Post on 14-Sep-2014
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List Building TechniquesList Building Techniques
Phil HollowsFounder & CEO, FeedBlitz
www.feedblitz.com/NAMS@phollows
www.feedblitz.com/NAMS
The Money’s In The List
• Your best monetization weapon is your email list.
• YOU can create an ass-kicking inbox-busting revenue-generating engagement-building money-making selling machine.
• Your lists reduce your digital sharecropping risk.
www.feedblitz.com/NAMS
About Phil Hollows
• Founder and CEO of FeedBlitz, the all-in-one solution for email and social media marketing automation.– Sending over 1,000,000,000 updates per year.– Clients include: Seth Godin, Fred Wilson,
Denise Wakeman, Lee Odden, Andrea Deckard.– NAMS7 Sponsor.
• Author of “List Building for Bloggers”– ListBuildingForBloggers.com
The Money’s in the List
www.feedblitz.com/NAMS
It’s All About Engagement!
“I get ten times more response to my blog from my email subscribers than I do from anyone else.”
Seth Godin
“Engagement = Revenue”Phil Hollows
www.feedblitz.com/NAMS
Ubiquity, Commitment, Engagement
• Everyone online has at least one email account.
• Email readers typically outnumber RSS readers 3:1 or better. – Hubspot said 12:1 in 2009!
• Email subscribers are more committed to you.
• Remember: You are not your audience.
www.feedblitz.com/NAMS
Email Updates Drive Engagement, SALES
• Full branding.• Activity tracking.• Committed subscribers.• Mini web sites in the
inbox.• Can include multiple
affiliate links, calls to action.
www.feedblitz.com/NAMS
Email Subscriptions are the Essential Complement to SEO
• SEO increases traffic to your site … and then what?
• Email options convert visitors into subscribers, and subscribers into money.
www.feedblitz.com/NAMS
Typical Blogger EmailSubscription Sequence
Fill in form
Dual opt-in activation
Check inbox
landing page
Thanks forsubscribin
g!
Contentmailings
www.feedblitz.com/NAMS
Autoresponder MonetizationSubscription Sequence
Fill in form
Dual opt-in activation
Autorespondersales
sequence
Check inbox
landing page
Thanks forsubscribin
g!
Autorespondersales
sequence
Autorespondersales
sequence
Autorespondersales
sequence
Autorespondersales
sequence
Autorespondersales
sequence
Contentmailings
www.feedblitz.com/NAMS
Content With Digital Product Squeeze
Fill in form
Contentmailings
Dual opt-in email
Check inbox
landing page
Thank youlanding page
Thank youautorespond
er10% off
20% off
40% off
50% off
Stops sequence
New buyeremail
Forwardto parser
Purchase made
www.feedblitz.com/NAMS
Shopping Cart Sale Automation Sequence
Buye-book
Thank youlanding page
Downloadlink email
Contentmailings
New buyernotification
Forwardto parser
Autoresponder
sequence
Autoresponder
sequence
Autoresponder
sequence
Autoresponder
sequence
Autoresponder
sequence
Affiliateemail pitch
New affiliateemail
Forwardto parser
New affiliate
sequence
New affiliate
sequence
New affiliate
sequence
New affiliate
sequence
New affiliate
sequence
Affiliate-orientedcontent mailings
www.feedblitz.com/NAMS
www.feedblitz.com/NAMS
www.feedblitz.com/NAMS
www.feedblitz.com/NAMS
List Building – Basic Tips
• Learn from the leaders.
• Have a clear subscription form above the fold.
• Use social proof if you have it.
• Incentives work!
www.feedblitz.com/NAMS
Mailing Frequency
• There is danger on mailing too often:– Subscribers can feel abused, bombarded.– Increases complaint and unsubscribe rates.
• There is danger in mailing too little.– People forget they signed up yesterday, last week, last
month.– Increases complaint and unsubscribe rates.
• Find the right balance.– Watch your unsubscribe rates and reasons– Don’t mail much less than once a week– Use autoresponders after sign up to stay front and center
www.feedblitz.com/NAMS
Full or Partial Content?
• Full content:– Richest subscriber experience.– Affiliate links and sponsorships come through.– Engaging when read in the preview pane.– Lower click through rates.
• Partial content:– Requires click through to get all the content.– High risk of affiliate link loss, formatting,
images.– Much less engaging content.
www.feedblitz.com/NAMS
Platform Matters
• Mobile:– Small form factor, low bandwidth networks.– No / slow image display.– Styles, fonts and layout may be ignored.– Narrow or autoflow layouts work best.
• Web, Desktop:– Inconsistent rendering across email apps.– Images may be disabled.
• Moral: KISS
www.feedblitz.com/NAMS
Your Incentive
• Make an incentive relevant and valuable.
• Make it really visible.
• Do more than simply deliver your incentive.– Sell on, up and squeeze…
• Take the opportunity to surprise and delight.– Build trust and confidence.
www.feedblitz.com/NAMS
Autoresponders
• Can be directly subscribed to:– e.g. “30 days to balance your budget”
• Can be triggered by another event:– e.g. Joining a list or buying a product.
• Make sure even a basic autoresponder has at least three steps:– Thanks / Welcome / Incentive fulfillment.– Did you get it?– Next steps.
www.feedblitz.com/NAMS
Popup Subscription Forms
• Popups can be very effective!– They can also be hostile, interruptive and
spammy.
• Build trust and respect your visitor before popping up a subscription form.– Give the visitor a chance to read your
content.– The longer the session lasts, the more
aggressive you can become.
www.feedblitz.com/NAMS
Autoresponder MonetizationSubscription Sequence
Fill in form
Dual opt-in activation
Autorespondersales
sequence
Check inbox
landing page
Thanks forsubscribin
g!
Autorespondersales
sequence
Autorespondersales
sequence
Autorespondersales
sequence
Autorespondersales
sequence
Autorespondersales
sequence
Contentmailings
www.feedblitz.com/NAMS
Multi-List Segmentation Options
• Content segmentation for large sites– Create lists to cater to each niche within the site.– Increases relevance and hence engagement.
• Schedule segmentation– Offer real-time, daily or weekly digest options.– Untimely emails yield unsubscribes.
• Audience segmentation– e.g. Subscribers, purchasers, members,
partners, affiliates.
www.feedblitz.com/NAMS
Managing a Master List
• Create rules to copy subscribers from an individual list to the master.
• Decide how to manage unsubscribes:– From an individual list.– From a mailing sent to the master.
www.feedblitz.com/NAMS
Demographic Segments
• Don’t ask for what you’re not going to use.– Reduces friction, accelerates list growth.
• Think about what you really need, e.g.– Collect birth month, not birthday.– First name and state, not ZIP and street address.– “Blast” selectively – don’t make the subscriber feel
bombarded.– Use suppression lists for JV, sponsor mailings.
• Think “outside the blast” and be serendipitous!– Birthday or anniversary discounts.– Random monthly drawings.
www.feedblitz.com/NAMS
Event-Driven Multi-List Segmentation
• Activity-based segmentation is the best way to generate downstream revenues.– Mail sent based on activity is always timely and
relevant.
• Use list automation – rules, triggers, parsers – to move people between lists for your site.– Use notification emails from third party systems
to trigger automatic list and subscriber management.
• Target the right message to the right list during a sales program.
www.feedblitz.com/NAMS
Shopping Cart Sale Automation Sequence
Buye-book
Thank youlanding page
Downloadlink email
Contentmailings
New buyernotification
Forwardto parser
Autoresponder
sequence
Autoresponder
sequence
Autoresponder
sequence
Autoresponder
sequence
Autoresponder
sequence
Affiliateemail pitch
New affiliateemail
Forwardto parser
New affiliate
sequence
New affiliate
sequence
New affiliate
sequence
New affiliate
sequence
New affiliate
sequence
Affiliate-orientedcontent mailings
www.feedblitz.com/NAMS
Automatic Subscriber Management
• Your email service should:– Automatically remind pending subscribers to activate.– Handle CAN-SPAM compliance for you.– Manage subs / unsubs / complaints / bounces.– Enable your subscribers to help themselves.
• Your email service should NOT:– Charge you for addresses that it’s not mailing.– Require you to manually clean lists to keep fees down.– Hold your subscribers hostage if there’s a problem with
your account.– Force you to reveal potentially sensitive information such
asyour home address to all your subscribers.
www.feedblitz.com/NAMS
Keeping it Clean:Re-engagement and List Hygiene
• Remove subscribers who aren’t engaging with your mailings.– Improves list quality and delivery metrics.– May save you money on your service.– Be careful! Opens are difficult to track.
• Choose your parameters.– e.g. >6 months old and no recent interactions (opens
and clicks).
• Don’t simply delete subscribers who qualify.– Run a re-engagement campaign.
www.feedblitz.com/NAMS
Architecture of a Re-engagement Campaign
1. Checking you still want to hear from me, did you miss this great content? Want a different list?
2. Offer an incentive.
3. We’re going to unsubscribe you unless you click.
4. Last chance!
5. You’ve been unsubscribed. Here’s how to get back on the list.
www.feedblitz.com/NAMS
Re-engagement Sequence
Still want us?
Here’s a deal!
Removal soon
Last chance!
Buh-bye
Stops sequence
Thank you!
Reader engages
End of sequence rule unsubscribes reader from main
list
www.feedblitz.com/NAMS
A/B Testing
• Have clear goals and metrics.– e.g. ad copy -> click-throughs -> conversions
• Make sure your sample is statistically significant– Margin of error is ~ sqrt(samplesize).– Key: understand sample size.
• Can you do multi-variate testing?– Can be easier to handle one change at a time.– Sometimes really simple things make a massive
difference, e.g.• Add an arrow or >> to a call to action button.• Changing a button’s color or test font.• Changing call to action “Subscribe” to “Join”
www.feedblitz.com/NAMS
Your Goal: An Automated Email Sales and Marketing System
• Target the right people at the right time with the right messages.
• Create a mix of autoresponders, lists and incentives.
• Automate using activity-based triggers and parsers.
• Manage your “digital sharecropping” risk.
• Keep engagement UP and complaints DOWN.
• Run periodic re-engagement campaigns if necessary.
www.feedblitz.com/NAMS
Thank You!
Questions? Comments?
• Talk to me!– phil@feedblitz.com– @phollows
• Resources– Visit: http://www.feedblitz.com/NAMS – Check out: http://ListBuildingForBloggers.com– Subscribe: http://feedblitz.com/f?Sub=84