NinjaHobo Guide to Email Marketing – Part III
NinjaHobo Guide to Email Marketing – Part III
In module one, you were armed with the source material you need to provide your mailing list with the kind of valuable content they both want and need to accomplish what they’re trying to do.
In module two, you were equipped with the resources you need to effectively get your audience to consume the content you’ve created.
Now, dear Email Ronin – it is time to engage in combat.
If you were putting off signing up to Aweberprior to this module, this is the time to take the plunge (just go to the pricing page and claim the free trial here).
To move forward from this point, you need to have your Aweber account because we’re going to show you how to prepare everything from creating the separate mailing lists, loading and programming your auto-responder and how to use Aweber’s editing systems.
Part One: Open Your Aweber Account
This part is very straightforward. You’ll have to enter your basic information, as well as the address that Aweber must feature in your emails as part of the CAN-SPAM act.
Part Two: Creating an Email Marketing List
1. Start by clicking on the “Create A List” button and you’ll be taken to a page where you have to fill out basic information about the list you are creating.
2. Be sure to add your email address in the “Notifications” section so that you can see how well your list-building efforts are doing via email.
3. The “Personalize Your List” section is very optional and actually has very little effect on your campaigns.
The third tab, “Confirmed Opt-In” is where you’ll need to make a big choice.
As you may of may not have noticed, we don’t use confirmed opt-in for the One Hour Startup.
“What is confirmed opt-in?”
That is when you sign up for someone’s email list and then they send an email to your inbox asking you to click on a link in order to confirm that you want to become a subscriber.
Confirmed opt-ins are GOOD because they cut down on the amount of SPAM complaints you get. That’s about it. And if you’re delivering top-quality content, that isn’t something you’ll have to worry about.
Confirmed opt-ins are BAD because it amounts to too much work for subscribers.
Seriously.
Either they immediately delete your opt-in email because they don’t understand what they need to do, or they put off clicking on the confirmation link until ‘later’ (which means never).
Since we switched off the confirmed opt-in option, our subscription count really shot up.
If you choose to shut off the confirmed opt-in option, just click on the “Yes” button you see in this picture:
Also…and this is VERY important…just below the confirmed opt-in option is the “Success Page” field. Always make sure the box indicated by the red arrow is left unchecked.
Step Three: Subscription Subscription Form
This part is pretty simple. Aweber has quite a slew of forms for you to choose from.
Once you pick one you feel fits your site, there are a few standard procedures to follow, as illustrated by the arrows.
Red Arrow: Be sure to take advantage of the fact that you can always add more fields to your forms and go beyond asking for Names and Email Addresses.
Purple Arrow: The templates found in this section tend to convert pretty well, which is why they’re popular.
Green Arrow: Feel free to cut out the “We respect your email privacy and “Powered by Aweber” messages. These only distract from the goal you’re trying to accomplish with your opt-in form.
You’re now just one step away from being ready to publish your opt-in form to your website. For the “Thank You” page section, it’s strongly recommended you use a custom page from your website.
And finally, once you get to the page where Aweber provides you with the source code for your site, you’ll want to select the HTML version. The Javascript snippet has a nasty habit of disappearing when you save edits to a page.
Step Four: The First Automated Message
Now it’s time to take the content you’ve be amassing and create your auto-responder.
This is actually quite simple and will be completed is just few simple steps.
Red Arrow: By clicking here, you’ll find a variety of designs based on niche for you to choose from. Some templates have different color combinations available.
Blue Arrow: Click on the template to select it.
Purple Arrow: Click on apply and it’s as simple as that.
Personally, I prefer to stick with the plain HTML emails, for the reasons of better delivery rates as well as being able to crank out my messages so much faster.
Be sure to wisely choose how soon your subscribers will receive your message.
Do you want your subscribers to receive a new message each day? Or do you want to space things out a little? This is where you set that up.
And with that you’re good to go.
Sending broadcasts is very much the same as setting up follow-ups, with the only real difference being that you have the option to send the immediately.
Before you send any emails, always be sure to send a test message to yourself first.
You have no idea how many times I’ve ended up with broken links or partial-links. By testing, I’ve also managed to pick up on several typos that I missed the first time around.
Have any questions you’d like to ask?
Would you like to hear about even more sources of content research?