engage subscribers Archives | Page 2 of 3 | Online Business Manager

5 things to know to host your first webinar

29 Mar, 2016

A webinar is an effective medium for engagement, promotions and training. However, there are many things to consider before hosting that first webinar. You will need to ensure that you have a few things ready to go before pressing record and welcoming your guests. So here are five things to consider before hosting your first webinar.

Have a goal in mind

Understand why you are hosting a webinar. Is your end result to sell a product? Is it to gain more subscribers to your email marketing list. Is it just to provide information and create yourself as an industry expert? Ensure that you have your end goal in front of mind when creating your webinar and what you want to achieve at the end. This will help with planning your first webinar.

Plan your first webinar

Planning your first webinar is important to ensure that it runs smoothly. Ensure that your slides are professional and not too wordy, we have some great tips here. Practice your webinar so that it doesn’t sound like you are reading from a document. If you are providing a demonstration, ensure that you have the software, product etc ready to go prior to the webinar.

Test your technology

Ensure that you technology is up to scratch. Have a decent internet speed and headset with microphone and pick a webinar platform. Running a small webinar with a friend or with Adminaholics to ensure that your technology is going to be maintained throughout the webinar will ensure that you can run the webinar on the day. Technology has a way of being temperamental but if you can sort the basics before the webinar, it will assist in a smooth running presentation.

Marketing your first webinar

There is no point running a webinar if you don’t tell everyone about it. Some great ways to market are through social media, your email marketing list, word of mouth, joint ventures and affiliates. Keep a steady stream and ensure that you advertise everywhere that you can. The more people that you attend your webinar, the more opportunity you will have to achieve your end result.

Break some rules

Webinars are not a new concept. They have been around for a while and many people have perfected it. This has lead to some customary practices which are more like unwritten rules. It is important to make your webinar a little bit different and break some of the rules but in a constructive way. Don’t go haywire but don’t follow a predictable script either. Customers that attend your webinars want to hear from you so it’s important that your personality and expertise shine through!

Go for Gold!

We have created an essential webinar checklist so that you can host the perfect webinar! Download it for free today!

What is List Building?

15 Mar, 2016

List building is pretty much exactly what it sounds like: the process of building lists! Generally, though the term list building is used to describe a specific kind of list with the most common being email marketing lists.

Here the term list building refers to the creation of a list of email addresses or other contact details that can then be used as part of a marketing campaign. This is a big aspect of digital and content marketing and one of the more effective ways to reach a large audience, engage and build a relationship with them online.

Things to consider

The thing to be cautious of when list building, is that the lists need to consist of emails for people who have happily shared their details. These subscribers are granting you permission to contact them (double opt-in processes are great for this). It would be very easy to create an email list of a million emails long or to purchase a list. If you did not care in any way and added every email address you could find, this would do more harm than good and you would not be engaging your target market. – see Why You Shouldn’t Buy an Email Marketing List.

If you send out emails to people who haven’t given you their permission then not only will you potentially face some legal issues but you will also likely damage your reputation and not get any sales or newly engaged subscribers anyway. They will unsubscribe from your email straight away and then report your content as spam because they are not engaged in what you are saying, nor are they interested in the information that you are providing.

Effective marketing of any kind should be targeted so that your target market are receiving your messages. Otherwise, it is not worth putting the time and effort into collecting the contact details.

Methods of list building

So how do you go about list building?

The most popular method online is usually to have a sign up box on your website usually with an incentive. Using incentives to engage subscribers is a great way to build your list. The sign up box can go in your side bar, on the front page or sometimes in a ‘pop-up’ that will appear when you view the website. This will then give the visitor the opportunity to ‘opt-in’ to your messages and to receive communication from you. This is what you call an engaged subscriber.

Having an added incentive to try and encourage more people to subscribe themselves to the mailing list – either providing discounts, an ebook or other opt-in options can really boost your email marketing list to skyrocket. Sending relative content after can increase sales and engagement.

Social Media Sharing

8 Mar, 2016

Chances are you’re familiar with Social Media sharing as a way to build an audience and connect with people who may be interested in your information, products, or services. Social Media sharing is all about engagement and building a relationship with your followers. By sharing relevant content that your followers love to read or share to their contacts, this can create you as an expert. Social Media sharing is a great way to build a relationship with your subscribers by engaging them with the type of content that they are interested in which then builds your authority and expertise.

The rule of thirds

When sharing on social media, I really like using the rule of thirds:

A third should be content from others that is relevant to your audience (these items do not reference back to your website but to a third party)
- Article links
- Images
- Other information
A third should be content from you that is relevant to your audience but not sales focused (this information is referenced back to your website)
- Blog Articles
- Information
- Books
A third should be personal or fun interactions to build your personal brand.
- Photos
- Videos
- Funny quips

One mistake that many businesses make is going in for the hard sell. There is no point in going in for the hard sell as your followers will simply stop following you. By sticking to the rule of thirds you can build a whole plan for your social media sharing and really create those relationships and engagement and build yourself and your business as an expert.

We’re happy to create the plan for you and work on your social media if you’re not sure where to start, contact us today for a quote!

The Power of Pop-Ups

4 Mar, 2016

Is it a good or terrible idea?

Nobody likes pop-ups, they can be pretty annoying especially when you are halfway through reading that article. Fortunately we’ve come a long way from the internet of the past which used to open about fifty windows (remember that?) Now most pop-ups just bounce up as you enter or scroll down or go to click on the close of the page without opening a multitude of windows.

They are making a comeback though. And actually? You might want to join them and this is why?

Pop-ups for email collection

The perspective in which pop-ups seem to be making something of a comeback is in their use as a list building method. If you go onto many relatively big blogs (and some not so big – Adminaholics included) within a few minutes of being there, you’ll often be greeted by a pop-up window inviting you to hand over your email address, hopefully there is an amazing incentive to engage you to do so as well.

This includes the websites of some of the top bloggers who have an email form that either pops up or shows at some stage while you are reading the blog. With most of these pop-ups you won’t be able to continue reading until you add your details or hit cancel. Okay, so it’s not a separate window but it definitely has the potential to annoy and certainly makes you either subscribe or cancel. What do we realise from this?

Pop-ups for list building

Well to begin with, this should tell you just how important these highly successful bloggers, businesses and websites think it is to collect email addresses. Most bloggers know that these pop-ups are potentially annoying and essentially feel guilty in some cases for using them. Nevertheless, the benefits of having them drastically outweigh the cons/guilt! So is this something you should consider as well?

Are you really against pop-ups?

The answer to this question will depend on how you feel personally when your own reading is interrupted by such a pop-up. The key point to remember is that the bigger bloggers have millions of regular readers who aren’t going to be put off by such tactics, but pop-ups can still annoy so if you make them generally unobtrusive until you get more comfortable, it will allow you to build your list without driving away too many future visitors or put them off of revisiting your site.

An important tip!

The most important tip. If you do decide to use pop-ups, then don’t make them too irritating. Make sure they don’t keep popping up, make them easy to close and make them generally as simple and unobtrusive as possible.

Why You Shouldn’t Buy an Email Marketing List

11 Feb, 2016

Email marketing starts with building a list, buying your list is the most effective way right? No it is not and please do not buy a list! There are much better ways to build your email marketing list than buying an email marketing list.

Buying an email marketing list can cause more harm than good.

Just remember that good email lists are NOT for sales so if you do purchase a list, these subscribers have not subscribed or double opted in to receive your content and they may not be interested in receiving information from your business or yourself. Sure you may score 1 or 2 purchases from that list but is it worth harming your brand to be known as a spammer for the sake of those two sales. Don’t forget that most people are pretty savvy now and they quite often unsubscribe and flag your content as spam which can then halt your email marketing program.

Consider this when you open up your email and you are getting the latest news from businesses that you are subscribed too you are interested enough to take the next step and click on the links to be really engaged with what they are saying. When you get an email from a business that is not familiar for a product or service that you are not interested in how do you handle it? You unsubscribe, flag them as a spammer and then delete it. Well I do anyway!

If you want to be looked at as one of “those” companies that send out unsolicited information than by all means go ahead and buy the list but you should know that in most cases the consumer is irritated by receiving unsolicited information. As a matter of fact it is a huge waste of time and there is a very good chance that you will lose leads instead of gaining leads.

The right way

Does it take longer to build your email marketing list on your own? Yes of course it does but it really comes down to quality over quantity. What is the point of having a list with 5000 names and only 3 of them are interested in your business? List building can take a little while but it is well worth the effort. You will build a list of interested and engaged subscribers which means you have a much better chance of building a lasting relationship with customers that are interested in your products or services.

There are many ways to build a list and we have discussed some listed in our recent post ‘Using Incentives to Engage Subscribers‘ which are listed below:

Ebook
Videos
Discounts/Specials
Events
Membership
Book a free consultation

It may take you a little while longer to build an engaged list but your new customers and profit margin will appreciate the effort!