aWebBiz Internet Marketing Blog

If you sell physical products or have a storefront, this blog post is definitely for you. Even if you consider your business to be strictly online, there are a few golden nuggets here that you’ll want to pay close attention to.

Off-line promotion is something that many online marketers forget about and neglect. The truth is that there are many people out there who would enjoy being on your list, and who will be very responsive to doing so. However, if you never take the time to reach them — you won’t!

Include Opt-In Forms with Shipments

As you ship packages you should include a postcard or form that makes it easy for your customers to join your list. They can send this form back to you, and you can enter their email address manually. Another option is to explain the advantages of being on your list and direct them to a web site where they can go sign up themselves.

This is a great strategy because you know that the people who are receiving a shipment are proven customers. That means there are a lot more likely to be responsive.

Of course a better alternative would be to invest in a shopping cart that has an autoresponder built in. That way your customers can automatically be added to your email lists.

Visit Tradeshows

The chances are good that there are tradeshows related to your niche in your area. If you go to these you can find people who would be interested in joining your list. People are more likely to trust a face-to-face interaction than an online one. These contacts can turn into lifetime customers for you.

In fact, this tip works well whether you have physical products or you focus your energies strictly online.

Advertise in Magazines

Many people are surprised to find how inexpensive it is to advertise in targeted magazines. You can often pay a lot less than the advertised price in the magazine. All you need to do is ask the ad team what kind of special deal they can give you.

It’s often easiest to find smaller magazines that have a very targeted audience. Write your ad copy to explain that you’re giving something away for free, or talk about a special promotion you’re having. Once again, it doesn’t matter whether you focus your energies online or off-line, this strategy can work for you.

Send Postcards

This strategy is not quite as targeted as including an opt-in form on postcards with shipments, but it can still work. You can send postcards to lists of people that you have purchased, or in targeted geographic areas. These postcards should focus on the benefits of signing up for your list and visiting your web site. This can be a very time-consuming and costly experience, so make sure you’re going to see a return on your investment by doing a small test first.

Display Your Domain Everywhere You Can

This is a great strategy that can really help to brand yourself. You want to include your domain and logo on every package, letter, flier, etc. The more people see your domain name, the more likely they are to visit. As you know, the more people you get to visit, the more sign ups you’ll get.

Do you want to improve your email marketing skills? If so then register for the free webinars below.

Free, Live Email Marketing Webinars ~ Become an Email Marketing Master

Recommendations:
aWeber Autoresponders - Quickly create and run your campaigns with powerful, easy-to-use email marketing tools.
Go Daddy – Where I purchase all my domain names.
Hostgator – Very reliable and low cost hosting service which I have been using for about ten years.

In addition to adding an opt-in box on most of the pages of your web site, you will also want to create a squeeze page. A squeeze page is simply a dedicated page to gather up leads to your list.

You’ve seen them before, I’m sure, but if you’d like to see one in action, go to http://awebbiz.com

Understand Your Purpose

Many marketers get this wrong. They think that they can add tons of offers, Adsense, and other things to their squeeze pages. This is very damaging to your goal, which is getting people to sign up for your list.

People should be asked to do one thing and one thing only when they visit your squeeze page. Put some compelling copy, along with an opt-in box that clearly spells out what they’ll get and how to sign up — and that’s it.

Examine Other Squeeze Pages in Your Niche

One of the best ways to make sure you got a good handle on what a squeeze page should look like is to visit other marketer’s squeeze pages. You can see what kind of headlines they used, what their copy looks like, and whether they used opt-in box graphics. That way you can just put a spin on things that are already working.

You can also take note of what you think is harming their conversions and improve things for your own squeeze page.

Create Compelling Squeeze Page Copy

While you might create long sales letters for your products, shorter copy is ok for your squeeze page. (Half a page to one page of text.) Make sure that you have a compelling headline that grabs attention, as well as bullet points that point out the benefits of joining your list.

Make your opt-in box visible above the fold. You might even consider putting the box both above the fold and below the fold to make sure people can easily sign up.

They are some niches that do well with graphics and other added features on the squeeze page. There are others that do better with very simple, no-frills design. The best thing for you to do is to split test different designs to see which increases your opt-in rates.

You may be surprised at how much a simple change (like a change in color) can increase or decrease opt-ins. While testing might be time consuming, you’ll get results that will add money to your pocket.

Offer an Incentive

While you might think that you’ve made the benefits of signing up to your list very clear, you’ll find that you can increase conversions if you offer some kind of incentive to sign up. This might be in the form of a sneak preview of a premium product, a free white paper, e-books, or an e-course.

The important thing is that you make an offer they can’t refuse — something free in exchange for a simple e-mail address.

Do you want to improve your email marketing skills? If so then register for the free webinars below.

Free, Live Email Marketing Webinars ~ Become an Email Marketing Master

Recommendations:
aWeber Autoresponders - Quickly create and run your campaigns with powerful, easy-to-use email marketing tools.
Go Daddy – Where I purchase all my domain names.
Hostgator – Very reliable and low cost hosting service which I have been using for about ten years.

Now that you have the actual writing elements down, and all the technical aspects are set up, it’s important to know exactly where you should put your opt-in form. This is how people will sign up to your list, so it needs to be compelling and easy to find.

Make The Signup Form Clearly Visible

Many people who are new to list building put their opt-in form on just one tiny area on their web page and wonder why no one is signing up. If your opt-in form is not clearly visible and without priority placement, you’re going to get very few sign-ups.

It is a much better idea to make it very visible and “above the fold.” That means that as soon as someone lands on your webpage they should be able to see your opt-in form without having to scroll down at all.

You should also make sure that your form is large enough to read and and uses contrasting colors from the rest of your site so that people’s eyes are drawn to it. Experiment with different priority placements to determine whether the form should be on the left side, right side, or front and center.

Consider Using A Pop-Up or Pop-In

There are a lot of differing opinions on using pop-ups or pop-ins with opt-in forms. If you have a pop-up on your web page, a box will come onto the screen with your opt-in form when someone visits. Some of these even darken the rest of the web page that the only thing people can really see is the opt-in form.

Keep in mind that some potential customers will find this annoying and will simply leave your page. Still, many marketers have found that it greatly increased their opt-in rates. This is something you will have to test.

Put An Opt-In Box On Every Page Of Your Site

Many people also make the mistake of only including an opt-in box on one or two pages of their web site. If list building is a large part of your business plan (and after reading this, it had better be), you need to make sure your opt-in form is on every single page of your site.

If someone lands on a page of your web site that does not contain an opt-in form, you’ve lost a potential lifetime customer.

By placing an opt-in box on every page of your site you know that everyone that lands there will have a chance to sign up. Making this simple change can dramatically increase your signups!

Put An Opt-In Box on Your Thank You Pages

If you have an information product for sale, the chances are good that some people will buy your product even if they have not already signed up to your list.

Since you don’t want to lose contact with these customers, you should make sure there is an opt-in box on your thank you (or product download) pages.

Some people force their customers to opt-in before they get their product. This is not recommended most of the time as it can really irritate people who have bought your product and just want access to it. What you might do instead is include an extra bonus for signing up – make it an offer they cannot refuse.

Offer Free Products and Put an Opt-In Box on Those Pages

One method is to offer free products that people can download in exchange for opting in. Place your opt-in form on the download page itself, or even as a requirement before they get their free product.

People absolutely love to get free items that are high quality. This will start your list out right as people will be interested in what you have to say since you gave them such great value for free.

Participate in Giveaways

There are many niches where marketers hold giveaway events. This is pretty much a one-stop shop where people in your niche can grab free offers that they are interested in. People will sign up for your list in return for getting your free product.

Putting your opt-in box on one of these giveaway websites is another way to get increased exposure to those who might not have otherwise seen what you have to offer.

Do you want to improve your email marketing skills? If so then register for the free webinars below.

Free, Live Email Marketing Webinars ~ Become an Email Marketing Master

Recommendations:
aWeber Autoresponders - Quickly create and run your campaigns with powerful, easy-to-use email marketing tools.
Go Daddy – Where I purchase all my domain names.
Hostgator – Very reliable and low cost hosting service which I have been using for about ten years.