So, how do you use Gmail to get people onto your subscriber list?

Gmail has a very powerful feature that allows you to add a signature to all your out-going emails. The reason this feature is so great is because you can change it to suit your needs, making customisation super easy.

All you need to do is log-in to your Gmail account and click at the top where it says ‘settings’.

Scroll down to the area that says ‘signature’.

I’ve put in a sample signature for you to look at but I’m sure you can come up with something far more captivating. I recommend that you stick to a standard signature and not write a signature that is full of hype words or sales speak.

I recommend that your signature links out to a lead capture page where you can capture name and email address in your preferred email service provider (AWeber, Get Response, iContact, etc).

Why don’t you give it a try and see what you can come up with!

To your success,

Karl Foxley

I’m sure by now you’ve trialed various ESPs and you would have no doubt experienced the frustration of having to change your blog opt in web forms, resize text, format fonts, etc.

Let’s say you are using Get Response and you decide to change to AWeber, imaging being able to simply cut and paste your new web form code and that’s it, your blog opt-in form stays exactly the same, just with a different ESP collecting your registrants information.

Well, this has been made amazingly simple with a plugin called Max Blog Press Optin Form Adder.

Download the plugin, use your FTP client to upload it to your plugins folder, activate the plugin and start styling your optin form, just the way you want it!

Visit the Optin Form Adder page for more details and follow the step-by-step instructions of how to set up the form.

If you scroll to the bottom of this page you will see that I am using the Max Blog Press Optin Form Adder for my newsletter (why not sign-up while you are taking a look and get posts like this delivered to your inbox).

I’ve trialed the Optin Form Adder with Get Response and AWeber and both worked fine. I’m sure the form will work just as easily with the other major email service providers on the market.

To your success,

Karl Foxley

photo credit: Mzelle Biscotte

If you are already a Get Response user then you may have enough of an incentive to stay on board! My question would be whether they have done enough to tempt people away from the ever-popular AWeber?

I must admit that the new site looks really good!

To find out more about the new features that Get Response have added then visit the website here!

To your success,

Karl Foxley

P.s. Video Messages can be sent to email using Get Response, this may be the tipping point for some to take up the new look email service provider.

When you have a business website one of the first things you’ll want to know is how well you website is performing. Statistical data such as visitor count, bounce rates, how your website is found (referral links) etc, will help you constantly tweak your website until you are happy with it’s performance. You can use Google Analytics for website visitor tracking (free).

The same analysis is often overlooked when it comes to our email marketing efforts. Analysis is easy if you are using an email service provider that includes statistical data as a standard feature collected in easy to read email marketing reports.

Why is this important?

Having statistical data to hand is important for testing and measuring your email campaigns for a vast range of reasons but here are just a few of the most important. The first thing you’ll want to know is your open rates. Knowing your open rates is an ideal way of testing the effectiveness of your email subject lines. Sending out small test emails to a small portion of your email subscriber database will allow you to see which email (with different subject lines) grabbed your subscribers attention and got them to open your email.

The next important tracking feature you’ll want to analyse is the click-through rates. Let’s say you’ve picked a winning subject line using the data you received from tracking your open rates, you’ll also want to test how successful your email copy is at getting people to click-through to your website (or affiliate website). Again, test this with a small portion of your email subscriber database and use the data to merge your successful subject line with your successful body text (copy). Now send your winning email to your entire database.

The following services provide tracking and statistical data so be sure to use one of these to handle your campaign

• AWeber
• Constant Contact
• iContact
• Get Response
• Stream Send

The email service providers (ESP) above all provide the tracking and statistical data you’ll ever need. Another great feature is the automatic removal of people who opt-out of your email lists and also those email addresses that bounce your email (undelivered email due to bad email addresses).

Another very important tracking feature is the ‘spam complaints’ feature. People may report your email as spam for using misleading subject lines. Be sure to always make your email body text match your email subject line, this way your subscribers’ expectations are met and that they trust your emails to deliver a consistent message; this will also save your subscriber database by decreasing opt-outs.

There are many more features that you will want to get familiar with but be sure to take the time to test one of the services above and find the solution that best fits your business.

To your success,

Karl Foxley

P.s. The email service providers above offer free trial periods so you’ll be able to test drive all the features before you decide which company you will go with.

Here are the links again: AWeber, Constant Contact, iContact, Get Response, and Stream Send.

*Screenshot above shows AWeber’s advanced tracking features.