quality content Archives | Online Business Manager

25 things that you can give away to build your Email Marketing List

24 May, 2016

If there’s one thing that makes it easier for you to grow your list quickly, then that is to give away something valuable in return for the opt-in. If you’re not sure what to give away, here are 25 ideas to get you started in building your email marketing list. These simple ideas will help to build your email marketing list and create a loyal following. These ideas can also be incorporated into your newsletters so that you can keep your email marketing list subscribers engaged.

A free PDF or report. Give them a report on something or a brief guide on something.
An audio content or video download. A lot of people prefer to listen to audio in their cars or on their lunch break, instead of read. Both videos and audio have a higher perceived value!
Access to a forum or discussion area. People will sign up just to get access to the advice and conversations in the private area.
Tips. Give away a giant list of tips. For example, “101 Tips for a Better ………………”
Tools. For example, if you run a graphic design site, give away Photoshop brushes for the opt-in.
A guide or toolkit, this could be educational, to buy something or a full detailed informational guide. For example, write a buyer’s guide for choosing the best ………….. to purchase.
A checklist. For instance, give people a checklist on what to look for when ………?.
A free preview. For example, give people the first chapter of your book for free.
Construct a course. For example, a 7-step course to …………… Deliver it in one email a day.
Do a screencast. Record your video screen and give away the video. Use it to teach something on your screen.
Do a Prezi or PowerPoint presentation. Prezi creates graphically stunning presentations that catch and keep attention.
Give away reference material. For example, for a copywriting course, give away 10 examples of the best copy ads in history.
Talk about mistakes to avoid. For example, “7 Mistakes Car Buyers Make When Shopping for a Car.”
Interview someone in your industry. If it’s a recognisable name, you’ll get a ton of opt-ins.
Access to a live webinar. They have to sign up now to get the time and phone number.
A recorded webinar. You can make it seem like a time-limited webinar.
A printable workbook. People fill as they learn. Writing down lessons helps boost retention.
A free iPhone or Android app. This is especially appealing if the app is paid by default, but they can get it free by signing up.
Give away a game. Make it educational so people learn as they play.
Access to a contest. People have to join your email list to participate in the contest.
Members-only events. If people want to come to the event, they have to sign up.
Give away something completely off the cuff, but something that people would want. It doesn’t always have to be in your industry to be interesting. This tends to work in “over gifted” industries like internet marketing or weight loss.
Give them something they’ll use every day. For example, a list of foods to eat and not to eat.
Your old content. Lock your old content so people have to sign up to get access to it.
Statistics. Who doesn’t love statistics! Give away a detailed report about little known statistics in your industry.

Work on one idea and then move onto new ones. The more valuable offers you have, the more new targeted subscribers you can bring into your email marketing list.

Tell us what your favourite tool is to build your email marketing list?

How to Engage through your PowerPoint Presentation Slides

17 May, 2016

Most presenters use PowerPoint for their presentation slides, however many presenters make quite a few mistakes. They make their slides too wordy, don’t add enough images. The audience then just ends up reading the slides instead of listening to the presenter. The presentation is then not interesting and of course the audience starts yawning, walking out or switching off the webinar well before you get to your sales pitch. Here are a few key things that you should add to your presentation slides to induce greater engagement and keep your audience wanting more:

Less words, more images to your presentation slides

This is simple and effective. Don’t add your whole speech to your presentation slides, make the wording on the slides simple with lots of images. If you had to give out a truckload of information, then you could have just handed out a book or a digital white paper. Why would you pile on information in the presentation slides? A presentation is about your engagement with the audience and you, not that of the audience with the PowerPoint presentation slides.

Set the agenda at the beginning of the presentation

Tell the audience at the beginning what they are going to get out of your presentation. Get them excited and engaged from the start, include a funny quip if you are humorous but the main trick is to get your audience engaged from the very start.

Make your presentation slides enticing

Your presentation slides must be enticing. They cannot be just slides loaded with three to five points talking about two or three numbers and a handful of facts. PowerPoint presentations should have images, videos, audio effects and evoking stories that would make the facts relevant and fun to learn. If you bore your audience with a humdrum of presentation slides, then the first casualty would be engagement and the second would be the whole purpose of the presentation.

It’s not just about the slides

You are the expert in your field! Give your audience facts, give them information, give them quality content! Make them want more! This doesn’t need to be listed on the presentation slides. Show them with videos, share your screen if you are working through software examples or use other visual cues. You can even set up interviews with other experts! Get your audience engaged with many different visual cues, it doesn’t just have to be on a set of presentation slides!

Ask questions

The job of conveying the message is yours as a presenter and the presentation slides are only there to set the mood. But don’t make the presentation a one way or a one dimensional discussion. You need to consider multiple views or the possibility of other opinions. As you present your facts and the information, raise questions with your audience and engage your audience to answer those questions. While you would have slides concluding with facts, have slides that raise objection, shed light on contrasting views, to set the agenda and to make space for discussions which will allow your audience to get involved.

Call to Action

At the end of your presentation, have an explicit call to action, use your business logos and contact details effectively and conclude with key takeaways. Once you are done with your presentation, encourage questions and have backup slides that would be answers or illustrations responding to those questions. You should be able to anticipate some of the queries while preparing the PowerPoint presentation slides. Another option is to send out for the questions earlier.

5 Common Email Marketing Mistakes

20 Apr, 2016

Email marketing is far from easy, and if you are new to sending email marketing newsletters there are many potential problems that you should learn to avoid. Some of them could completely ruin your list, forcing you to start over again from scratch.

Here are some of the most common email marketing mistakes that we see often:

Not sending out emails regularly

As business owners and now internet marketers, we’re busy people. We’re usually juggling a bunch of different projects at any given time, and sometimes a few get put on the backburner and sometimes certain tasks get neglected completely. However, you should make sure you never neglect your marketing and part of that marketing should incorporate staying in touch you’re your email lists on a regular basis. At a minimum this should be monthly so don’t let several weeks or more go by without you sending out anything. It’s a common mistake, but one that can quickly cause your list to decay.

The key to good results from email marketing is sending out emails at regular intervals, never letting too much time pass in-between. If you do, chances are your subscribers don’t even remember you once you finally send something new out to them and they will unsubscribe! This will leave you starting from scratch to build a new email list.

Only sending out promotional emails

You’ve probably been on at least one list like this, where the owner does nothing but send out offers on a daily basis until you’re forced to unsubscribe. The reason people do this is because, believe it or not, it does work and it does get results. However, the results are purely short-term, and marketers who follow this strategy need to continually add new subscribers or eventually they’ll be marketing to no one. It’s always better to focus on delivering good value, relevant content and expertise in your emails and building a long-term relationship with your subscribers.

Making it impossible to unsubscribe

This is a very common beginner mistake. For some reason, some email marketers believe that by making it difficult or impossible to unsubscribe, their subscribers will simply be forced to read their emails and buy their products. Well, think again, because it will cause them to click on the ‘Spam’ link instead, which is definitely not good. If enough people on your list, click on this link you can actually get banned or have your account closed by your service provider!

Hammering the list with advertisements

Some marketers who are out to make a quick buck and build a list as fast as possible sell solo ads and do ad swaps with affiliates to accomplish their goals. Nothing wrong with that, if it’s done tastefully and rarely. If it’s all you do, you’re not going to build a good relationship with your subscribers as it’s basically the same thing as only sending out promotional messages.

Importing a list from a social media stream

I’ve seen clients regularly import their list from Linkedin or another social media platform and the results are never good. This is not a quality list because they’re used to seeing you on a social platform with updates, not via email. These types of subscribers normally unsubscribe quickly, wonder how they ended up on your email list and report the list as spam even if they love hearing from you on the social media platform. Just don’t do it!

There are many more mistakes that beginner to email marketing can make. A simple rule of thumb is that if the content is quality content that your subscribers originally opted in for, then they will love your content and stay an avid reader of your email newsletter.