RosalindGardner.com

Learn Blogging & Affiliate Marketing with Rosalind Gardner

Is Your Email Template Oscar Worthy?

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black-dressJust like a Little Black dress, the best email designs are classic and timeless.

More than half the emails sent through AWeber use the “Plain Template“- but don’t be fooled.

This template can be dressed up in minutes to create a branded, clean design.

The three businesses listed on Aweber's site (link below) created some best dressed emails by rocking AWeber's Plain Template and making it their own.

Best Dressed Emails of 2014.

Gee… any guesses as to what I'm going to be working on? 🙂

Comments, questions or suggestions? Please leave a comment below!

Cheers,

Ros

Spring Cleaning for Your Email List

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Half my DNA is Dutch, but when it comes to keeping things clean and organized, I am almost 100% Dutch.

“Dutch-clean” is a saying for good reason and growing up in the culture, I embraced the fanaticism wholeheartedly.

It's a time-wasting curse that I've been working to un-do for years — EXCEPT when it comes to my business and especially when it comes to my email list.

Without a doubt, my subscriber list is my most important online business asset.

You've probably heard it said many times – “the money is in the list” – and that is absolutely true, even as an affiliate marketer. Simply put, you cannot build a business online (or off) unless you build a list.

That said, really responsive subscriber lists need to be carefully nurtured, fostered and occasionally culled to become really worthwhile over the long term.

One of the best reasons to keep your list clean is because each subscriber costs you money.

For example, Aweber's pricing plans start at $19 per month for up to 500 subscribers (NOTE: the first month is just $1).

For between 500 and up to 2,500 subscribers, you'll pay an additional $10 per month AND then an additional $130 per month for between 10,001 and 25,000 subscribers?

Seriously, with subscriber numbers like that, $130 per month is a pittance to pay in terms of how much income you'll be generating.

However, it's SUCH a waste of money to pay for names and email addresses of people who have UNsubscribed from your list!

Yup, almost 50 thousand subscribers UNsubscribed that will cost you — well, the ‘contact us' amount. 🙂

That's why you must take care of your list!

The easiest way to cull your lists is to delete those who are unsubscribed.

To do so, login to your Aweber account, select the list that you want to manage, click the Subscribers tab and then select ‘search' from the drop-down that appears.

Next, you'll want to select ‘Stop Status' is ‘Unsubscribed' and you'll get a page resembling the following graphic.

See all those ‘Stop' statuses? Time to get rid of them! Deleting 152 subscribers is EASY… just click ‘Erase' at the top right-hand side of the list of unsubscribers, then go to the bottom right-hand side of that list and click ‘Save'.

To save time, select the ‘100' tab in the same area, to see 100 entries per page.

But if you need to delete thousands or TENS of thousands… then Aweber's staff can and will do that for you. Just send them a request through your account.

Aweber also offers a number of other methods to delete unproductive subscribers as shown in the following graphic. In this example, I've chosen to display those who subscribed from Nigeria.

It's also worthwhile to delete those that are undeliverable.

For more information on how to keep your Aweber account list(s) clean and efficient, take advantage of their free live webinars and extensive help files in the customer area.

Email Marketing $19/Month!And if you don't have an Aweber account – check them out now. It's only $1 to try out their system for the first month. I've been using their service for almost 15 years and they get my highest recommendation!

Happy spring cleaning. I'm off to do likewise. 🙂

Comments, questions or suggestions? Please leave a comment below!

Cheers,

Ros

How to Kill Your Reputation with Email

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I just received this email from a friend'.

Unlike my ‘friend', I've protected the names and email addresses included in this email.

The mistake they made is a mistake that I made almost 15 years ago and never made again.

After sending out a bunch of unsolicited emails through my hosts server, they shut me down until I signed a bunch of papers saying that I wouldn't do so again.

Who knew?

I was using software supplied by a ‘reputable' marketer to collect the email addresses of everyone who had contacted me through my site.

I thought it was OK.

NOT.

It's called SPAM.

In other words, they are email marketing without generating a list of subscribers without an autoresponder.

What I find remarkable is that some newbie marketers are still trying it (marketing to their personal lists through their hosts), despite ALL the spam that is out there… AND all the education available.

I must assume that THEY get unwanted emails, yet think nothing of sending unwanted emails.

REALLY BAD move.

Nowadays, hosting services aren't so lenient as mine was 15 years ago. They'll just kill your hosting and email accounts.

So… if you want to send an email to a bunch of your ‘friends' – build a list using an autoresponder.

My personal choice is Aweber – I've been using them ever since I made that mistake more than a decade ago and have never looked back – not through 100's of thousands of subscribers… AND I've never jeopardized my business again either.

Comments, questions or suggestions? Please leave a comment below!

Cheers,

Ros

5 Reasons Why Only SOME Newsletters Get Read

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It's a simple truth…

Some newsletters seem to attract readers like bees to honey – whilst others seem to struggle to find a marketplace of accepting and interested subscribers. But why?

What's the big difference between success and failure when it comes to publishing your own newsletter? And what should you aim to do, if your goal is to build an army of loyal subscribers?

For the first time ever, acknowledged newsletter expert, Michael Green, reveals his top five hints for creating your own winning newsletter or Ezine publication.

#1. CONTENT

If you edit a newsletter and think you can muddle through without top quality content, then think again!

Let's look at it this way. With so many newsletter titles out there today – especially on the web – the choice for readers is almost endless.

Your audience is more subtly aware of the quality of your editorial, articles and content, than you may think.

So don't skimp when it comes to finding top quality contributions for your publication. It should be obvious, but great content matters, perhaps more than ever before.

#2. STYLE

Great newsletters all have one thing in common. They display style and personality.

Wait a minute…can a newsletter really have a personality?

You bet. In fact, it must have a personality, or it's simply doomed to fail!

Your readers *really* need to appreciate what your publication is all about. Which perspective are you approaching your subject from? Are you light-hearted or serious? Do you display the traits that can foster trust from your readership?

Don't leave your readers in any doubt about your market position.

Display style and personality in every issue and be sure to allow your readers to share in your spirit.

#3. FREQUENCY

A big difference between newsletters that get read, and those that get trashed, is that the good ones are nearly always published to a regular schedule which is advertised in advance and understood by their readerships.

So determine a publishing schedule, let it be known, and rigidly stick to it.

If you want others to take your newsletter or Ezine seriously, then you need to work your way into your readerships routine.

A regular publishing timetable helps you to achieve this goal and so “frequency” is an important feature in achieving success for your newsletter.

But remember, frequency doesn't mean that you have to commit to publishing every day or every week. It just means that you need to set a schedule that is fully predictable for your readers.

That could just as easily be quarterly.

#4. CREDIBILITY

Stop and think about any newsletter that you personally happen to read on a regular basis. Now ask yourself: “What is it that really makes me read this newsletter?”

The answer is invariably that you believe what's written in it.

That's right. Newsletters that you like, all have a high “credibility factor”.

So be cautious about just allowing anyone to be a guest article author. Check 'em out first, be comfortable that the knowledge that they are imparting is really first-class.

One bad article published in YOUR newsletter or Ezine could destroy YOUR credibility with a reader forever. So thoroughly vet everything you publish.

#5. INTEGRITY

Perhaps the most important factor in establishing your newsletter as a trusted source, is your ability to create real integrity for your publication.

What does this mean?

Well you've probably read newsletters, particularly those on the web, which forever seem to be pushing some new resource right in your face. And you know straightaway that there's obviously something in this for the editor.

Actually, they're probably pushing an affiliate program or some kind of joint-venture.

Nothing wrong with that of course. But try to avoid turning your entire newsletter or Ezine into one long relentless advertising pitch.

I've read a lot of newsletters that start out well for a couple of issues, but then descend into one long sales spiel by the third edition.

So follow the FIVE GOLDEN RULES of newsletter success and you'll soon turn your own publication into a newsletter that gets READ, not one of the many that gets instantly TRASHED upon arrival.

Good luck with your newsletter or Ezine.

Comments, questions or suggestions? Please leave a comment below!

Cheers,

Ros

Remove that Category from Your Feed

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Subscribers to the feed on my personal blog got a surprise message in their email — a business message I did not intend for them to receive and a message they probably did not care to receive.

And you know what THAT means… LOST subscribers.

So, what did I do wrong (THIS time)?

Well, I failed to set up my Feedburner feed to exclude posts from a particular category. When I posted to that category, the list on my Aweber account that uses the Blog Broadcast service, emailed that post to all the subscribers on the list.

Here's an example.

If I don't want NPT newsletter subscribers to receive posts that I make to my XOX (personal) category, that category must be removed from the Feedburner feed.

Here are the steps to take:

  1. Sign into WordPress
  2. Go to “Categories”
  3. Mouse over the name of the category you want to exclude and take note of the ID in the status bar as shown below. In this case, the ID is “381“.

  4. Now log into your Google Feedburner account and click on “Edit Feed Details” for your feed.
  5. Under “Original Feed Details” add ?cat=-318 (or whatever your cat ID happens to be) to your feed URL.

  6. Now test your Feedburner Feed and you will that posts from the ‘offensive' category no longer appear.

If you would like to remove 2 or more categories from a feed, simply add an ampersand before each category number ( @amp; ), i.e. https://rosalindgardner.com/blog?cat=-381@-642

Comments, questions or suggestions? Please leave a comment below!

Cheers,

Ros

My 5 Most Effective Site Marketing Techniques

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Here's a traffic generation question / comment from Kenny that was spot on!

Rosalind, it is inconceivable that you have time to utilize all the techniques in your ebook.

So, in an effort to follow your lead, so to speak, if you were to narrow down the five most consistently effective marketing / promotion / advertising processes that you use primarily, what would you say those were?

In advance, thanks.

Kenny Love

GREAT question, Kenny!

You're absolutely right – I'd go bonkers if I tried to do ALL of the marketing techniques ALL of the time.

So, here are the 5 traffic generation or marketing methods that I use most consistently:

  1. Blogging for Search Engine Placement
  2. List / Email Marketing
  3. Social Media Marketing & Community Activity
  4. Pay Per Click Marketing (PPC)
  5. Article Distribution & Marketing

Blogging for Search Engine Placement

Essentially, my first priority is to publish fresh content to my blogs on a regular basis (some of which are more regular than others). Although I don't engage in keyword stuffing, (which makes for horrible reading), the content of each blog post has to be tightly focused on one subject so that keywords and keyword phrases in the article are closely aligned and thus the post is more likely to get picked up and listed by the search engines, resulting in free traffic.

List / Email Marketing

The post is then distributed by email to the relevant subscriber list either through a blog broadcast (using Aweber / Feedburner combined) or through a link in a weekly newsletter.

Social Media Marketing & Community Activity

Engaging the audience personally through either blog commenting, forum posting or social media marketing comes next. I will respond to comments and answer any questions posted by my own blog readers and subscribers, which enhances information contained in the article and adds still more ‘fodder' for the search engines to notice. My social media marketing efforts are fairly scant – using applications like TwitterFeed to broadcast the post's title and link to Twitter for some more free traffic. From time to time, I'll post a comment to a high-profile blog or forum in response to a topic relevant to my original article, along with a link to that article.

Pay Per Click Marketing (PPC)

Depending on the response from blog readers and subscribers, I may incorporate PPC marketing at that point. If the conversion rate is better than average for the audience, I'll do the math to assess whether it's worth driving traffic to that particular post or page with PPC, starting with Google Adwords and/or Yahoo! Search Marketing depending on the demographic. If the response is just ‘good', PPC may still be worth the effort if enough of that traffic joins the list.

Article Distribution & Marketing

Article marketing comes in 5th and last, because I don't post the same articles to my site as I would distribute to article directories so they require some re-writing, which takes time. Furthermore, the traffic isn't as targeted as it is with your own list or with PPC marketing… but it's traffic none-the-less and every click counts for something… eventually.

After that's all said and done, it's probably time to write another post — or more likely, take another vacation. 🙂

What is an Autoresponder?

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You've probably seen email capture forms similar to that shown in the graphic here to the right at least a million times.

When someone enters their name and email address, it triggers an autoresponder.

The autoresponder automatically responds (ergo, the name ‘autoresponder') by sending a preprogrammed / prewritten message to the email address entered in the form.

Autoresponders are sometimes used by individuals to notify those who send them emails that they are away on vacation, i.e. an ‘out of office‘ reply is sent.

Autoresponder services are more commonly used by online businesses to build client mailing lists and to provide their web site visitors with followup and new information about their products and services.

Autoresponder service features most often include the ability to preprogram an unlimited number of prewritten followup responses that are sent at predetermined intervals. For example, the first message is sent immediately after a person subscribers, the second message is sent 2 days later and message number 3 is sent three days after the second message… and so on and so forth. This is known as an ‘autoresponder series'.

Autoresponder service clients may also send out broadcast messages to their subscribers on an ad-hoc basis.

In recent years, autoresponder services have added a feed to email feature that allows webmasters to send published posts from their blogs (and other feeds) to their mailing list subscribers.

Although there are many autoresponder services available, I personally recommend Aweber – a service that I've been using without complaint since starting my online business in 1998. Aweber is without a doubt, the world's leading autoresponder service in terms of features and customer service.

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