Your Step-by-Step Email Marketing Strategy Guide [Free Checklist]

Perhaps you already feel like you have a good handle on the little details of email marketing, like writing subject lines, creating opt-in forms for your site, and setting up your welcome message.

But maybe what you really need is a comprehensive road map for email marketing that presents a smart email marketing strategy as a series of manageable steps.

If that's the case, I've got great news! To wrap up our 10-part email marketing series, that's exactly what you're going to get.

This step-by-step email marketing strategy guide summarizes how to create your list, get subscribers, build solid relationships, and make well-timed offers.

We've also outlined these steps in a handy PDF checklist that you can download for free, so keep reading …

Step #1: Sign up for an account with a reputable email service provider

To make sure your email marketing strategy stands on a firm, ethical foundation, you'll need a reputable email service provider to help you collect, track, and get in touch with your contacts.

An email service provider (ESP) will help you:

• Manage your opt-in and opt-out process


• Stay CAN-SPAM compliant


• Provide mobile-friendly email templates for your messages


• Track and report your open rates, click-through rates, and unsubscribe information

Shop carefully when you're choosing an ESP, because changing service providers down the road can be tedious. When you're selecting an ESP, consider your budget, the level of tech support you're going to receive, and the service's user interface.

Step #2: Add smart opt-in forms to your site and give away an enticing incentive

Once you've got an email service provider, it's time to invite people to join your list.

More people will sign up for your list if you give away a useful, enticing incentive in exchange for a subscriber's email address. It should be simple and highly useful.

Your goal is to create content so compelling that your potential subscribers don't hesitate to hand over their email addresses to get it.

You may need to try multiple incentives until you find one that strikes the perfect chord with your visitors, so create your first one quickly and test it out with your audience right away.

Once you've got your incentive ready to go, add attention-getting opt-in forms to your site. Remember to think beyond simple sidebar opt-in forms and consider feature boxes, pop-overs, and blog post footer opt-in forms.

Step #3: Actively build your email list

Now that your incentive is ready and your visitors have a way to join your community, it's time to actively build your email list.

You can try these classic, time-tested list-building techniques:

• Guest blog posts that direct readers to sign up for your list


• Strategic social media marketing


• Focused webinars that are helpful and entertaining

Step #4: Send regular, useful content to your list

As soon as you gain subscribers, begin sending them high-quality content on a regular basis. You can send newsletters, content notification emails, or both.

Aim to regularly send content to your subscribers, provide tons of value, and train your community members to consistently click on the links in your emails.

You can also set up an autoresponder series that sends carefully selected content to your list. To start, you can compose three emails for your autoresponder series and add more over time, as needed.

Follow CAN-SPAM regulations when you email your list and review this top-to-bottom checklist before you click “send.”

Step #5: Present relevant offers to your list on a regular basis

Once you've built solid relationships with your subscribers through free content, start sending them relevant offers via email.

You can begin adding relevant offers to your newsletters or content notification emails, or add sales-related emails to your autoresponder sequence(s).

When sending emails that feature offers, include a strong call-to-action link that prompts your subscriber to take the next step - whether that's setting up a consultation, buying a product, or checking out your latest online program.

Call-to-action links should be easy to click on and work best when they stand out visually - particularly on mobile devices.

Continually repeat Steps 3 – 5

Your email marketing strategy is an evolving process - it's typically not a “set it and forget it” task.

You need to continually build your list, publish valuable content, and send relevant offers, so it's a good idea to repeat Steps 3 through 5.

It's also a good idea to regularly evaluate your email marketing strategy and the accuracy of the messages you send, as well as make sure your emails are sending as expected. Review your welcome message, offers, and any automated operations (like autoresponders or RSS feeds that send new content to your list automatically).

Craft an effective email marketing strategy for your business

Your email subscribers are some of your most valuable business assets - and building and strengthening your list should be a top priority for your business.

When you follow this five-step process, you'll be on your way to attracting a large list of loyal subscribers, building solid relationships with those subscribers, and using email as one of your most successful sales tools.

Don't forget to download the PDF checklist of this email marketing strategy guide, along with a glossary of common email marketing terms (61 KB).

Catch up on all the posts in our email marketing series

• How to Choose a Solid Email Service and Build Your List on a Firm Foundation


• Your Top-to-Bottom Email Checklist: What to Include Before You Hit Send


• Email Newsletters vs. Content Notifications: A Head-to-Head Comparison


• How to Write a Heroically Effective Email Autoresponder Series


• How to Write Email Subject Lines that Make People Stop, Click, and Read


• 13 Tantalizing Incentives that Will Build Your Email List


• 4 Quick Solutions that Spawn Radical Email List Growth


• CAN-SPAM 101: A Crash Course in Bulk Email Regulations


• 7 Deadly Sins and 7 Virtues of Email Marketing

This is the last post in our current email marketing series, so now I'm officially handing the reins over to you.

You can use this series of posts to craft a smart email strategy that fits with the rest of your content marketing plans and goals.

Make sure to stay in touch, and fill me in on your email marketing success story!

The post Your Step-by-Step Email Marketing Strategy Guide [Free Checklist] appeared first on Copyblogger.

What To Sweat About If Your Name Is In The Panama Papers

So I was both disappointed and relieved when I started looking into the Panama Papers.  The disappointment is that The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists has not made the documents from the law firm Mossack Fonesca generally available on-line.  The relief is that the documents are not generally available on-line, since I would feel obligated to go dipping into them.  There are 11.5 million pages.  I'm sure I would be able to resist looking at all of them, but when Judicial Watch did a major dump on the interminable IRS scandal, a mere 5,000 pages, it tied me up for almost a week.

5 Ways to Make Your Content Mobile-Friendly for Increased Traffic and Engagement

I think it's safe to say that smartphones aren't a fad.

Jokes aside, mobile Internet usage has been going up year after year.

In fact, the number of mobile users has now exceeded the number of desktop users.

All that means is that if you're not optimizing your content and your website as a whole, you're likely not making the most of your traffic.

Additionally, it may be preventing you from getting more traffic.

In 2015, Google announced that it created a mobile-friendly algorithm, which the industry dubbed “mobilegeddon.” 

It didn't have a huge effect, but some sites that were not mobile-friendly took a significant traffic hit.

Keep in mind that Google usually tests the waters before scaling things up.

Google has made it clear that it wants to serve mobile users mobile-friendly web pages, and it will likely become more and more important over time.

I hope I've convinced you that optimizing your website and content for mobile is worth the effort even though it might seem like another chore to do.

Not only will it help you get more SEO traffic in both the short and long term, but it will also help you with your conversion rates because a smaller percentage of your traffic will bounce.

In this post, I'm going to show you the five main ways you can optimize content for mobile. I encourage you to put as many of them into effect as possible.

A quick definition of mobile-friendly

I don't want to jump ahead too far.

If you're already familiar with what mobile-friendly means, feel free to skip ahead to the next section.

Otherwise, it's really not that complicated.

As the name implies, mobile-friendly content just means that content appears well not just on desktop computers but also on smaller mobile devices.

That means that the text is easily readable, links and navigation are easily clickable, and it's easy to consume the content in general.

Let's begin with a test: It's important to know where you stand. If your content is already mobile-friendly, you won't need to do all the things in this post.

There are two main ways that you can test your site for mobile-friendliness.

The first is with Google's own mobile-friendly test tool, which is something that everyone should use.

Another option is to use a site like this mobile phone emulator, which lets you see what your site looks like on a variety of different phones. It won't give you a grade like Google's tool will, but you'll be able to see if anything shows up weird.

A quick note on responsive design

You've probably heard about “responsive” design.

It's typically used as a synonym for mobile-friendly design although that's technically not true.

There are a few different strategies to create mobile-friendly websites, and using responsive design is just one of them.

It means that as the screen's size changes, the content adjusts to match that size:

That being said, responsive design is a clear winner in most situations.

Because of that, some of the tactics I'm about to show you are based on the assumption that you will implement responsive design as opposed to one of the other methods for creating mobile-friendly pages.

1. Widths should be in terms of percentages

All HTML elements (e.g., “divs”) have some sort of width assigned to them.

If you right-click any element on a web page and then choose “inspect element” (in Chrome), you'll see a panel come up.

If you click on an element in the left window of the panel, the corresponding CSS (style properties) values will be displayed in the right window.

You will typically see a value for “width” specified, like this example shows:

This value can be set in terms of pixels (essentially tiny blocks on the screen) or a percentage.

When you assign 50% as a value, that tells the browser to make that element 50% of the width of the screen (or of the section that it's contained in).

This is a good thing because if the screen is smaller, that section still shrinks to fit half the screen, which keeps things looking how they should.

If you instead specify widths by pixels, the widths of those elements do not change as the screen size changes.

If the width of a section in pixels is bigger than the screen size (common for phones), the user will have to scroll horizontally, which is a pain on mobile devices.

What you should do about widths: If you bought a good theme or hired competent developers, you don't have to worry about this too much.

However, if you ever design your own landing pages or modify your theme, keep in mind to specify widths as percentages.

If you've used pixels in the past, track those down and fix them now.

This is a simple change that will make a big difference.

There is one exception, though. You can specify pixel widths if you know how to use media queries effectively.

What are media queries? Read on…

2. Use media queries to make your site responsive

The real key to using responsive design is to use media queries.

Again, if your site is already responsive, you don't have to worry about this unless you start creating your own custom pages.

But if the situation comes up, you'd better know how to handle it.

Have you ever wondered how some pages not only resize as the screen size changes but also reshape?

Certain sections might get wider or thinner than before, and other elements may move altogether (navbars and sidebars).

The answer is that the site uses media queries to truly make the site responsive.

Here's what a basic media query looks like (you can find them in the CSS of some pages):

@media screen and (max-width: 1020px) {

#container, #header, #content, #footer {

float: none;

width: auto;

}

p{ font-size: 2em; }

}

There's a lot to see here, so let's break it down into simple chunks.

Right at the start of the line, the media query is labeled with the “@media” tag.

The “screen” part is standard to include and means that the media query will be applied based on screen size.

The most important part is the stuff in the brackets.

You can specify both “min-width” and “max-width.”

In this case, the max-width is 1020px.

This means that when the screen is up to 1020 pixels wide, all the CSS code inside this media query should apply.

The code inside will be given priority over other codes for the specified elements.

Going back to the code, you can see a bunch of normal CSS code inside the outside curly brackets for the overall media query.

You can see that when the screen is under 1020px wide, any elements with an id of “container,” “header,” “content,” or “footer,” will now have “auto” width and a float value of “none.”

Similarly, all text in paragraph tags (p), will have a font size of 2.0 em.

Applying this is simple.

Load your webpage, and then drag a corner to make the screen smaller.

If you notice that certain parts become hard to read at a certain point, create a media query. Change it so that your content elements become larger or smaller, whatever is needed to make the content more mobile-friendly.

Note that you can apply multiple media queries to a page. Just specify a maximum and minimum width, and make sure they don't overlap.

3. Pop-ups are dangerous

I've certainly experimented with using pop-ups to collect email addresses on my sites, and you should try them on yours as well.

However, you have to be very careful.

Many cheap pop-up tools and plugins look fine on desktop screens but completely ruin the user experience on mobile devices.

They're often difficult to close, and sometimes you can't even close them.

Not surprisingly, they cause visitors to instantly close the window.

There are three main solutions to a pop-up problem on mobile devices:

Solution #1 – Get rid of them: The first is to disable pop-ups for your mobile visitors.

This is a good solution, but not all pop-up tools allow you to do this easily.

Solution #2 – Simplify them: Another solution is to make your forms as simple as possible to fill out (minimize the number of fields) and make them easy to close.

This is probably the worst solution, but it's still better than sticking with whatever default pop-up you're currently serving.

Solution #3 – Only use pop-ups when a visitor clicks: This is another great option.

If you've heard about content upgrades, you may have already seen it in action.

The idea here is that you don't use pop-ups that come up after a visitor spends a certain amount of time on your pages.

Instead, you offer them some sort of lead magnet and tell them to click a link to get it. Then, the pop-up will come up and ask for their information.

People are much more receptive to pop-ups in this situation because they're the ones who asked for it.

Just to wrap up this topic, if your current pop-up tool can't handle these modifications, it's time to upgrade to one that can.

4. Strip down the distractions

One of the worst experiences for a mobile user is to load a page and then be swamped by several elements competing for their attention.

Sometimes, they don't even load at the same time, so the page keeps shifting around as it loads, which is extremely frustrating.

Some of that comes down to coding, but most of it comes from having too many distractions on the page.

The typical sidebar is useless on mobile.

It gets pushed down to the very bottom of the page and barely ever gets used.

So, unless you can create a fancy sidebar like Google did, it's probably better to remove it altogether for mobile users.

This goes for other elements as well, e.g., your navigation menus.

How do you remove them?

Simple: use media queries.

On the main “div” for the sidebar, as an example, give it a CSS value of “display:none;” when the screen size is small. Then it won't show up.

Copywriters shine on mobile: As a final note here, remember that it's even more difficult to read long content on mobile devices.

Keep your content as concise as possible.

It's better writing, and mobile users prefer it anyways.

5. Get ahead of the curve with Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)

Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) are still HTML pages, but they follow a specific format.

Google has teamed up with a bunch of huge brands to create and support them.

These pages get priority in the search results of mobile users for certain relevant queries.

The whole point of them is that they load really fast for mobile users, which is why Google is encouraging content creators to make them.

If you're interested in seeing a demo, use your mobile device, and search for something on g.co/ampdemo.

Should you create AMP? I can't give you a definitive answer. On the one hand, they may help get you some extra traffic, but I haven't experimented with them enough to conclude anything.

And while Google supports them, that doesn't mean that they will become widely adopted. Google could end up shutting the project down sometime in the future.

The one downside is that you need to maintain two versions of your content. The good news is that it's easy with WordPress because there's actually a plugin for that-all you need to do is enable it.

Finally, if you're interested in creating AMP on your own non-WordPress site, here's the official tutorial. I'd create my own, but Google's will always be better.

If you have the extra time and resources, I'd encourage you to test out AMP, but most businesses will be better off to wait a bit and see if they get adopted more widely first.

Conclusion

If you're not optimizing your content for mobile users, you're behind the curve and missing out on traffic (and wasting some of your current traffic).

That's why I gave you these five ways to optimize your content for mobile.

By now, you should know which of them apply to your website and how to start implementing them.

Try to put them into effect as soon as possible, and measure whether there are any changes in mobile traffic or engagement.

If you have any questions or results to share, I'd be happy to hear them in a comment below.

9 Books Every Content Marketer Should Read

I've been struggling to write this post for some time because when you work in a field like content marketing, where the landscape can change from month to month, it's difficult to recommend books to read.

And I read a lot of books.

For instance, books on social media written five years ago may be outdated today if some platforms mentioned are out of business.

That's why these nine books focus on timeless principles - the fundamentals that helped you yesterday, help you today, and will help you tomorrow.

They're the nine books you should read this year. And the nine books you should read the year after that. And so on.

If you only had these nine books on your shelf - and never bought another one - I'm confident you could continue to kick content marketing tail long into the future.

Just imagine if you continued to read other books, too. You'd be unstoppable.

Book #1: Content Strategy for the Web

The word “strategy” turns some people off.

Or they think their website or business is small enough that a goal written on the back of an envelope is all they need to create successful content for the long haul.

The truth is, without a strategy your content will never reach its full potential. More importantly, it will probably unnecessarily suffer from common pitfalls.

Enter Kristina Halvorson and Melissa Rach, who deliver a road map to better content so you can have a better business. From understanding the business value of content to making smarter decisions about what content to use and when, this book is a delight to read.

In my copy, the first four chapters are covered in notes. More than likely, you'll read a section of this book, put it down, work on your content strategy, pick up the book, and repeat.

Get the book here: Content Strategy for the Web, 2nd Edition

Book #2: Everybody Writes

The next book you should read is Ann Handley's A-to-Z guide to creating content, published in 2014.

You'll learn about important writing rules (like following a writing GPS), grammar essentials (including five rules you should break), common publishing concerns, and the mechanics of writing on social media.

This book is like a blog about writing great content by one of the best practitioners in the field. Except all that great advice is in one tidy publication that sits on your shelf.

Flip open to page 53 to edit by chainsaw. Page 174 for the basics of copyright, fair use, and attribution. And 266 for productivity tools.

Get the book here: Everybody Writes: Your Go-To Guide to Creating Ridiculously Good Content

Book #3: Made to Stick

When I think of one book that's influenced the way I write, I pick this one. So, it's no surprise that this classic (2007) by the Heath brothers is my go-to book when people are looking for tips on how to write memorable and effective content.

It's a 30,000-foot view of great content. It's the skeleton that allows you to turn mediocre content into majestic.

Working from the acronym SUCCES (Simple, Unexpected, Concrete, Credible, Emotional, Stories), the Heath brothers demonstrate each tip with unforgettable anecdotes and facts. The urban legend about the kidney heist is my favorite. Or maybe it's the newspaper with a readership of 110 percent.

So many gems to pick from. And the beautiful thing about this book is that you could probably read it in less than three hours.

Get the book here: Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die

Book #4: Letting Go of the Words

Ginny Redish did the web writing community a favor by writing this book in 2008 (the second edition was published in 2012).

You'll find a lot of what you read in Redish's book in other books on this list, but the value of Letting Go of the Words is the application of those truths to specific circumstances - all in one book. It's the web writer's reference manual.

One of my favorite chapters in this book is “Organize and Break Up Content.” In this section, Redish helps the reader go from thinking about “content” to “information.”

For me, this was a light-bulb moment. Perhaps it will be for you, too.

Get the book here: Letting Go of the Words, Second Edition: Writing Web Content that Works

Book #5: Mobile Usability

Research shows the growing number of people who consume content on mobile devices. Thus, learning to write for mobile is a must.

Who better to show us the way than usability experts Jakob Neilsen and Raluca Budiu? If you're a writer, pay extra careful attention to chapter four: “Writing for Mobile.” In particular, I think you'll find the section on “Secondary Information to Secondary Screens” enlightening.

The rest of the book is a lesson in smart mobile design, which - as you'll see below in Book# 9 - is something every web writer needs to be intimately familiar with.

It will pay dividends for your content. I promise.

Get the book here: Mobile Usability

Book #6: Clout

In this little gem by Colleen Jones, published in 2011, the task of creating compelling web content is raised to a new level by introducing the eight principles of rhetoric blended with the science of psychology.

She opens the book by fighting off the temptation to engage in short-sighted marketing tactics (we've all seen them) and urges us to take the higher road. Then she introduces a concept most of us have never even considered, but it is more important than content: context. That section is worth the price of the book alone.

The book also includes useful advice like persisting through roadblocks and qualitative methods to measure your content.

Get the book here: Clout: The Art and Science of Influential Web Content

Book #7: The Big Red Fez

Seth Godin's 2002 classic is useful for the divine, memorable analogy he employs to summarize his point:

Imagine the visitor to your website is a monkey (wearing a red fez). And he has a mission. To find the banana. Your job? Make it easy to find that banana.

This book will take you fifteen minutes to read. But you will never forget it. Which is helpful, since the best landing pages, articles, podcasts, and webinars follow Godin's philosophy: one page, one goal.

Get the book here: The Big Red Fez: How to Make Any Web Site Better

Book #8: Don't Make Me Think

Steve Krug's web writing advice boils down to a simple anthem: “Don't make me think.”

This philosophy is similar to Godin's guidance: visitors should be able to finish their intended task as easily as possible.

The law of the web says people blaze through the web like it is an autobahn. And they blaze on the autobahn to do one thing: look at billboards.

Which means they won't read your article. They'll scan the headline if you are lucky. Skim the sub-headlines if they are feeling generous.

But you want to make them stick around. Krug offers you guiding principles on factors you need to get right and how to get them right.

Get the book here: Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability

Book #9: The Design of Everyday Things

My favorite Gary Larson cartoon is a picture of a kid pushing a door that says “pull” at the “Midvale School for the Gifted.” To cognitive scientist Don Norman, author of The Design of Everyday Things, this is not at all surprising.

Physical objects often confuse us.

I pour hot water into my lap because I can't figure out which end of a tea pot is the spout or the handle. I hand grandmother a laptop and she blinks. These gaffes, Norman argues, can be solved with sensible, thoughtful design.

Why should you care as a web writer? Because lessons on the sensible design of physical objects translate well to design on the web. Take the concept of white space, for example.

White space serves a purpose. It aids readability. It gives a page a classic, rich, elegant appearance. You, dear web writer, shape the meaning of your content with words and also shape the presentation by formatting those words.

White space between words. White space between paragraphs. White space between sentences. When you write a large block of text, you break it apart into shorter paragraphs, sentences, or bullet points.

Sculpting as you go. With white space. That's good design.

Get the book here: The Design of Everyday Things: Revised and Expanded Edition

Your turn

A number of books on content marketing are published each year. If you are like me, you'd like to read them all. But it's physically and financially impossible. You only have so many hours in a day and so many dollars in the bank.

The good news is that the tried-and-true are often just as good - if not better - than the new. In other words, you don't necessarily need to read the best books published this year or next.

Unless you want to.

Like our very own Pamela Wilson's upcoming book on content marketing. In fact, you can join her list to read early chapters of the book and receive a PDF version when it is published.

Hopefully these nine books above give you a head start on which classic ones to read, too.

So, would you add any books to this list? Drop us a line in the comments section below.

The post 9 Books Every Content Marketer Should Read appeared first on Copyblogger.

Tesla Is A Great Company, But Is It A Good Investment?

Pioneer electric carmaker Tesla Motors is a great company, as evidenced by consumer enthusiasm for its products. Its Model S has received rave reviews, while its Model 3 has close to 280,000 pre-orders.

Panama Law Firm Mossack Fonseca Faces Leak Of 11 Million Documents Exposing Thousands Of Clients

The offshore planning world was set on fire this weekend with the news that 11 million documents were leaked from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca. According to a BBC article found here:

They show how Mossack Fonseca has helped clients launder money, dodge sanctions and evade tax.

Rainmaker Rewind: When to Shift Your Side Hustle Into Your Main Thing

As Brian has previously discussed on Unemployable, everyone at every level usually has a side hustle going on. It's the process by which we leverage what we're doing now to do the next, bigger, and more gratifying thing.

This week, Brian welcomes Nathan Barry to the show to discuss how he turned his side project into his main thing.

Sometimes the signals are clear that the side project is ready to become the main thing (or at least part of your ever-expanding main thing). Other times, it takes a serious gut check and a leap of faith in the direction you truly want to go.

Nathan Barry created a remarkable business for himself at a young age. And now he's becoming seriously well-known thanks to the success of ConvertKit - an email service for professional bloggers.

You probably don't know, however, that not long ago ConvertKit was a languishing side project to Nathan's main business.

Hear the advice, and the leap of faith, that brought this SaaS project to the forefront - with stunning results.

Here are two more episodes you shouldn't miss this week:

Author and entrepreneur-hacker, Jonny Nastor, chats with host Kelton Reid about the transition from podcast to bestselling book and how he helps digital entrepreneurs and creatives find shortcuts to success.

The Writer Files:

How Punk Rock Entrepreneur Jonny Nastor Writes, Part One

Entrepreneurial legend Gary Vaynerchuk joins host Chris Ducker for the third time to chat about social media, marketing, and his latest best-seller #AskGaryVee.

Youpreneur:

How Influence Drives Change and Innovation, with Gary Vaynerchuk

And one more thing …

If you want to get my Rainmaker Rewind pick of the week sent straight to your favorite podcast player, subscribe right here on Rainmaker FM.

See you next week.

The post Rainmaker Rewind: When to Shift Your Side Hustle Into Your Main Thing appeared first on Copyblogger.