoresponders like InfusionSoft that cost thousands of dollars to setup and hundreds of dollars a month to run.

Price is a big consideration when you choose an autoresponder. Pick a service that’s in your price range, that scales up in a way that makes sense for your budget.

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#3 – List Importing

If you run offline events or need to import lists from outside sources, it’s important to consider what you can and can’t do in terms of important email contacts.

For example, Aweber is extremely restrictive about this. You either can’t upload your contacts at all, or you can but they all have to double opt in. In other words, there’s a very good chance you’ll lose 70% of your list when porting to Aweber, simply because their system isn’t setup for people who need to regularly import contacts.

On the other end of the spectrum is Autoresponse Plus, where you can upload as many as you want from whatever source. For example, you can upload your own co-registration leads if you’re using ARP.

Most services fall somewhere in between.

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#4 – Tracking and Analytics

Tracking and analytics are crucial to email marketing success. Email marketing isn’t about getting it right the first time. It’s about learning what your customers respond to and learning about what’s working and what’s not over time.

What kind of emails do your customers open? What times of day work the best? What about days of the week? Do personal emails work better or do factual emails work better? All of these questions can only be answered by tracking and statistics.

When you’re choosing an autoresponder, make sure you take a look at what tracking and analytics data they give you.

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#5 – Cloud Hosted vs. Self-Hosted

Autoresponders can be split into two categories: Those that are an online service and those that you install on your own server.

The online services are a fantastic simple way to manage autoresponders. They handle all the technical issues for you so all you have to do is send out emails.

On the other hand, self-hosted services give you a lot more control. There are no restrictions on uploading contacts. You can send as many emails an hour as you want, whereas most autoresponder services have a limit. And often time’s creating your own email server is the only option if your list is big enough.

Having your own server has its down sides of course. You need to install it, which is quite technical. You also need to manage your server’s deliverability and make sure you don’t end up on any blacklists. It’s a complex process.

Most small businesses start off with a cloud solution and only go with a self-hosted solution if they really need the extra functionality.

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#6 – iPhone Capability

Are you regularly on the go? If so, try to get an autoresponder that you can take with you.

Let’s say you launch a broadcast in the morning. If you have an autoresponder that has an app, you can check all your stats while you’re on the bus. You can see exactly how your campaign is performing at all times.

You can also write your emails on your phone and do just about anything else you need to do all from your phone.

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#7 – Spam Scoring

If you want your emails to get where they’re going, it’s crucial that you know you spam score. Your spam score is basically how likely your email is to end up in the spam folder.

If you use words like “buy now!” or “viagra,” there’s a higher chance of your email getting caught in the filters. If you don’t use personalization, you’re at a higher risk as well. Having a spam scoring system will allow you to tweak your emails to reduce your risk of getting blocked.

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#8 – Unlimited Lists

Some autoresponder services only give you a limited number of lists. Some only give you one. Some will charge you more to have more lists.

You really want to have an autoresponder service that’ll give you unlimited lists. That way, you can run multiple sites and split up your lists all in the same account without paying extra.

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#9 – Segmentation

Your autoresponder should be able to segment out just one section of your email list and target your emails to only those people.

You should be able to segment your email list by location, by name, by whether or not they open your emails and by custom fields. This kind of segmentation gives you a lot of power to really laser target your messages to the right people.

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#10 – WYSIWYG Editor

If you plan on using templates to send your HTML emails, it’s essential that the autoresponder has a good WYSIWYG editor. Too many autoresponder services use just pre-made templates or have very bare bones WYSIWYG editors.

When you send out HTML emails, your email’s design is every bit as important as your website’s design. People will judge you and judge your brand based on your design. It has to be stellar.

Having a good WYSIWYG editor will allow you to customize those designs to your brand, as well as make sure everything really looks perfect before sending it out.

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These are the top ten things you need to pay attention to when you’re choosing an autoresponder service. There is no “perfect” autoresponder out there. However, for each specific business, there is one service that’ll be better for you than any other service. Use this criteria to figure out which one that is for you.

10 Reasons Why You Should Consider GetResponse As Your Autoresponder

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GetResponse was first founded in 1999, before the “dot com bubble,” making it one of the very first email responders in the world. It has lasted throughout the years and is still a major player in the autoresponder space. They’ve pioneered many features that are today considered standard. GetResponse delivers over ten billion emails every year and has more than 220,000 paying customers.

Even today, GetResponse still has many features that other autoresponders just don’t have. Here are some of the unique things GetResponse brings to the table.

 

#1 – Built In iStockPhotos

GetResponse has over a thousand iStockPhoto images that you can use for free built into their system. You can use these to spruce up your emails or to make a point.

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#2 – Upload Videos

Want to put a video in your email? You can. GetResponse will even host your video for you! Just upload your video to GetResponse and it’ll be stored in your documents.

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#3 – Record from Scratch

Want to record something new and send it off to your list? Instead of having to get your camera, record it, edit it, export it to web format then upload it to YouTube, you can just use GetResponse to handle the whole thing on the spot.

Of course, if you’re going for maximum production value and video quality, you shouldn’t use this method. But if you just want to put something up quick and dirty, GetResponse gets the job done.

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#4 – QR Codes

If you’re creating an email that’s meant to be printed out, you can create and embed a QR code all from within GetResponse.

QR codes are the next generation of barcodes. Unlike barcodes which can only store small bits of data (such as product ID numbers,) QR codes can hold much more data.

That’s why on a printed piece of paper QR codes can be so useful. For example, if you were sending out an email to everyone who RSVPed for an event, you could ask participants to print out the email that was sent to them. On that email is a QR code with their email address encoded.

All you’d need to do is scan the QR code, rather than ask them for their name and email. It makes the check-in process much easier. That’s just one example of how you could use QR codes and email in the real world.

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#5 – Annual Discounts

GetResponse’s pricing is generally pretty standard. They offer a 1,000 subscriber plan for $15 a month, a 2,000 subscriber plan for $20 a month and a 10,000 subscriber plan for $65 a month.

One thing that’s unique about GetResponse’s pricing plan is the annual payment option. You can save almost 20% on your subscription fees by paying for a year upfront.

Since autoresponders are long term investments, for many businesses paying upfront makes a lot of sense.

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#6 – Segmented Split Tests

Other autoresponder services offer split testing on their website, as well as segmentation. But few other services allow you to do both.

With GetResponse, you can select just one segment of your list to target. The split test emails will only be sent to that segment.

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For example, say you’re running a local event. Using segmentation, you can send an email to just the people in your local area. Using split testing, you can then split test that copy to see which one performs better.

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#7 – Undelivered List

Sometimes emails just don’t get delivered. It might be because of spam filters, it might be because of server IP blacklists or it could have just gotten dropped somewhere.

If your email gets undelivered, most other services have no way of letting you know. With GetResponse however, they keep track of all the email addresses that go undelivered.

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You can browse this list and get in touch with anyone who should be receiving your emails directly. You can also look for commonalities. For example, if you notice a lot of @comcast.net domains in the undelivered list, you’ll know that it’s the @comcast.net domain that’s blocking your emails.

 

#8 – Many Formbox Options

GetResponse provides you with a lot of high quality email submission box designs. Most other autoresponders will just give you the basic form code, but not handle any of the design for you. To add graphics, you have to do a bit of code manoeuvring to get the form to show up in your graphics.

GetResponse handles all of this for you right out of the box. Just select the design you want to use and you’re good to go.

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#9 – Pre-Filled Facebook Registration

If your users are logged into Facebook, GetResponse can use that cookie to pre-populate email address fields.

In other words, people will see email sign in boxes with their email already typed in for them.

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#10 – Custom Fields

GetResponse allows you to collect data other than the standard data types. You can collect addresses, phone numbers and a whole host of other things.

You can also use custom fields for your own internal tracking. For example, you can “tag” each of your different traffic sources with PHP. Then use PHP to insert the traffic source into the custom field. Then you can go back whenever you get a purchase and trace it to the traffic source.

There are many, many different ways you can use custom fields. It’s basically an open invitation to use GetResponse as a database, rather than just an autoresponder.

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As you can tell, GetResponse has quite a few things going for it. It has a few unique features that nobody else is offering and has quite a long history of delivering high quality service to their customers.

10 Reasons Why You Should Consider Constant Contact As Your Autoresponder

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Constant Contact is an autoresponder service based in Massachusetts with over 500,000 paying customers. They have plans starting at as low as $15 a month. Their products span a wide range of internet marketing avenues, including events, social media, surveys and deals. Their most prevalent product is, of course, their email marketing tool.

Constant Contact is known primarily for sending out great looking HTML emails. If you’re a design fan or want to make sure that all your emails look fantastic, the Constant Contact is a great choice.

It’s important to note that Constant Contact actually cannot send out plain text email. If you prefer sending plain text rather than HTML emails, Constant Contact might not be for you.

Here are some of Constant Contact’s many advanced features.

 

#1 – Create Email Campaigns from Your iPhone

If you’re on the go and want to create an email marketing campaign quickly, Constant Contact’s QuickView makes it easy to do so.

You can send emails, edit emails and schedule emails to go out all from your phone. You can also check all your most important stats, such as open rates and clicks all from your phone as well.

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#2 – Social Campaigns

Running a social campaign doesn’t have to be a huge hassle. Instead, it can be an easy yet exhilarating journey – Provided you have the right tools.

Constant Contact helps you build social marketing campaigns and get it published. It helps you spread your message, get most subscribers and communicate with your followers in a trackable way.

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#3 – Email Template Creation

Is there a specific look you’re going for?

If you know exactly how you want your email to look and don’t see anything in the templates area that appeals to you, you can have iContact do the actual template design for you from scratch.

The price? For email marketing, it’s $599. That includes two rough drafts of different design styles and one final draft.

If you’re not a designer, this avenue allows you to get a professional email template design from someone who’s intimately familiar with the system. After all, they do work for iContact.

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#4 – Importing Your Contacts

Constant Contact lets you import your contact from a number of different sources.

First off, you can import your contacts from Gmail. Very few other autoresponder services allow you to do this. Make sure you don’t just dump your contacts in, but cull the list so you only add people who really want to be on your mailing list.

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You can also add contacts from an external file. This allows you to port over entire databases. For example, if you wanted to move from another autoresponder service to Constant Contact, all you’d need to do is upload a list of all their email addresses.

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#5 – Multiple Support Avenues

Need customer support? You can get in touch with Constant Contact a number of different ways.

Many customers prefer not to call up customer support. Instead, they want to just get a quick answer to their question. Constant Contact’s live chat option is great for that.

If you’re not in too much of a rush, just send customer service an email. Alternatively, you can just give them a call whenever you need.

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#6 – WYSIWYG Template Editor

One of Constant Contact’s primary drawing points is its attention to its templates. Not only does Constant Contact have a myriad of different designs for you to choose from, but you can also take existing templates and alter them in a built-in WYSIWYG editor.

You can edit the font, the size, the color and the placement of any text in the template. You can move around other elements, add or delete pictures and make the template look exactly the way you want it to.

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#7 – Create an Email from Scratch

If you’re a web designer or coder and have a good sense of design, you can create your own templates and emails from scratch.

Constant Contact allows you to use your own HTML code in your emails. That means you’ll have full control of every minute detail of the emails you want to use.

You can use header graphics, sidebars and unique fonts. You can also integrate tracking pixels and tracking links in your HTML as well.

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#8 – Event Management

If you run events, Constant Contact’s event management features is a great way to integrate your event with your email marketing.

Using Constant Contact, you can send out event invitations, customize invitations to specific groups of people, track your response, collect registrations and do everything you need to do to make sure your event is a success.

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#9 – The App Store (“Marketplace”)

Constant Contact has an app store. Constant Contact makes it easy for developers to create software solutions for Constant Contact specifically. As a result, there are a lot of apps you can purchase for Constant Contact to extend your email’s capabilities.

For instance, if you run events and want to collect registrations offline on an iPad and have them go directly to Constant Contact, you can. You no longer have to input names into your lists manually afterwards.

There are tons and tons of apps you can choose from to make your life easier. Browse the app store and see what other cool functionality you can add.

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#10 – API (for Developers)

If you’re a developer or have an in house developer, you can get an API key from Constant Contact and develop your own apps.

If you have very unique needs, this is a fantastic way to get Constant Contact to do exactly what you need it to do. By programming your own applications, you’ll be able to execute all kinds of advanced marketing tactics that the normal version of Constant Contact doesn’t offer.

In short, with the right coding expertise, Constant Contact is more or less fully customizable.

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There are primarily two kinds of people for whom Constant Contact would be a great choice. First, designers and people who want to send exquisite looking emails often choose Constant Contact. Their templates and WYSIWYG editors are second to none. Also, programmers and tech savvy people who want an extendable set of features also often choose Constant Contact.

7 Reasons Why You Should Consider iContact As Your Autoresponder

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Founded in 2003 by Ryan Allis and Aaron Houghton, iContact was built from the ground up in an era where email marketing was still scarce. Today, iContact is worth over $169 million and has hundreds of thousands of customers all over the world. Their Facebook email signup alone gets more than 50,000 active users per month.

One thing that sets iContact apart from the rest of the market is their stance on manual submission. Aweber, the other email marketing giant, does not allow email marketers to add subscribers manually in large amounts. iContact allows this, provided your customers are expecting your emails.

In other words, if you run workshops, do business card drop-off raffles or get email addresses from offline sources, iContact will be a better choice for you than Aweber.

Here are some of the unique features of iContact.

#1 – Hosted Images

iContact allows you to host all the images you plan on sending in your emails, completely free of charge. Just upload them to iContact’s servers, then insert them into your emails as you’re sending them.

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All the images uploaded have to be under 200 KB and the storage capacity is 5,000 KB, meaning you can have at least 25 images stored at any given time.

 

#2 – Add Contacts Manually

As mentioned before, one of iContact’s unique features is its willingness to let you add as many contacts as you want from offline sources.

Allowing people to add contacts themselves is a huge risk for autoresponders. It makes it very easy for spammers to use their system to send people email. Maintaining a high deliverability rate with an open policy like this requires a lot of work.

Other autoresponders, most notably Aweber, skip this process entirely by not allowing large lists to be uploaded. However, iContact allows you to do this – While still maintaining a strong deliverability rate.

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#3 – Export Contacts

iContact also allows you to export all your contacts with the click of a button. If you want to move your contacts lists to a different autoresponder service, or want to port them over to a different CMS management system, it’s very easy to do so with iContact.

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#4: Surveys

One of the really unique things about iContact is their surveys. Instead of having to use an outside service to handle your surveys, you can do it all inside of iContact.

You can use this feature to research what new features your customers want, to research what they’d be willing to pay, to see what they like or don’t like about your current business, etc.

Surveys can either be private or public. Public surveys are great with you want to make content out of the data, while private surveys are good just to help you make internal decisions.

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#5: Social Signups

Have you seen those Facebook pages that have an email signup box on them? Adding email signup is a powerful way to turn your Facebook followers into loyal readers.

Facebook isn’t the best way to stay in constant touch with people. People may not check Facebook very often and Facebook won’t display your status update on their news feed every time you post.

On the other hand, email allows you to get your message in front of your audience every time.

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Using this feature is much simpler than most people think it is. All you need to do is enable the Facebook feature, choose which page(s) you want to give iContact access to then generate the code.

Once the code is generated, just copy and paste it onto your Facebook page.

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#6: List Segmentation

iContact allows you to separate your lists into different categories of people. This makes it easy for you to custom-target a variety of messages for just a specific subsection of your audience.

Instead of just blasting out emails, this will allow you to get higher response rates from the right people. You also won’t alienate the rest of your list by sending them emails that they don’t care about.

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There are a number of different criteria you can use to segment your list. The most common type of segmentation is based on data that users entered when they first registered for your email list.

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#7 – Advanced Search

Looking for a specific person or group of persons? iContact makes it easy to find them with their advanced search system.

Let’s say you run a speaking business. You remember that 6 months ago, someone named Susie who ran a hair salon came to your workshop. You want to follow up with her about something, but don’t remember her email address.

All you need to do is go into iContact and plug in the business name. The system will find her and give you all her contact information.

What makes this search function so powerful is that you can search based on any criteria.

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#8 – RSS In-Feed

If you have a blog and want to regularly take posts from your blog and send them out to your email list, then an RSS in-feed is the perfect tool for you.

The RSS in-feed takes an RSS feed and transplants all of the content into your email followup. No more pesky copying and pasting and trying to figure out how to make sure formatting doesn’t come out wrong in email. iContact does it all for you.

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These are some of iContact’s unique features. All in all, if you’re looking for a high deliverability email autoresponder service that allows you to manually add email addresses, iContact is a great choice. They certainly have all the bells and whistles.