Day 26 of 100 new media tools to promote New Media Europe, about to send an email out to all the UK podcasters. I love the moment you’re about to hit the send button and you sweat it and you just check the spelling in your email and you send yourself a test and you click all the links just to make sure, right? I’ve done that. Here we go. Let’s send, and gone. High five. What’s your ESP? No, I’m not talking about extrasensory perception. I’m asking who is your email service provider, MailChimp, AWeber, ActiveCampaign, GetResponse?
If you’re watching on Snapchat, snap me back and let me know. Today I’m not only emailing folks about the UK Podcasters Online Conference but I’m also setting up an autoresponder sequence. I’ll show you more about how that works. First, if you’re interested to attend an online podcasting conference, get ready to screenshot the next snap. I’ll tell you where you can go and sign up for free, conference.ukpodcasters.com. That’s the place to go.
Email Marketing Works
Email is still the best way to get folk online to take action. Social media, you can post something and maybe 10% of your followers will see it, 1% will take action. There are bad and good ways, of course, to use the force, I mean, email. Spam value. Spammy email techniques include pummelling your email lists with offers to buy, buy, buy, buy now and good techniques include offering free things, advice and tips.
AWeber vs. GetResponse vs. MailChimp
Before I get into the top 3 things you should always do when emailing your list, I’m going to give you my thoughts on some of the email service providers I’ve used in the past. I started my journey with AWeber. I must say, it’s the first time I’ve seen their site in a while. Looks like they’ve updated it, freshened it up a little bit. When I used it 3 or 4 years ago, it was quite out of date and clunky. The interface was horrible. Then we moved our lists over to GetResponse. GetResponse was a lot cleaner and easier to use. Their customer service was absolutely brilliant but they could only take us so far with segmentation of our email lists.
MailChimp Works with Everything
Now we are quite happily with MailChimp. It is the big Goliath of ESPs but it does everything perfectly, segments our list well. You can set up autoresponders for each different segment. Brilliant stuff, and because it’s so big, any plug-in written usually integrates with MailChimp first. Here are 2 plug-ins we use. 1, OptinMonster, rar, to get new leads. 2, Unbounce, to create awesome landing pages. Now, here are 3 top tips to bear in mind when you’re emailing your list.
3 Email Marketing Tips
Number 1, keep it short. Long emails, ain’t nobody got time for that.
Number 2, only one call to action per email. No more. One thing to do. Otherwise, your reader will do nothing.
Number 3. You really want your reader to take action? You’d better send that email from you and not your company name or company account. Send it from you. Keep it personal. Screenshot this. This is the email that I sent this morning to our UK podcasters, short, one call to action, personal. It’s from me.
Autoresponders
Finally, the followup. All your autoresponders. You do have autoresponders, right? You don’t? Watch this.
Setting up an Autoresponder
Okay, in MailChimp, they’re called automation but it’s the same kind of thing. A quick look behind the scenes. When somebody signs up, they get into the Workflow UK Podcasters Online Conference. That is triggered when they’re added to that group by signing up for the conference. So far, we got 2 autoresponders in this sequence, a welcome email and a followup 1 hour later. I’ll show you what those emails are and I’m going to add another one. The first email comes immediately when someone signs up for the free conference. It tells them that they’re registered. That’s a good thing, comforting to know and gives them a link to subscribe to the live stream. Then 1 hour later, an email from me fires off asking people to support us on Thunderclap.
Ideas for Autoresponders
By the way, on Day 21 of 100 new media tools, I cover Thunderclap in depth. It’s an awesome, awesome thing to use for social proof and I’ll show you. On the day of the conference, this tweet is going to be sent out by all of our supporters. So far, we got 69 out of 250, and we’re reaching nearly 200 people online. Sorry, my bad, nearly 200,000. That’s more like it. Now it’s time to add another email to the workflow by clicking Add Email. There it is, Automation Email 3. Click Design Email. Automation Email 3 is going to have the email subject, “Chat with other UK podcasters” and the F name stands for first name. It’ll insert the user’s first name in the subject.
Finishing Up
Then you pick a template. I happen to have Save Templates and I’ve got a UK Podcasters template. I keep the copy short, one call to action and it’s coming from me, as you can see, a personal email. That email I will schedule to go 5 days later. I don’t want to send it too soon. I don’t want to be spamming people with a string of emails. Let’s space them out nicely. Scheduling and segmentation should be set to every day as soon as possible. Now I want to change the delay to be 5 days after the previous email. Then we need to save and click Start Email and then Next and we’re done. To recap, email is powerful. Create autoresponders and remember to include those call to actions. Now go forth and create your own email autoresponders.
