David Slabon - How to Get More email Subscribers

How to Get More Email Subscribers in 5 Easy Steps

No matter how popular trends like social media marketing and SEO have become, the true lifeblood of any online business is its email subscribers. 

In fact, the presence of email in our daily lives has increased exponentially in the last decade; Pew Research Center even found that almost half of all Americans check their email daily. 

Therefore, figuring out how to get more email subscribers is an essential survival skill for all online businesses. 

Here are five easy steps that you can start today to make sure that you are among them:

Get Passionate about Email

The importance of email marketing is no longer in dispute. 

However, the enthusiasm the majority of us embrace when it comes to email marketing strategy is. If you want to get more email subscribers you need to make them a priority, and there’s good evidence as to why this is important:

·         Email subscribers are the foundation of your business and are those most likely to trust your content

·         Email subscribers carry your sales and engagement even as outside factors, such as Google de-indexing, do the opposite.

·         Email subscribers are those who are most likely to become buyers and, by and large, repeat customers

Get into Their Head

If you want to know how to get more email subscribers, you need to first understand what those subscribers think and how and why they think it. 

Like any marketing strategy, email marketing success relies on accurate approximation of the target audience and properly positioned messages that will reach them. 

The next three steps in this process focus on what you can do to understand your subscribers and would-be subscribers before designing a sign-up campaign.

There Is Power in Groups

Human beings love to belong. 

We crave society and groups with whom we feel connected. Tapping into the group-mind of your target market and harnessing the power and influence of the “group” is a great way to attract attention to your brand. 

This can be achieved through a number of strategies such as testimonials, organically-generated comments, exclusivity, and the use of social media.

Be Direct in Your Calls to Action

One of the most frequent rookie mistakes made my email marketers or sales people of any kind is crafting calls to action that are too weak and leave the prospect guessing at your intent. 

If you want to get more mail subscribers, you need to tell them what to do and how to do it. 

This doesn’t need to be rude or obnoxious; it just needs to go from asking prospects to sign up versus telling them that it’s a good idea. 

For example, instead of “Sign up for a free eBook” try, “Get your free eBook now!”

Don’t Ba Afraid

The final step in learning how to get more email subscribers gets to the heart of any and all sales tactics: learn to anticipate and respond to objections. 

Figure out what would prevent a prospect from signing up for email updates. 

Are they afraid of spam or worried you will sell their email address to others? Do they think it will be too difficult to unsubscribe? 

Answer all of these fears in your call to action as a means of assuaging their concern and converting them through confidence. 

Mastering this and other steps will help you get more email subscribers easily.

Talk Soon,

David Slabon

Dave Slabon - How to Run a Facebook Ad Effectively

How to Run a Facebook Ad Effectively: Five Simple Steps for Success

The importance of using Facebook and other social media outlets for business marketing is pretty universally accepted these days. 

Businesses understand that they must maintain a social media presence and add quality content to the conversation. 

However, there is another element to social media marketing that is underutilized due, in part, to a lacking knowledge base: Facebook ads. Yet, learning how to run a Facebook ad effectively is one of the most powerful steps of social media marketing today and one that can be accomplished in five easy steps.

Step 1: Goal Setting

The first and perhaps most important step in learning how to run a Facebook ad effectively is making sure to set goals for your ad campaign before starting. 

Without a clear directive for an ad campaign, whether it is web traffic, newsletter subscriptions, or sales, there will be no way to monitor effectiveness. 

Therefore, take time to decide what you need to accomplish through these ads and then find ways to track this accomplishment.

Step 2: Micro-Targeting

The beauty of Facebook as a near-universal social media outlet is that you can reach almost anyone through their micro-targeting ad tools. 

You need to use these tools to your advantage by understanding whom you are trying to reach in your target market and then reaching out to them. 

The good news is that information that users freely give on Facebook, such as hobbies, favorite books and movies, and “likes,” helps amass a huge database of information that allows for even more careful outreach to potential clients.

Step 3: Text and Image Choice

Even though Facebook ads are relatively easy to generate, they still need to be professional. 

Take time to consider images, font types, and the exact text that you plan to use to attract customers. 

Be concise, offer incentives for click through, and highlight that which sets you apart from competitors running similar ads.

Step 4: Managing Engagement

Once you launch your Facebook ad campaign, it will only be successful if it is promoted. 

Make sure that you encourage engagement with your brand and your site/page. 

This includes the aforementioned incentives for click through as well as more traditional outreach strategies such as polls and contests that will break through the chatter of social media and encourage engagement.

Step 5: Keep It New

Finally, learning how to run a Facebook ad effectively is not a one-off task. Rather, like all advertising efforts, Facebook ads need to remain new and updated. 

Constantly consider what goals you hope to achieve and monitor your ability to do so. 

If the campaign isn’t working, you need to change strategies. 

If it is working, you need to find ways to reignite interest in those you have already reached. 

Offer new incentives for additional engagement, ask fans to “share” posts, or just switch up images and copy in order to keep things fresh. 

Properly considered, these five steps will certainly help you run a Facebook ad effectively.

Talk soon,

David Slabon

Dave Slabon - How to Use LinkedIn for Business

How to Use LinkedIn for Business: A Beginner’s Guide

The power of social media as a marketing tool is hard to deny. 

However, as more and more social networking sites come into the game, it becomes difficult to keep track of their niches and the ins and outs of using them. 

Yet one social site, LinkedIn, stands out from the crowd for its role in business and professional relationship building. Indeed, learning how to use LinkedIn for business could be the most powerful move your company makes.

Step 1: Understand What Sets LinkedIn Apart

Because it is a social network solely dedicated to professionals, the focus of LinkedIn as a professional meeting place is invaluable. 

Unlike Twitter whose 140 character limit precludes depth and Facebook which is a virtual cesspool of everything from housewives to college students, LinkedIn allows individuals to present a focused picture of themselves and their company to like-minded individuals for the sole purpose of professional networking and advancement.

As a business, this allows you to market to other businesses, indeed LinkedIn is most powerful in the B2B sector, as well as stretch your brand strategy to include a more targeted focus. 

In order to use LinkedIn for business, you need to understand this advantage, and then leverage it.

Step 2: Set Yourself Up for Success

While many professionals and businesses recognize the value of LinkedIn on a conceptual level, few actually do what is needed to leverage it as a marketing tool. 

There are several steps you can take to set yourself (and your profile) up for success on LinkedIn. 

This includes...

• ·         Filling out all the details in your profile (this builds trust)
• ·         Importing other aspects of your marketing strategy (blogs, Tweets, etc.) through widgets and cross promotion
• ·         Use LinkedIn polls as market research and conversation starters
• ·         Update your status to include work samples
• ·         Use the “Questions and Answers” section to start conversations and demonstrate expertise
• ·         Advertise your presence on LinkedIn through other marketing and information channel
• ·         Share non-sales related articles that connect to your field
• ·         Request LinkedIn recommendations from customers and give them in return

   Step 3: Be Actively Engaged

The key to any social media success lies in the ability of the company or individual to properly understand the chatter of the medium and then use it to their advantage. 

This necessarily changes from site to site and through each “update” of a particular program. 

Indeed, each community has its own language and values that you need to understand and interpret.

Yet, one point remains true, and this is the key to learning how to use LinkedIn for business: you must stay engaged. 

This means posting regularly, promptly answering inquiries and questions, and, above all, recognizing the key role that social media plays in marketing today.

Talk soon,

David Slabon

Dave Slabon - How to Research Keywords

How to Research Keywords: It’s about Knowing What Keywords Are and Which Tools to Use

The importance of keyword use in digital marketing is hard to deny. 

In fact, an entire branch of modern marketing expertise, search engine optimization or SEO, is based around the effective identification and use of keywords in marketing copy. 

However, you cannot set an effective SEO or digital marketing strategy without choosing keywords and then researching those keywords to make sure they are the right ones to use. 

Therefore, learning how to research keywords is Marketing 101 for the 21^st century.

Understanding Keywords 

Before we go any further, it is important to take time to clearly define what keywords are and what it means to research keywords. 

For starters, Wikipedia explains that keywords refer to the “essence of the topic of a document” and goes on to list synonyms such as subject heading, descriptor, subject term, and index term.

Basically, a keyword defines the topic of an article, page, or business. 

Users looking for information then use these keywords to locate information or products/services through search engines. 

Researching keywords means discovering the relative usefulness of each word or phrase in search. 

That is, do users actually use these words when looking for that information? There are two steps to use in accomplishing this. 

First, pick a keyword tool, then pick a method.

Step 1: Using Tools to Research Keywords

Keyword research will uncover the actual words that customers use to find your site. 

Your job as a digital marketer is to discover what those keywords are and then used them effectively. This is done through the use of tools designed to help users to research keywords. 

All of them have merit, so which you use will depend on your budget and industry. Here are a few examples:

·         Google Ad Words: free service offered by Google; used to determine the relative competition and known synonyms for a particular term.

·         Social media search tools: free from sites such as Twitter; offer search tools that will unlock specific language used on those sites.

·         Scribe: paid-for SEO program; keyword data is actually built in to this service

·         Google Trends: free service; displays popularity of a particular keyword at a given time

Once you have decided which tools or tools to use, learning how to research keywords is more an exercise in using those tools and then properly applying the information they generate than any specific set of directives. 

This includes picking keywords, determining their popularity, and then taking those keywords you have chosen and compare them to others in similar niches.

Step 2: Types of Keyword Research

As a marketer, you have the choice of designing a page and then determining the keywords you need to employ or choosing keywords and then designing a page around them. 

Which of these strategies you use will depend on your role in an organization and the type of business you are trying to conduct. 

Therefore, you must not only choose a tool to use, but a method to employ. 

Remember, because the concept of keywords as such is easy to understand and because we all use search engines every day, most people make the mistake of thinking that they know what these keywords are without researching them. 

But that’s not always true; your lens as a website owner is different than that of a customer which is why learning how to research keywords is so important.

Talk soon,

David Slabon