List building techniques nams7

List Building TechniquesList Building Techniques

Phil HollowsFounder & CEO, FeedBlitz

www.feedblitz.com/NAMS@phollows

http://www.feedblitz.com/NAMS

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.


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


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


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.


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.


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.


Typical Blogger EmailSubscription Sequence

Fill in form

Dual opt-in activation

Check inbox

landing page

Thanks forsubscribin

g!

Contentmailings


Autoresponder MonetizationSubscription Sequence

Fill in form


Autorespondersales

sequence

Check inbox

landing page


g!

Autorespondersales

sequence

Autorespondersales

sequence

Autorespondersales

sequence

Autorespondersales

sequence

Autorespondersales

sequence

Contentmailings


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


Shopping Cart Sale Automation Sequence

Buye-book


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


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!


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


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.


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


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.


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.


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.


Autoresponder MonetizationSubscription Sequence

Fill in form


Autorespondersales

sequence

Check inbox

landing page


g!

Autorespondersales

sequence

Autorespondersales

sequence

Autorespondersales

sequence

Autorespondersales

sequence

Autorespondersales

sequence

Contentmailings


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.


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.


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.


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.


Shopping Cart Sale Automation Sequence

Buye-book


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


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.


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.


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.


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


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”


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.


Thank You!

Questions? Comments?

• Talk to me!– [email protected]– @phollows

• Resources– Visit: http://www.feedblitz.com/NAMS – Check out: http://ListBuildingForBloggers.com– Subscribe: http://feedblitz.com/f?Sub=84

http://www.feedblitz.com/NAMS

http://listbuildingforbloggers.com/

http://feedblitz.com/f?Sub=84

List building techniques nams7

Technology

Transcript of List building techniques nams7